Parent Adaptive Doll Play, a technique in an early stage of development, is designed for use by parents in assisting their young children to cope with the stresses of parental separation/divorce. The effects of technique implementation by parents of three- through six-year-old children were investigated. Data was collected before and after parents received training and implemented the technique over an eight-week period. Parents completed the Child Behavior Rating Scale, Burks' Behavior Rating Scales, the Parenting Stress Index, and the Parental Attitude Scale. Twenty-two parents, reporting marital separation through separation and/or divorce, within 18 months prior to the beginning of the study, and reporting more than 50 percent physical custody of a three- through six-year-old child qualified for participation. Twelve children were experimental subjects and ten were control subjects. To determine differences between groups, a one-way analysis of covariance was performed on each post test variable. Positive differences were calculated in several areas of child behavior by parents of subjects in the experimental group. No significant differences between groups were found in any area of child behavior. The score which most closely approached significance, however, was found in the Burks' Behavior Rating Scale area of poor anger control.

Divorce is part of every society, it is a world-wide phenomena. Divorce touches the lives of many people by breaking up families, causing personal individual trauma and affecting our children – the next generation. Consequences of this phenomenon are important, as what we do today will affect negatively or positively, the youth of tomorrow. Taken this fact into consideration one would think it logical to minimise the impact of this phenomenon on all those involved. Firstly, this study will attempt to identify the most prominent emotional indicators of a child’s drawing in order to focus therapy in those areas in an attempt to minimise or lessen the negative impact the child experiences. Secondly, the intervention strategies/guidelines researched, will be made available to parents, professionals and lay helpers alike in order to understand, support and positively facilitate the healing process within the child who is experiencing a family divorce. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (with Specialisation in Guidance and Counselling)

This study will attempt to identify the reported problem behavior in children impacted by parental divorce. Further, it will try to determine whether pre-divorce interparental conflict, time spent with the mother, and the mother's adjustment affects the problem behavior reported for children. The following analytic techniques will be used: frequency distributions, t-tests, correlations, and regression.

The effects of divorce on trust in intimate heterosexual relationships were investigated using a sample of 478 college students (156 males, 322 females). Subjects were asked to respond to scenarios and questionnaires assessing parental marital status, just world beliefs, parental conflict, and trust. Attitudes toward divorce and common problems were also assessed.

The influence of parental marital status and parental conflict on the separation-individuation process of college students was investigated in the present study. Past studies have suggested that parental divorce and parental conflict accelerate separation. However, no studies have measured more than one dimension of separation-individuation. In this study the process of separation-individuation was operationalized as involving three dimensions: psychological separation from parents (Psychological Separation Inventory); emotional attachments to parents and peers (Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment); and the development of an identity (Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status). The sample consisted of 120 male and 120 female undergraduates between the ages of 18 and 22, one-half with parents who were married and one-half with parents who had divorced in the last five years. Subjects completed self-report measures of parental conflict, psychological separation, attachment to parents and to peers, and identity status. Predictions that parental conflict would affect students in intact families differently than their peers with divorced parents were not supported. Instead, parental divorce and conflict were found to have different effects on the components of the separation-individuation process. Subjects reporting higher parental conflict levels described more independent functioning, more negative feelings toward parents, less attachment to parents and to peers, and greater exploration of identity-related issues in comparison to those reporting low levels of conflict. Subjects with parents who had recently divorced reported lower attachment to parents, and greater identity exploration and reluctance to commit to an identity than subjects from intact families. Males reported greater independence from and less attachment to parents, and had committed to an identity without exploration less often than females. Results suggest that parental divorce and conflict may influence adolescent development in different ways. Exploratory analyses suggested that measures of conflict style are more highly related to indices of separation-individuation than measures of the amount of parental conflict. Theoretical and methodological issues are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of parental divorce and family conflict during adolescence on young adult females' social support and psychological adjustment. The three areas explored were perceptions of relationship satisfaction and closeness, sources and amount of social support and adjustment. One hundred and forty-one female undergraduates, 53% from families in which their parents are still married and 47% from families in which a parental divorce occurred during adolescence, completed the following measures: the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), the Social Provisions Scale-Source Specific (Cutrona, 1989), the Inventory of Common Problems (Hoffman & Weiss, 1986), the Family Environment Scale (Moos & Moos, 1981), and the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985).

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / In this study an attempt was made to ascertain if there Is a difference In personality traits between behaviorally handicapped children from Intact homes and behaviorally handicapped children from divorced homes. In South-Africa one out of every two marriages tend to end up In divorce. Divorce has a negative Influence on children and more children from divorced homes show deviant behaviour and are failures at school, than children from Intact homes. Boys are more adversely affected by divorce than girls ...

Divorce is part of every society, it is a world-wide phenomena. Divorce touches the lives of many people by breaking up families, causing personal individual trauma and affecting our children – the next generation. Consequences of this phenomenon are important, as what we do today will affect negatively or positively, the youth of tomorrow. Taken this fact into consideration one would think it logical to minimise the impact of this phenomenon on all those involved. Firstly, this study will attempt to identify the most prominent emotional indicators of a child’s drawing in order to focus therapy in those areas in an attempt to minimise or lessen the negative impact the child experiences. Secondly, the intervention strategies/guidelines researched, will be made available to parents, professionals and lay helpers alike in order to understand, support and positively facilitate the healing process within the child who is experiencing a family divorce. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (with Specialisation in Guidance and Counselling)

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This study investigated a proposed model hypothesizing that parental divorce would directly effect romantic beliefs and attitudes, romantic attachment and relationship characteristics. A sample of 494 young adults between the ages of 18 and 35 indicated that parental divorce does have a negative impact on romantic beliefs, attitudes toward marriage and divorce, romantic attachments, and relationship characteristics when considered in the context of marriage. Those individuals whose parents divorced reported less positive attitudes toward marriage and more openness toward divorce. Those whose parents divorced reported less idealized romantic beliefs and less of a belief that love will find a way. Those who experienced parental divorce had a more fearful romantic attachment style and reported a lower chance of marriage to their current partner.