2008
I. Introduction
In this paper, I would like to propose a study examining the short term implications of parental conflict on child. I would like to focus on especially the social and educational accomplishments of children in short-term measurements which can be emphasized as their time spending with friends, meeting new people, joining new organizations or working groups, time spending inside home and the probable changes in school grades and participation in lessons.
Whether parents are not happy with their relationship and comfortable about separating their ways or not, it is certain that most of the parental conflicts results with devastating consequences in children’s not only short term progress but also future lives. Parental conflict has been found to have damaging effects on child’s educational attainment, parent-child relationships and marriage experiences and also psychological adjustment.
Besides the researches show us the fact of damaging and devastating effects of parental conflicts on children, there is another thing that should be considered seriously which is the possible support for child’s development after divorce. A professional intervention in kid’s life may decrease the detrimental side-effects of divorce.
II. Literature Review
As anybody suggested, I am planning to use some scholarly articles that related to my topic where outcomes and consequences of parental separation and probable solutions for it analyzed properly. But since the researches that I chose are not very definitive about their researching methods I was not able to write down their choices of investigation. So I preferred to write down their perspectives about consequences and solutions for the situation.
I would like to start my literature review section with an article that investigates parental conflict’s outcomes for children in long term. It is Bryan Rodgers and Jan Pryor’s article called “Divorce and separation: the outcomes for children”. Rodgers and Pryor emphasizes that short-term effects of separation usually fades with time. According to their research being in poverty and housing, being poorer when they become adults, having behavioral problems, performing less well at school, needing medical treatment, becoming sexually active or pregnant at an early age and high levels of smoking and drinking are some of the probable consequences these children face. Rodgers and Pryor also study the factors that form these outcomes and underline some of them like financial hardship, multiple changes in family structure and psychological instability during separation.
Rodgers and Pryor’s policy implications are another part in their research that gets attention in my opinion. They suggest that support for parents to deal with the distress of separation is needed to enable them better to help the children and teachers and family lawyers need to be equipped to help as they are often approached for this support. Moreover, they add that information needs to be provided for parents that they should be encouraged to minimize the involvement of children in their disputes.
Second article that I will mention about is much more long-term based conducted by R. Ahrons. Ahrons interviewed 173 grown children, 20 years after their parents’ divorce. He addresses two questions which are: What impact does the relationship between parents have on their children 20 years after the divorce? When a parent remarries or cohabits, how does it impact a child's sense of family?
In his charming study, it is been shown that cooperative parents are very helpful for child’s recovering after the outcomes of separation. He adds that most of the children experience the remarriage of one or both parents, and one third of this sample remembers the remarriage as more stressful than the divorce.
As long as I have no such chance to make a study lasting 20 years or more, I studied this article to give me some opinion about the facts of separation of parents and its consequences for children. Ahrons’ study deserves an appreciation as a study that continues for 20 years needs a very-well designed concept to be conducted well.
Final research is much more like a review of the consequences of the problem and solutions for it which is done while examining two researches that are already done: one of which is conducted in 1971 and the other in 2004. Wallerstein is the conductor of the research that is done in 1971 gives an important saying in the review: "Our findings challenge the myth that divorce is a transient crisis and that as soon as parents re-establish their lives, the children will recover fully, a myth which doesn't happen."
III. Methodology
To start with, I am planning to select the respondents from high school students whose parents have split up at most 12 months ago. The reason I put the red line in 12 months is because one year is not a very long period that a human being can easily get used to so many changes in his life. A participant that experienced family split more than one year ago cannot be able to give me precise facts about changes in his life. In my humble opinion the best option would be to select respondents that had a parental conflict in at most 6 months ago but it would be difficult to find such respondents.
High school students from both the Asian and European sides of Istanbul will be the respondents for my survey questions and in-depth interviews. The first of all I will note down the region they live in the aspect of wealth, population and education level. This information will give the chance to evaluate their living conditions generally.
Since information about respondents’ characteristics is very crucial; to know their possible adjustments to the changes in family structure, it is a “must” to know their style of thinking. Their religiosity, plans for the future, political views and many other possible aspects can be analyzed. In addition, I am thinking of some professional character tests and maybe a professional help to see their characters’ weak and strong sides.
In general questionnaire, the type of questions will be as following:
• Do you define yourself as religious?
• What are your plans upon the future?
Also there will be sub-scale questions like:
‘Where do you state yourself in terms of concepts below?’ (1 to 10 scale questions)
• Independency
• Responsibility
• Sociability
Another think that we must know is their GPA’s and school success before and after the family split. That will be a major point to see their possible changes and affects of changes in the family structure. Also I want to investigate their attendance rates to the lessons. Since parental conflicts can affect the child’s social and educational life I will also investigate their participation for school organizations, trips or parties.
After formulating some general opinions about respondents’ characteristics and educational performance and participations, I will make an in-depth interview. I will ask questions about their parents’ separation and try to get some individual perspective about their thoughts for their parents’ splitting and its effects on their lives. I will ask questions in personal so they will be not affected because of group psychology. Since it is a research design for my study, it is more suitable to prefer exploratory research.
These methods are used by many other researchers in so many times so there will not be a reliability issue in my study. But there can be problems to understand their perspectives in in-depth interviews which can solved with a professional help. And finally the most important think is to stay valid in the research and try to focus on precise topics.
IV. Ethics
To keep the research successful I am planning to keep the research as a secret since their attributes, thoughts and answers’ styles can change in any way if they know they are being researched. On the other hand it is certain that it is not so ethical. The other ethical concern might be my bias that is reflected to questions. They can effect the views of students to different positions. Finally, it is for sure that my study does not give social or psychological harm to the respondents and they will take questionnaire with their own will.
V. Budget Issues and Funding
My sample size will be like 100 students from high schools in Asian and European sides of Istanbul. There will be a need for 10-20 interviewers and a professional help to analyze the characteristics of respondents. A budget like 2000-3000 YTL may help to overcome the project. University funding council would be very enthusiastic to support a student researcher in this topic I suppose.
Bibliography
• Children in Changing Families: Life After Parental Separation (Understanding Children's Worlds), Jan Pryor and Bryan Rodgers (2001)
• Family Process, R. Ahrons (2007)
• Effects of Divorce on Children, unknown writer (2008) http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/02/effects-of-divo.html
I. Introduction
In this paper, I would like to propose a study examining the short term implications of parental conflict on child. I would like to focus on especially the social and educational accomplishments of children in short-term measurements which can be emphasized as their time spending with friends, meeting new people, joining new organizations or working groups, time spending inside home and the probable changes in school grades and participation in lessons.
Whether parents are not happy with their relationship and comfortable about separating their ways or not, it is certain that most of the parental conflicts results with devastating consequences in children’s not only short term progress but also future lives. Parental conflict has been found to have damaging effects on child’s educational attainment, parent-child relationships and marriage experiences and also psychological adjustment.
Besides the researches show us the fact of damaging and devastating effects of parental conflicts on children, there is another thing that should be considered seriously which is the possible support for child’s development after divorce. A professional intervention in kid’s life may decrease the detrimental side-effects of divorce.
II. Literature Review
As anybody suggested, I am planning to use some scholarly articles that related to my topic where outcomes and consequences of parental separation and probable solutions for it analyzed properly. But since the researches that I chose are not very definitive about their researching methods I was not able to write down their choices of investigation. So I preferred to write down their perspectives about consequences and solutions for the situation.
I would like to start my literature review section with an article that investigates parental conflict’s outcomes for children in long term. It is Bryan Rodgers and Jan Pryor’s article called “Divorce and separation: the outcomes for children”. Rodgers and Pryor emphasizes that short-term effects of separation usually fades with time. According to their research being in poverty and housing, being poorer when they become adults, having behavioral problems, performing less well at school, needing medical treatment, becoming sexually active or pregnant at an early age and high levels of smoking and drinking are some of the probable consequences these children face. Rodgers and Pryor also study the factors that form these outcomes and underline some of them like financial hardship, multiple changes in family structure and psychological instability during separation.
Rodgers and Pryor’s policy implications are another part in their research that gets attention in my opinion. They suggest that support for parents to deal with the distress of separation is needed to enable them better to help the children and teachers and family lawyers need to be equipped to help as they are often approached for this support. Moreover, they add that information needs to be provided for parents that they should be encouraged to minimize the involvement of children in their disputes.
Second article that I will mention about is much more long-term based conducted by R. Ahrons. Ahrons interviewed 173 grown children, 20 years after their parents’ divorce. He addresses two questions which are: What impact does the relationship between parents have on their children 20 years after the divorce? When a parent remarries or cohabits, how does it impact a child's sense of family?
In his charming study, it is been shown that cooperative parents are very helpful for child’s recovering after the outcomes of separation. He adds that most of the children experience the remarriage of one or both parents, and one third of this sample remembers the remarriage as more stressful than the divorce.
As long as I have no such chance to make a study lasting 20 years or more, I studied this article to give me some opinion about the facts of separation of parents and its consequences for children. Ahrons’ study deserves an appreciation as a study that continues for 20 years needs a very-well designed concept to be conducted well.
Final research is much more like a review of the consequences of the problem and solutions for it which is done while examining two researches that are already done: one of which is conducted in 1971 and the other in 2004. Wallerstein is the conductor of the research that is done in 1971 gives an important saying in the review: "Our findings challenge the myth that divorce is a transient crisis and that as soon as parents re-establish their lives, the children will recover fully, a myth which doesn't happen."
III. Methodology
To start with, I am planning to select the respondents from high school students whose parents have split up at most 12 months ago. The reason I put the red line in 12 months is because one year is not a very long period that a human being can easily get used to so many changes in his life. A participant that experienced family split more than one year ago cannot be able to give me precise facts about changes in his life. In my humble opinion the best option would be to select respondents that had a parental conflict in at most 6 months ago but it would be difficult to find such respondents.
High school students from both the Asian and European sides of Istanbul will be the respondents for my survey questions and in-depth interviews. The first of all I will note down the region they live in the aspect of wealth, population and education level. This information will give the chance to evaluate their living conditions generally.
Since information about respondents’ characteristics is very crucial; to know their possible adjustments to the changes in family structure, it is a “must” to know their style of thinking. Their religiosity, plans for the future, political views and many other possible aspects can be analyzed. In addition, I am thinking of some professional character tests and maybe a professional help to see their characters’ weak and strong sides.
In general questionnaire, the type of questions will be as following:
• Do you define yourself as religious?
• What are your plans upon the future?
Also there will be sub-scale questions like:
‘Where do you state yourself in terms of concepts below?’ (1 to 10 scale questions)
• Independency
• Responsibility
• Sociability
Another think that we must know is their GPA’s and school success before and after the family split. That will be a major point to see their possible changes and affects of changes in the family structure. Also I want to investigate their attendance rates to the lessons. Since parental conflicts can affect the child’s social and educational life I will also investigate their participation for school organizations, trips or parties.
After formulating some general opinions about respondents’ characteristics and educational performance and participations, I will make an in-depth interview. I will ask questions about their parents’ separation and try to get some individual perspective about their thoughts for their parents’ splitting and its effects on their lives. I will ask questions in personal so they will be not affected because of group psychology. Since it is a research design for my study, it is more suitable to prefer exploratory research.
These methods are used by many other researchers in so many times so there will not be a reliability issue in my study. But there can be problems to understand their perspectives in in-depth interviews which can solved with a professional help. And finally the most important think is to stay valid in the research and try to focus on precise topics.
IV. Ethics
To keep the research successful I am planning to keep the research as a secret since their attributes, thoughts and answers’ styles can change in any way if they know they are being researched. On the other hand it is certain that it is not so ethical. The other ethical concern might be my bias that is reflected to questions. They can effect the views of students to different positions. Finally, it is for sure that my study does not give social or psychological harm to the respondents and they will take questionnaire with their own will.
V. Budget Issues and Funding
My sample size will be like 100 students from high schools in Asian and European sides of Istanbul. There will be a need for 10-20 interviewers and a professional help to analyze the characteristics of respondents. A budget like 2000-3000 YTL may help to overcome the project. University funding council would be very enthusiastic to support a student researcher in this topic I suppose.
Bibliography
• Children in Changing Families: Life After Parental Separation (Understanding Children's Worlds), Jan Pryor and Bryan Rodgers (2001)
• Family Process, R. Ahrons (2007)
• Effects of Divorce on Children, unknown writer (2008) http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2008/02/effects-of-divo.html
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