Developmental Psychology Podcast

Three individuals, Jessica, Miley, and Maddie, discuss the topic of divorce from a developmental perspective. They have all personally experienced divorce or separation and believe it is worth exploring how divorce affects individuals at different stages of development. They discuss the impact of divorce on children and express surprise at survey results showing that many people do not think divorce is beneficial for children. They also talk about the potential negative effects of divorce on brain development, particularly during early childhood. Each person shares their personal experiences with divorce and how it affected them and their siblings. They discuss the importance of stability and harmony in a child's life and how divorce can disrupt these aspects. They also mention the potential long-term effects of divorce on emerging adulthood, including the added stress of transitioning to independence. They believe that a developmental analysis is necessary to fully understand the impa I'm Jessica. I'm Miley. I'm Maddie. And today, we will be exploring the topic of divorce from a developmental perspective. We chose to explore this topic because we each have experienced a divorce or a separation within our lives, and we each experience this throughout different stages of development in our lives. Yeah, and we think this topic is worth exploring from a developmental perspective because we know that divorce can be a very difficult thing to deal with. So, we're going to be talking about divorce. I'm Maddie. And I'm Miley. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. And I'm Maddie. So, as we have learned this, and since we have each experienced this within our lives at different stages of development, and so have our siblings, so we've been able to watch this happen in multiple age groups, we just found it really interesting to look into how a divorce can affect someone depending on the stage of development they are in, when divorce or separation occurs, and they sort of, like, endure that experience. So that's why we think this topic is worth exploring from a developmental perspective. We found a survey conducted with 2,434 U.S. adults in December of 2015 that asked, if an unhappy couple has children, do you think it is better to stay together for the kids or to get a divorce? We found that with the survey, 53% of the people polled didn't think it was beneficial to get divorced. We found this interesting because it almost seems like common sense to get out of an unhealthy relationship if it's not going well. But we also don't know what it's like to be in a stressful environment and still have to deal with kids, which are the most important part in all of this. We also found this interesting because people look at divorce as a negative thing, when in reality, it can come out to being a wonderful thing for some families. We also found this interesting because in Chapter 8, we learn about the bio-social development of early childhood, and that between the ages of 2 and 6, the brain continues to grow significantly, reaching about 90% of its adult weight. And when trauma is encountered, we learned that a flood of stress hormones is created which can cause damage to the brain and interfere with features like learning. I can personally attain to this because both me and my sister have experienced and struggled with anxiety, and we both think that this could potentially have been caused from the stressors that we encountered during our parents' divorce. This is also an important example where you can introduce the idea of experience-dependent brain function. If a child is faced with variable experiences, such as trauma, like an adverse home or caregiver environment, such as the different situations that happen within a divorce, certain brain functions may result in that child compared to a child who doesn't undergo that same experience. Given our topic, we chose to focus on the age group of early childhood, middle childhood, and emerging adulthood because, for one, it corresponds with each of our personal experiences with divorce and the breakup of our parents, but we also chose these because early childhood and middle childhood are significant areas of growth, and emerging adulthood is where from our experience we have found most of the effects that we think have come from experiencing these separations have come about and become more apparent in our lives. So we're just going to talk a little bit about each of our own experiences before we jump into the developmental analysis just to give you a perspective of where we are coming from. So my parents divorced when I was between the ages of two and three. My sister was around four and five years old. My sister and I are now in our years of emerging adulthood. I'm about to be 20, and she is 21, and we both have struggled with similar anxiety for many years. We have both talked about this a lot, and we think that since we were very young at the time of our parents' divorce, this anxiety has come from the unconscious experiences that we underwent having significantly affected our minds. This validates for me the understanding that during those ages is when brain development is crucially active, and experiences that expose the brain to tension and stress can really reflect negatively on a person's lifetime. Okay, so my parents divorced. Well, they technically separated when I was in high school, but their divorce didn't get finalized until like last year. I was in high school. My brother was also in high school, so we were both older, and then I had a younger sister who was, I think she was five when it happened. She was like, yeah, around five or four. My parents argued a lot, and then my mom finally got the courage and, you know, asked for a divorce, and my dad was not happy about it, but, you know, it happened. It was really hard at first because we were trying to deal with living at the house without my dad, so it was pretty weird at first, but it got better afterwards, and in that period of him, like, moving out, I was really involved with school, so, you know, like, doing, like, all these games for cheer and volleyball, and then I had school to worry about, but me and my brother, he's a year younger than me, we kind of, like, internalized everything, I guess. We didn't really talk to anybody about it, so I talked to my mom about it, which was nice because, you know, she was the one going through it, so me and my mom bonded over that. My brother just internalized everything, so he ended up getting in trouble a couple years, like, after with, you know, not, like, hardcore drugs, but, you know, just drinking and stuff, and then my younger sister, she was completely fine through it all because I think we all did our best part to, like, try and protect her from all the arguing going on, which I'm really grateful that she didn't have to experience that, like, my brother and I. Yeah, ended up getting better afterwards, though, so my dad moved out. Him and his girlfriend had a baby. She's, you know, the best thing in my life. But, yeah, we all have better relationships with my dad now, which is good for all of us. Even my mom and him, they're good friends, so I'm really grateful for that. My parents weren't ever married, but they officially separated when I was within the age of middle school. After the separation, I was stressed and felt as if I didn't have a stable home and was always being moved around at first, but then I realized that it was overall a good thing. Although it flipped me up from some of my siblings, I think it was overall beneficial for the whole family. One of my parents provided a very stable foundation and home for me while the other did not, so I ended up getting to choose where I wanted to live after some time of going back and forth between the different households. It ultimately worked out well for me and my siblings because we found a safe and secure space to grow up, no longer to actively worry about our parents' relationship. So, based on the findings that we're sort of focusing on, we're kind of asking the question if we think that from a developmental perspective, should kids, or are kids that are off with their parents getting a divorce rather than experiencing the unhealthy relationship? And staying together in that relationship. So, we think a developmental analysis of these groups would be relevant to this survey's findings because it's showing that each age group can be severely affected by a divorce occurring in early childhood or middle childhood across several domains, which we'll talk a little bit more in a second. But this can reflect and carry on into emerging adulthood, potentially even showcasing the rise of the struggles or issues rooted from having that as those other stressors occur during the universal transition in life that happens in emerging adulthood. So, what I mean by that is that the stressors within the transition of emerging adulthood, such as getting a new job, going to college, just making that initial transition in your life from being at home to becoming more individualized and independent. That transition and the stressors within that transition can bring out the physiological, psychological, bio-social, and cognitive variations or struggles that will develop from experiencing or enduring that harsh environment of a divorce. So, now we're going to talk a little bit more about middle childhood and emerging adulthood as we've kind of referenced some of the aspects within early childhood that can cause some issues in later life, such as the stress hormones and as this is a crucial time of brain development. In chapter 13 on family structure and function in middle childhood, it states that school-age children need five things from their families, which include physical necessities, learning, self-respect, peer relationships, and harmony and stability. Children obviously cherish harmony and stability because they don't like conflict and change because it obviously causes stress. Many parents move from one neighborhood or school to another during these years in children's lives and they don't realize that it can harm the child academically and psychologically. Okay, so now for the effects of emerging adulthood on divorce. In the emerging adulthood stage, all members of each family have linked lives, that is, the experiences and needs of family members at one stage of life that are affected by those at other stages. Okay, this can be found in chapter 19. So, a prime example of this would be me and my younger sister, Erica. When the divorce was happening, I was older and she was young. So, a prime example of this is my sister and I, Erica. I was in high school when the divorce happened and she was not even in school yet. She was around four or five. This is really shown because our lives were really linked because we're siblings and we live in the same house, yet we were at different stages in life, so we were affected differently. According to chapter 17, which covers the bio-social development of emerging adulthood, emerging adults experience more of every diagnosed psychological disorder than any older group. Specifically, we learn that anxiety disorders like panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorders are more prevalent than depression in emerging adulthood. During this time, emerging adults are more vulnerable with the addition of new experiences and less protection from parents, which leads to less social support. These experiences add to the explanation of the trend in anxiety disorders this time. According to this chapter, anxiety arises everywhere when young people are expected to enter the adult world, such as going to college, getting a car, and getting their first job. On top of all this stress, they are dealing with a divorce from their parents, which leads to anxiety and, most times, depression. Although this chapter makes this connection more so regarding the transition of environment and support to the development of such psychological disorders, we must consider previous experiences, such as parental divorce, that could have underlying roots to these disorders coming about. What we do know is experience and social support both matter, and every anxiety disorder is affected by culture and context. Some of our key takeaways from our developmental analysis include that children can either develop positively or negatively from a parental divorce or separation. What we mean by negative is that children can end up with psychological disorders due to the stressors or trauma that they encounter within the divorce or separation, or, on the opposite side, children can build better relationships with their family because of a divorce and even further flourish in life because those stressors will disappear and they don't have to deal with them anymore. This is kind of reflected in a TED Talk we watched by Tamara. It was on the impact of divorce on children. We think this is really important to highlight because she made a point that 90% of kids these days talk to their parents daily, partially due to the new technology that has allowed for a greater connection for the parents and children to create, per se. I text my mom almost every day, and I think Maddie also contacts her dad every other day. We think that's really important because kids these days who have that greater connection and then enter a divorce, it impacts them a lot more now that that connection is so strong. But she also really points out that parents who do stay together in an unhealthy relationship and have more conflicts that the children suffer from, they also suffer from a lot more physiological and psychological effects. Now we're going to talk about the media analysis. The two shows, four movies that we chose to analyze are Shameless and Mrs. Doubtfire. To start, Shameless explores how the separation of parents can affect siblings differently during the different ages of their life. In this show, there's age groups ranging from infancy to emerging adulthood. You have the older sibling who tries to protect the younger ones and work to support them, the middle child that creates trouble, and the younger ones who are clueless and don't realize the severity of the situation that they are in. All the siblings suffer from some sort of psychological disorder, whether it be anxiety, depression, or something else, and many of them turn to drugs during the aging in this series. Another piece of media that we chose to use was the movie Mrs. Doubtfire. This movie is about this family who endures a divorce, and the children are deeply affected by it. The mother ends up having custody of the children while the father wants to remain with them but is unable to. The age groups that this movie depicts are emerging adulthood and middle childhood, with the two oldest. It is seen throughout the movie that the older ones are trying to protect the little one from watching their parents argue over the divorce. Because they were able to figure out a good living situation and custody situation, the children ended up having a fine life, and it was the positive thing to do for them. So they did not end up with any psychological disorders, unlike the children in Shameless. So that is all we had to explore for this topic, and we hope you enjoyed it. Thank you.