Divorce Education

Predicting the Future of Divorce

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The hardest part about talking about divorce rates is that most of the reports in the news are wrong….(see comments here about this).

The good news is that sociologist, Philip N. Cohen, who writes the blog, Family Inequality, gives nice description of how life tables are used to forecast the divorce rate.  His is a bit of his post…

 

Life table says divorce rate is 52.7%

After the eternal bliss, there are two ways out of marriage: divorce or death.

I have posted my code and calculations for divorce rates using the 2010-2012 American Community Survey as an Open Science Framework project. The files there should be enough to get you started if you want to make multiple-decrement life tables for divorce or other things.

Updated Lists of Programs and Resources for Parents

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In the last few weeks I have received several requests about where to find programs for divorcing couples and stepfamilies.  There is a growing list of very good online resources and programs.  You can see my lists of these resources here:

Programs for Divorcing Parents

Programs & Onine Material for Children & Teens Whose parents are divorced

 

Updated List of Divorce Education Research List Nov, 2015

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Just updated my list of references that measure the effectiveness and development of divorce education.

There are some new programs including an online program for unmarried parents developed by faculty at Indiana University.  Also, see an effort by Arizona State to measure the cost effectiveness of their program New Beginnings.  There are also other programs that expand the scope and understanding of divorce education.

Someone should update the list of states that now mandate divorce education.

Legal Issues in divorce

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Improving how we handle divorce disputes remains an important area of research and policy analysis.

Murphy, J. C., & Singer, J. B. (2015).  Divorced from reality:  Rethinking family dispute resolution.  New York, NY:  NYU Press.  ISBN: 9780814708934

Law professors outline ways to improve our policies and procedures to help families manage their disputes in more effective ways.  They suggest moving dispute resolution services out of the court and into the community, involving children more effectively in the decision-making process and insuring more time and involvement with both parents in post-divorce parenting plans.

Li, K. (2015). What He Did Was Lawful?: Divorce Litigation and Gender Inequality in China. Law & Policy. doi:

An examination of gender inequality in court proceedings before and during the divorce process.  This study examines the China legal system.

Divorce Science Research Update 6-15-2015

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In this update, we highlight a divorce education program developed for use in Spain.  Several countries in Europe only recently legalized divorce so there is much work to assist families in understanding the process and developing coparenting skills.  The results of this study suggest that this program shows much promise.

Martínez-Pampliega, A., Aguado, V., Corral, S., Cormenzana, S., Merino, L., & Iriarte, L. (2015). Protecting Children After a Divorce: Efficacy of Egokitzen: An Intervention Program for Parents on Children’s Adjustment. Journal of Child and Family Studies, , 1-11. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10826-015-0186-7

A more complete list of research reports about divorce, remarriage and stepfamilies published in 2015 or between 2010-2015.

Divorce Science Research Updates– 5-22-2015

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This week there are 7 new articles dealing with parent-child relationships postdivorce, alienated children interventions, stepfamilies, and predictors of divorce.  The work by Kalmijn exploring the variations in father-child relationships postdivorce is an important contribution to our understanding of the impact of divorce on parent-child relationships.  Also, alienation continues to be challenging for some families experiencing severe conflict, the work by Reay provides new ideas for helping these families.  See more 2015 articles and complete lists from 2010.

Parent-Child Relationships Post-Divorce

Davies, H. (2015). Shared Parenting or Shared Care? Learning from Children’s Experiences of a Post-Divorce Shared Care Arrangement. Children & Society, 29(1), 1-14. doi:

Kalmijn, M. (2015). How Childhood Circumstances Moderate the Long-Term Impact of Divorce on Father-Child Relationships. Journal of Marriage and Family, , n/a-n/a. doi:

Help for Alientated Children and Families

Reay, K. M. (2015). Family Reflections: A Promising Therapeutic Program Designed to Treat Severely Alienated Children and Their Family System. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 43(2), 197-207. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2015.1007769

Stepfamilies

Ivanova, K. (2015). Relationship satisfaction of the previously married: The significance of relationship specific costs and rewards in first and repartnering unions. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, doi:

Jensen, T. M., Shafer, K., & Holmes, E. K. (2015). Transitioning to stepfamily life: the influence of closeness with biological parents and stepparents on children’s stress. Child & Family Social Work, , n/a-n/a. doi:

Predictors of Divorce

Boertien, D., von Scheve, C., & Park, M. (2015). Can Personality Explain the Educational Gradient in Divorce? Evidence From a Nationally Representative Panel Survey. Journal of Family Issues, doi:

Torvik, F. A., Gustavson, K., Roysamb, E., & Tambs, K. (2015). Health, health behaviors, and health dissimilarities predict divorce:  Results from the HUNT study. BMC Psychology, 3(13) doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-015-0072-5

Help for Alientated Children and Families

Reay, K. M. (2015). Family Reflections: A Promising Therapeutic Program Designed to Treat Severely Alienated Children and Their Family System. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 43(2), 197-207. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2015.1007769

Coparenting Children with Disabilities by Jeremy Kanter

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Although divorce rates are high among parents of children with disabilities (e.g., Hartley, Barker, Seltzer, Greenberg,  Bolt, Floyd, & Orsmond, 2010) coparenting education classes are just beginning to develop tracks, components, or programs for separating or divorcing parents who have children with disabilities. At the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) annual conference last month, the fact that coparenting education classes have neglected to attend to special circumstances linked to coparenting a child with a disability was discussed in a few of the sessions I attended.  I followed up with a few coparenting education classes when I returned from the conference and was energized to learn that some of the online programs are beginning to address this issue!

Michelle Muncy of  Online Parenting Programs is one example of an online program that is planning to develop an online coparenting education program for parents who are coparenting children with disabilities. Focus on Kids, an online coparenting education class developed by Dr. David Schramm and colleagues at The University of Missouri is another example. Focus on Kids now offers fact sheets for families with special circumstances. The fact sheets that Dr. Schramm and colleagues have created for divorcing parents who have children with disabilities cover a range of topics that are especially relevant to this special circumstance; some of the topics include:

  •  Custodial rights or what to expect as a primary caregiver of a child with a disability
  • How to divide medical costs for children with disabilities
  • The children’s cognitive capacity to understand their parents’ divorce
  • Special issues that need to be documented in parenting plans
  • Issues specific to children who have life-threatening, chronic, psychological & behavioral disabilities

With the high divorce rates for parents of children with disabilities, some of these issues in the Focus on Kids’ resources are crucial components to coparenting education. Although many parents experience similar challenges when going through the separation or divorce process, it is important for programs to address the unique needs and challenges linked to families with special circumstances. Special circumstances are not limited to children with disabilities; coparenting when intimate partner violence, alcoholism, or military duties influence parents’ roles also provide unique challenges in the separation processes. In some situations, one parent may be largely absent from the child’s life, and these families may benefit from additional support in educational settings (online or face-to-face). Although the transition to tailoring information to families with special circumstances has been slow, it is promising to see that programs have begun to address these issues!

Search Terms by Young People about their Parents’ Divorce

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My colleagues and I have been exploring the resources that are available to teens on the web.  We have conducted searches using various search terms that we think might be used by teens to find material.

We also have inserted the same terms into Google Trends to see the patterns.  Most of the terms we have used are not frequent enough to register in Google Trends, but a few are… Below is the figure that illustrates the pattern of 5 terms over the period from.

  • Blue — “parents divorce”  Most common search term
  • Purple– “divorce parents” Next most common search term
  • Green– “divorce of parents” 3rd most common search term, but declining 
  • Orange– “parents split up” This search term begins to show up in 2009. 
  • Yellow– “parents separating” This search terms begins to show up in 2009.  

Google Trend--Popular Searches

3 interesting programs for divorcing parents– free

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Just stumbled on to 3 interesting programs designed for parents in various martial transition situations– ProudtoParent, for parents who have never married, UptoParents, for parents who are getting divorced or who have already divorced, and WhileWeHeal, for parents who are struggling with their marital relationship.  

All of these programs require parents and others to log in, but they are all free.  

Haven’t reviewed these carefully, but worth looking at some more.