The prevalence of divorce within society is reflected in the rising divorce rate worldwide. Consequently, divorce has become more accepted, although adolescents from divorced families are considered at risk for maladjustment. The aim of this study is to give a voice to adolescents who have experienced their parents' divorce and to highlight their resilience despite the challenges they faced. The epistemological framework is social constructionism. In-depth interviews with two adolescents who have experienced the divorce of their parents were undertaken. The method of analysis used was `Thematic content analysis'. The participants' stories were recounted through the lens of the researcher in the form of themes. Recurring themes in these stories were elucidated and linked with the literature. This study allowed rich and detailed descriptions about adolescents' experiences to emerge, which the researcher hopes will broaden the therapeutic understanding of the complexities of divorce for the adolescents who survive it. / Psychology / MA (Clinical Psychology)

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)

Text in Afrikaans / Hierdie studie handel oor die implementering van groepsterapie met adolessente koshuisdogters, waarvan die ouers geskei is. Die navorser het bevind dat die meeste koshuisdogters se probleme nie in een dag per week, deur 'n diensdoenende onderwyser in die koshuis aangespreek kan word nie. Hierdie bevinding het die vraag laat ontstaan of groepsterapie in die koshuis geimplementeer kan word. Daar was nie voldoende literatuur in sake groepsterapie by normale kinders nie en daarom is 'n loodsstudie van stapel gestuur. Die doelstelling van die studie is om groepsterapie te implementeer by adolessente koshuisdogters. Daar was baie koshuisdogters, waarvan die ouers geskei is, en daarom is die steekproef verder verfyn. 'n Praktiese handleiding, insluitende werkkaarte, is saamgestel sodat groepsterapie vir enige Opvoedkundige Sielkundige toeganklik kan wees. Die groepsterapie is prakties geimplementeer. Die navorsing bevestig dat groepsterapie met adolessente koshuisdogters, waarvan die ouers geskei is, geimplementeer kan word. / This study deals with the implementation of group therapy with adolescent girls in hostels, whose parents are divorced. The researcher came to the conclusion that teachers, who do duty in the hostel, once a week, cannot give enough attention to those girls who have problems. This conclusion raised the question of whether it would be feasible to implement group therapy in the hostel. There was insufficient literature, concerning group therapy with normal children, and therefore the researcher initiated a pilot study. The aim of the study was to implement group therapy with adolescent girls in the hostel. There were many girls in the hostel whose parents were divorced and so the sample was further curtailed. A practical manual including worksheets were compiled to be easily accessible to any Educational Psychologist doing group therapy. The group therapy was practically implemented and confirmed that group therapy can be implemented. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Sielkundige Opvoedkunde (Voorligting))

The problem herein undertaken is to compare the educational growth and personal characteristics of children from broken homes with those of children from normal homes. Plans were made to carry out the study described herein. If the broken home had any effect, could it be determined and measured in such a manner as to draw reasonable conclusions? An investigation was made to determine the effect, if any, which the broken home was having on the children in the school.

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 ...

This study was part of a larger multi-informant longitudinal study with a sample of 319 children (52% male, 48% female) ages 4-12 (mean= 7 years 9 months) whose parents had recently filed for divorce. Three annual waves of data from four informants were used for analysis: child self-report, mother, teacher, and observer report. The purpose of the study was to add to the understanding of multi-informant research and children’s psycho-social well-being. The first goal was to determine the consensus of children’s psycho-social well-being scores within informant across time, within child across informant, and between children over time. The second goal was to determine factors that contribute to the levels of consensus, such as, child gender, child age, child ethnicity, and length of parents’ separation, maternal baseline depressive symptoms score, and timing of the teacher questionnaire. The third goal was to determine if children could be classified into meaningful psycho-social well-being groups. Lastly, a visual diagnostic tool, the “patchwork”, was created using a random sample of eight prototypical cases of group membership based on predicted probabilities. This tool displayed the four informants scores, and child and informant characteristics. A single measure of child psycho-social well-being was created for each informant to compare rater consensus in hierarchical linear modeling. Latent class analysis was used to determine groupings. The HLM results indicate that 53% of the variance is within informants across time, 31% is within child across raters, and only 16% is between child over time. As expected, results showed more consensus of informants’ scores among girls than boys, the greatest consensus for children in middle childhood over other age groups, among Non-Hispanic White children compared to other ethnicities, and among spring reports than fall reports from teachers. Maternal baseline depressive symptoms score was significantly related to level of consensus of reporters, with greatest consensus when mother’s baseline depressive symptoms scores are at the mean (15.47). Mother’s scores of children’s psycho-social well-being decrease from highest scores of when baseline depressive symptoms score is 0, decreasing -.02 with each point increase in baseline depressive symptoms score. The results of the latent class analysis show two latent classes with maternal baseline depressive symptoms as a covariate best fit the data, one class with psycho-social well-being scores above the mean (N=258), and one with scores below the mean (N=61). Baseline data alone sufficiently models these groups and is chosen for parsimony over latent transition analysis. In sum, this study demonstrated benefits of multi-method multi-informant research, while acknowledging the strengths and biases that influence informant consensus of children’s psycho-social well being / text

FOR MY MOTHER I love you I hate you I abuse And appreciate you You feed my guilty conscious I fuel your shattered soul Your misguided love and affection Have turned my heart into stone You are nothing You are everything You stole my voice You made me sing In this separation we create We grow together In love And in hate ……..Saron. The above poem is written by a learner who comes from a broken home. There are many children like Saron in our classrooms who have suffered consequences of parental separation and divorce. This study investigates the experiences of children from a secondary school in the Durban South Region. Their parents are either separated or divorced. The study was undertaken to ascertain how these learners are psychologically affected by their family situations. The rationale for the research study is grounded by statistics and a wide variety of literature that indicates that children from separated and divorced families experience multiple problems, develop abnormal behavioural patterns and seek attention and release from alternate sources. The research study is framed within the social constructivist paradigm to indicate how social phenomena develop in particular social contexts. In order to answer the research questions and gain clarity on the topic, data was gathered using narrative stories, personal narrative diary entries, time line representations and interviews. The narrative diary entries and time line representations were used as prompts for the interviews, whereby the researcher not only allowed the participants to discuss their experiences but also spent a prolonged period of time with them. The research study was qualitative in nature and aimed to achieve a greater level of depth by studying four participants. This was accomplished using the method of purposive sampling. The data obtained from the participants was transcribed and analysed using the open-coding technique and thematic analysis. The results revealed that even though the effects of the divorce and separation varied, the participants shared similarities with regard to their emotional state. They all experienced feelings of sadness, distress, abandonment, anger, helplessness, and stress. The results also indicated that the effects of divorce were on the participant’s behaviour, their families’ financial and economic situation, their academic school lives and integration at school. The participants reported both positive and negative effects of their parents’ separation and divorce. Taking all the data collected into consideration, the researcher was then able to make recommendations which would prove beneficial to all stakeholders. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2010.

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)

Text in Afrikaans / Hierdie studie handel oor die implementering van groepsterapie met adolessente koshuisdogters, waarvan die ouers geskei is. Die navorser het bevind dat die meeste koshuisdogters se probleme nie in een dag per week, deur 'n diensdoenende onderwyser in die koshuis aangespreek kan word nie. Hierdie bevinding het die vraag laat ontstaan of groepsterapie in die koshuis geimplementeer kan word. Daar was nie voldoende literatuur in sake groepsterapie by normale kinders nie en daarom is 'n loodsstudie van stapel gestuur. Die doelstelling van die studie is om groepsterapie te implementeer by adolessente koshuisdogters. Daar was baie koshuisdogters, waarvan die ouers geskei is, en daarom is die steekproef verder verfyn. 'n Praktiese handleiding, insluitende werkkaarte, is saamgestel sodat groepsterapie vir enige Opvoedkundige Sielkundige toeganklik kan wees. Die groepsterapie is prakties geimplementeer. Die navorsing bevestig dat groepsterapie met adolessente koshuisdogters, waarvan die ouers geskei is, geimplementeer kan word. / This study deals with the implementation of group therapy with adolescent girls in hostels, whose parents are divorced. The researcher came to the conclusion that teachers, who do duty in the hostel, once a week, cannot give enough attention to those girls who have problems. This conclusion raised the question of whether it would be feasible to implement group therapy in the hostel. There was insufficient literature, concerning group therapy with normal children, and therefore the researcher initiated a pilot study. The aim of the study was to implement group therapy with adolescent girls in the hostel. There were many girls in the hostel whose parents were divorced and so the sample was further curtailed. A practical manual including worksheets were compiled to be easily accessible to any Educational Psychologist doing group therapy. The group therapy was practically implemented and confirmed that group therapy can be implemented. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Sielkundige Opvoedkunde (Voorligting))