Offsprings of divorced weak in maths, social skills

New Delhi, June 2: A new study based on children reveals that the kids of the divorced parents are lagging behind their classmates in subjects like maths and social skills due anxiety, stress and low self-esteem.

Researcher Hyun Sik Kim, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said," My original prediction was that children of divorce would experience negative impacts even before formal divorce processes began. But my study finds that this is not the case."

An American Sociological Review data highlighted the development of 3,585 students from kindergarten through fifth grade to examine the impact before, during and after the divorce.

The progress of children whose parents were going through a divorce with youngsters from stable families were compared and it was found that developmental problems continued after the divorce.

According to Kim, maths was particularly sensitive to the impact of divorce. He explained,"Reading is not that cumulative. But with math, you must understand previous things to develop. For example, if I do not understand that one plus one is two, then I cannot understand multiplication."

Such developmental drawbacks in the children are due to several factors such as stress of living with bickering and potentially depressed parents, unstable living arrangements and being forced to divide time between parents and economic hardship from a drop in family income.

OneIndia News