The Truth About Children and Divorce Quotes

“We can get even more perspective just by flipping the numbers. If a child from a married home has an 11 percent chance of seeing a therapist, she has an 89 percent chance of not seeing one. A child from a divorced home who has a 21 percent chance of seeing a therapist has a 79 percent chance of not seeing one. This is not just a case of the glass being half empty or half full. We can and should look at the statistics both ways. When we do that, we see that the glass is 20 percent empty and 80 percent full.”
― Robert E. Emery, The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive

“Research consistently shows that most children from divorced families do not have psychological problems. For example, one major national study, conducted by Nick Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Cairo, looked at children between the ages of twelve and twenty-one. It found that 21 percent of those whose parents had divorced had received psychological help. In comparison, 11 percent of children from married families had received psychological help. That’s nearly a 100 percent increase between groups. That may alarm you until you realize that a statistic like this taken out of context can be misleading for several reasons. Why? First, seeing a therapist is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing. (I certainly think it is.) Second, remember that many children from divorced families are brought to see a therapist as part of a custody proceeding or because one of their parents has psychological problems. In other words, the fact that these children saw a mental health professional does not automatically mean they had serious problems. They might have been seeing a mental health professional for reasons that had nothing to do with them personally, or they might have been receiving care that helped prevent a manageable problem from blossoming into something more serious. In a nation where, according to the U.S. surgeon general, less than half of all children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances ever receive professional care, we need to abandon the stigma we attach to mental health care and view such care as an indication of a situation’s being addressed, not a problem itself.”
― Robert E. Emery, The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive

“Why is this happening? Perhaps as you climb into bed alone, you find yourself longing for a warm body or the sense of security of sharing a bed, a home. What you might not have realized, especially in the immediate emotional aftermath of divorce, is that these seemingly conflicting emotions really are connected. They all are a part of your grief.”
― Robert E. Emery, The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive

“If you can learn the practical”
― Robert E. Emery, The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive