Americans have long accepted it as gospel that divorce is terrible for children. Now comes a study that questions that and does so with gusto. Here’s a story about it from the Sydney Morning Herald.
The study, the Australian Temperance Project, began more than 20 years ago and set out to track 2400 children from infancy to their teenage years. Almost half the subjects dropped out during the tenure of the study (are the children of divorced parents, particularly children of divorce who had adjustment difficulties, more likely to have dropped out?). Of those who remained, there was virtually no significant difference between the children of divorce and the children of intact families in their personality, temperament, development, or educational attainment.
The study did indicate that children of divorce were more likely than children of intact families to have conflict with their parents in their adolescence, particularly with the parent with whom they lived.
The study is published in the April 2005 issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines.