Browsing by Subject "divorce"

The number of divorces has increased in Finland. As a result, various non-traditional living arrangements, such as joint custody arrangements, have become more common. Previous studies suggest that the presence of both parents has a great impact on the development of a child’s identity, and that the parents’ divorce may cause anxiety and emotional trauma. The aim of this study is to map out, especially from the teacher’s point of view, what kinds of impacts parents’ divorce and joint custody have on children’s well-being. The study was carried out as a descriptive literature review. For the study, I investigated divorce- and joint custody-studies from the 2000’s and the 2010’s. I selected eight studies from that time period, of which four focused on divorce, and the other four on joint custody. For this literature review, I chose both quantitative and qualitative studies. Three points of view were selected: How do gender differences, age differences, and parental conflicts affect children’s well-being? Regardless of gender or age, children living in nuclear families had higher feeling of well-being compared to children of divorced parents. However, parental conflicts, for example battle over custody, had a great impact on children’s well-being. Especially boys seemed to benefit from joint custody, and it seemed that older children were able to cope better with the possible challenges posted by joint custody. In the case of severe parental conflict, joint custody appeared to be the less optimal living arrangement for children. Parental support was positively associated with children’s well-being in different living arrangements. Research findings about the effects of divorce and joint custody on children’s well-being can be used as a tool to help and understand children coming from different family backgrounds.