Children's Adjustment Following Divorce: Risk and Resilience Perspectives

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00352.x
• Author: Robert E. Emery,Joan B. Kelly
• Date: 01 October 2003
• Published date: 01 October 2003

352 Family Relations

Special Collection

Children’s Adjustment Following Divorce:

Risk and Resilience Perspectives

Joan B. Kelly*and Robert E. Emery

The empirical literature on the longer-term adjustment of children of divorce is reviewed from the perspective of (a) the stressors and

elevated risks that divorce presents for children and (b) protective factors associated with better adjustment. The resiliency demonstrated

by the majority of children is discussed, as are controversies regarding the adjustment of adult children of divorce. A third dimension

of children’s responses to divorce, that of lingering painful memories, is distinguished from pathology in order to add a useful

complement to risk and resilience perspectives. The potential benef‌its of using an increasingly differentiated body of divorce research

to shape the content of interventions, such as divorce education, by designing programs that focus on known risk factors for children

and that assist parents to institute more protective behaviors that may enhance children’s longer-term adjustment is discussed.

Parental divorce has been viewed for 40 years as the cause

of a range of serious and enduring behavioral and emo-

tional problems in children and adolescents. Divorced

families have been widely portrayed by the media, mental health

professionals, and conservative political voices as seriously

f‌lawed structures and environments, whereas, historically, mar-

ried families were assumed to be wholesome and nurturing en-

vironments for children (Popenoe, Elshtain, & Blankenhorn,

1996; Whitehead, 1998). Although, on average, children fare

better in a happy two-parent family than in a divorced family,

two essential caveats that distinguish our position from the ste-

reotypical view are underscored. First, unfortunately, many two-

parent families do not offer a happy environment for parents or

for children (e.g., Cummings & Davies, 1994; Amato, Loomis,

& Booth, 1995). Second, although there are differences in the

average psychological well-being of children from happy mar-

ried families and divorced families, it also is true that the ma-

jority of children from divorced families are emotionally well-

adjusted (Amato, 1994, 2001; Hetherington, 1999).

A continuing stream of sophisticated social science and de-

velopmental research has contributed a more complex under-

standing of factors associated with children’s positive outcomes

and psychological problems in the context of both marriage and

divorce. As a result, most social scientists relinquished a sim-

plistic view of the impact of divorce more than a decade ago.

Research demonstrating that children’s behavioral symptoms and

academic problems could be identif‌ied, in some instances, for a

number of years before their parents’ divorces was particularly

important in facilitating this conceptual shift (Block, Block, &

Gjerde, 1986; Cherlin et al., 1991). However, compellingstories

of negative outcomes for children of divorce continued to be

reported by the media in the past decade, stimulated in part by

a 10-year longitudinal study of divorced families that empha-

sized the enduring psychological damage for children of divorce

(Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989). More recently,two longitudinal

studies that report quite different long-term outcomes for chil-

dren and young adults (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002; Wallerstein,

Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2000) have interested the media in taking

a more discriminating look at divorce research, although the

preference in the media for drama and simple dichotomous an-

*P.O. Box 7063, Corte Madera, CA 94976-7063 (jbkellyphd@mindspring.com).

Key Words: adjustment, children, divorce, resiliency, risk.

(Family Relations, 2003, 52, 352–362)

swers remains evident (e.g., Time Magazine, September 25,

2000).

We believe that social science researchers need tolook more

closely at the varied evidence on children and divorce within

and across disciplines and across methodological approaches.

Among the basic empirical issues of concern are (a) the con-

founding of correlation with cause such that any psychological

problems found among children from divorced families often are

portrayed as ‘‘consequences’’ of divorce, whereas both logic and

empirical evidence demonstrate otherwise; (b) the overgeneral-

ization of results from relatively small, unrepresentative, often

highly select samples, most notably clinical or troubled samples

as in the widely discussed work of Wallerstein; (c) the too ready

acceptance of the null hypothesis of no differences in the face

of limited and sometimes superf‌icial assessment, particularly in

large, often representative samples; and (d) the failure to distin-

guish between normative outcomes and individual differences in

drawing implications for practice and policy, for example, by

noting that the majority of children from divorced families are

not ‘‘at risk’’ and that family processes after divorce are strong

predictors of risk versus resilience. These methodological con-

siderations are of vital importance for the conduct of research,

and they point to an interpretation of empirical f‌indings that of-

fers a more nuanced and, we think, more complete understanding

of the psychological meaning of divorce for children.

Here we review the empirical research literature on the ad-

justment of children of divorce from the perspective of the stress-

ors that divorce generally presents for children, the type and

extent of risk observed in divorced children when compared with

those in still married families, and factors that have been dem-

onstrated to ameliorate risk for children during and after divorce.

A third dimension of children’s postdivorce outcomes, that of

painful memories and experiences, is distinguished from the

presence of pathology, and some of the differences and contro-

versies between quantitative and clinical research reports regard-

ing longer-term adjustment are highlighted.

Stressors of the Divorce Process

More than two decades ago, divorce was reconceptualized

as a process extending over time that involved multiple changes

and potential challenges for children, rather than as a single

event (Hetherington, 1979; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980). The

number, severity, and duration of separation and divorce-engen-

dered stressors were observed to vary from child to child, from

family to family, and over time. The nature of the initial sepa-

ration, parental adjustment and resources, parental conf‌lict and