Is Divorce Really Worse for Kids Than a ‘Normal” Family?

Does divorce really set a child’s life on the path to ruin? Is it better if parents stay “for the kids,” even if they no longer love each other?

This has been much debated by academics, therapists and others.

How do we know for sure how divorce impacts a child, if it even does at all?

A study from 2010 acknowledged, yes, “in the short-term, kids go through a one- to two-year crisis period when their parents divorce,” but the idea of staying together for the kids is problematic, especially if it’s a high-conflict family, and that previous research indicating people should stay together “has been plagued by many data problems — reliance on small samples derived from one therapy clinic, retrospective reports, and cross sectional data.”

But, you may say, not all divorces involve high-conflict families. In fact, according to one study that has been used as the study by those who seek to make divorce harder for parents with minor children, between 55 percent and 60 percent of divorces occur in low-conflict marriages, marriages that are considered “good enough marriages” and might be salvaged given enough work, marital therapy and etc.