Personal experience with children from divorced families Essay

Two years ago, I was teaching young Korean children ages 8 to 11. Before I started teaching, I was briefly explained about the behaviour of several children by their tutors. A couple of them were from divorced families. I had a difficulty in handling one particular child called J, who was 11 years old at that time. According to his tutor, his parents were divorced recently and as a result, he enrolled in this school. I did not know the reason of his parents’ divorce but his mother was diagnosed with cancer. The tutor was the custodial parent of J. My first impression on J in class was that he was very loud and also it became a routine for him not to do his homework and turn up late in class. He became aggressive and tried to embarrass me by making ridiculous comments when scolded about his behaviour. On one occasion, J had a fight with another boy in class. J actually stabbed this boy with a pencil during break time. Although it was a minor injury, parents of both boys had to be called in and J’s tutor tried to make both boys talk about why it happened. But they did not say a word. Since J’s mother was sick, his grandmother came instead, apologizing for her grandson’s action. Nonetheless, explanation of J’s grandmother helped me to understand his behaviour. J became difficult to control since his parents’ divorce. He was furious with the fact that his father left his sick mother for another woman. His grade from previous school was average but with the change of family environment, he was achieving lower grade. However, considering he was fairly new to the school, he seemed to socialize with other boys easily and seemed to lead them as well. I have also noticed that when he was not being loud or seeking attention in my class, he would sit absent-minded and continuously shake his leg. Besides being aggressive he was probably feeling insecure as well. In the period immediately following the divorce, J’s mother’s ability to be a good parent probably declined and became more inconsistent in disciplining her son due to her illness. J’s reaction towards his parent’s divorce is all mentioned in past studies by Anthony (1974), Hoyt et al. (1990), Kurdekrikberg (1987), Liner (1976), Wickman (1987) where action-out behaviour was most apparent in his behaviour when he had stabbed a boy with a pencil and his reaction also showed that he was very aggressive, as Lee (1993) suggested that children of divorce can become aggressive. J’s behaviour of making comments in class also shares Hyatt (1999)’s findings of making irrelevant comments in class. J had also developed anger towards his father because he had left his mother when she was sick and Kurdekriberg (1987) mentioned that some children may develop wrath towards one parent after divorce. As illustrated in Lee (1993), Kurdekriberg (1987) and Weitzman (1985)’s study, J’s academic grade declined and exhibited withdrawing behaviour (1976) such as shaking his leg in class. He was also spotted lost in thoughts in class sitting completely absent-minded and this can refer to what Liner (1976) called disorganized behaviour that J probably wanted to escape from this painful reality of his. Case study 2 Another child called B, age 10, in my class, also experienced parents divorce. I got to know B’s background through a homework I assigned in class. Unlike J, her parents were divorced when B had just turned 5 and at that time, none of her parents were willing to look after her. Therefore she was left under the care of her grandparents in her mother’s side for a few years. And then, she joined her mother at the age of 9 who was by then re-married and had children of their own. Being with her mother’s also meant moving to another school, hence everything was new to her. Despite the change of the environment, she seemed to have adjusted herself well in school life. She had her own circle of friends and she was also active and lively during class and there was not much change in her school grade. I also noticed her suck fingers during class. One day, I assigned the whole class to write about their parents because it was soon to be Parents’ Day in Korea. Surprisingly, B did not do her home. To be exact, she actually refused to do it because she said there was nothing to talk about and as she was saying this, she was almost in tears. Then she explained her family background and she was ashamed of it. She mentioned that her mother and stepfather hardly gave her any affection and treated her as a burden, hence in order to avoid them, B spent most of her time in her room when she was home. For B, the school was some kind of a safe zone and because of her positive attitude in class, I never thought that she was unhappy at home. In my opinion, B was putting all her energy into school life to forget about troubles at home. It was obvious that B had the most difficulty in adapting to step-parenting and remarriage and what made it worse was that she hardly knew her mother either. So confronting her mother and step father was a great distress for B.