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The present qualitative research was conducted in Delhi-NCR using the Children's Apperception Test to study the Psychological Impact of Parental Divorce on Children. A total sample of 20 was taken with an age bracket of 6-10 years. 10 children out of these belonged to intact families and 10 to divorced parents. A thematic analysis was done of the children's responses based on which common themes were derived under the 2 categories, namely- Adaptive Mechanism Schedule and Story Dynamics (as in the original study by Haworth & Lawton) Overall result showed that children are negatively impacted by the divorce of their parents. It has a massive impact on the internal environment of the child as is visible by the predominant usage of unhealthy mechanisms and the frequency of negative responses to define the theme of a story on the test as compared to children who belong to intact families. The results are therefore in line with the hypothesis.
Keywords: divorce, children, negative impact
In today's society, divorce (or the dissolution of marriage) has become a common affair. Married couples today are getting a divorce due to many different reasons, either because of conflicts in the marriage, lost of romantic feelings, a spouse committing an affair, and other type of marriage problems. A child's perception of divorce will be largely determined by age and gender, as well as the child's history of stress and coping. When stressful events outweigh available protective factors, even the most resilient child can develop problems.
Research suggests that problematic parent-child relations associated with divorce persist throughout the life course (Amato & Booth, 1996).
Children typically feel an intense loyalty to both their parents. As a result, when they become aware of feelings of hostility between parents, it creates internal dissonance for the child. That is, they feel stressed when either parent is under attack for whatever reason.
In a study conducted on the population in Netherlands, Matthijis Kalmijin (2012) concluded that: A divorce not only is most often associated with a deterioration of the relationship with the father but it also occurs that only the relationship with the mother is negatively affected by a divorce. In general, a divorce increases inequality between the relationships that children have with their father and...