A divorce of parents can be a stressful and traumatic event for a child. The stresses of a divorce could impact a child in many ways. Such stress might even have the potential to have negative health effects for a child.
A recent study indicates that, among children, there may be a connection between experiencing a divorce of parents or other traumatic events and increased risk of asthma.
The study focused on over 92,000 children. The researchers looked into whether these children had experienced any traumatic events. A divorce or separation of parents was one of the things the study considered a traumatic event. Some others were a parent/guardian dying, domestic violence, living with a person who has had jail/prison experience and living with a person who has a mental illness. The researchers found that having had experienced one traumatic event or more was something that was the case for around a third of the kids.
The researchers compared the asthma occurrence levels of the kids who had not experienced any traumatic events and the kids who had experienced such events. They found that, among the kids, having experienced more traumatic events was connected to having a higher likelihood of developing asthma. For example, the asthma rate among the kids who had not experienced any traumatic events was 12 percent, while the rate for kids that had experienced at least five kinds of traumatic events was around 25 percent.
It is a reality that children can experience stress when their parents get divorced and that such stress can have the potential to have negative effects. However, thankfully, there are things divorcing parents can do to try to reduce the amount of stress their divorce causes their kids.
What sorts of things might be able to help make a divorce less stressful on the kids depends on the situation. In some situations, parents going the alternative dispute resolution route rather than the litigation route for their divorce might help. Alternative dispute resolution methods, like collaborative law, can sometimes create a less contentious situation than litigation would have, and having less contentious situations in a divorce can sometimes mean less stress for all those connected to the divorce, including the kids. Attorneys can help divorcing parents determine whether collaborative law or other alternative dispute resolution methods might be a good choice for their divorce.