Children's reactions to parental separation

The purpose of this study was to fully explore children's reactions to parental separation and to look at these reactions in relation to a number of environmental, demographic, and temperamental variables. The study also investigated parents' perceptions of children's reactions and the relationship between the two. Forty children between the ages of 8 and 12 years, inclusive, whose parents had been separated less than 3 years, participated in the study. A number of descriptive and ethnographic procedures were utilized. A negative correlation of.62 was obtained between anxiety and self-esteem. The children in the study appeared to have a well-developed, reality-based comprehension of the divorce, even though they were generally sad about the divorce and hoped for a reconciliation. Meaningful results were observed when the children's responses were compared with regard to gender, age, and duration of separation. Few differences in response were noted with regard to levels of self-esteem. Anxiety, however, appeared to be related to many rather apparent differences in response. When parents' responses were compared to children's responses, a moderate variability was observed in those questions related to time periods. In the open-ended questions, there was moderate variability in response agreement between parent and child. Differences in response were also noted with regard to when the children were told about the separation and by whom