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Children's Experience of Parental Divorce Disclosure: A Look at Intrafamiliar Differences

This study explores one aspect of the divorce process, divorce disclosure, to learn more about adult children's perceptions of that experience. Research questions examined participants' perceptions of how they were informed of their parents' divorce, their reactions to the news, and also how they would have preferred to have been told. Within this framework, the study additionally looks at similarities and differences between the experiences of siblings. Twenty siblings from eight different families were interviewed.
The most significant findings were that divorce disclosure occurred most often with only one parent present with most participants being informed in a manner different than their siblings. Furthermore, initial reactions to the news were related to the perception of conditions being relatively better or worse after the divorce, and although participants had clear preferences for divorce disclosure, they questioned whether those preferences would have been possible with their parents.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-3677
Date01 May 2000
CreatorsWestberg, Heather
PublisherDigitalCommons@USU
Source SetsUtah State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceAll Graduate Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu).

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