A minor child's biggest wish when his parents are fighting is for the chaos to stop and for mommy and daddy to just live peacefully and put the family back together again.
Strange as though it may seem, this particular desire is not only reserved for those of adolescent age.
A divorce study has readily shown that adult children are even more affected by the marital discord of their parents than the minor child who actually resides with his parents and is therefore witness to the family disruptions.
But if adult children are expected to take on the role their "adult" age dictates, how is it possible that the impending divorce proceedings of their parents could cause disharmony in their own lives? Adolescent children think in "kid" terms - in other words, it is not uncommon for a youngster to blame himself for the constant arguing he may overhear taking place between the two people he loves and trusts most in the world.
Although in reality it is never the child's fault, it is still extremely difficult to convince him that noisily playing with his toys or not taking his nap on time are not the cause of the family problems.
On the other hand, an adult has a more realistic overall outlook on the divorce situation - because he has a more developed brain and is therefore increasingly aware of what kinds of events take place in life after his teen years, he is going to have a lot more understanding of the issues surrounding the split between his parents and thus feel its affects in a more deep and personal manner.
The non-minor child is also more likely to side with one parent over the other, depending on who he feels is in the wrong regarding the divorce issue being debated.
For example, if the mother has turned herself into an adulterous spouse by seeking the company of males outside of her marriage, her adult child is more apt to sympathize with his father and therefore look at things from his father's point of view, which can cause him to lose respect for his mother, among other dire consequences.
This is not so with a minor child.
An adolescent is way too young to comprehend the ramifications a cheating spouse will ultimately bring upon the family.
The child is also too juvenile to understand any other type of relationship problems that may plague the divorcing spouses.
This also explains why the youngster is liable to blame himself for the marital discord experienced by his parents - because he does not know that adult issues do exist in his small world, it is therefore very easy for him to believe he did something wrong which is why he is all of a sudden a witness to loud voices and upset moods from the two people he looks up to.
Spouses [usually] don't have child support and custody as a consideration during divorce for their non-minor children.
Yet even though money paid from one spouse to the other and visitation schedules do not present a problem for adult-age children, the effects an adult can still expect to suffer range from trust and commitment issues in their own romantic relationships.
Support for this fact comes from a divorce statistic which states that adult children who come from a broken family (i.
e.
children of divorced parents) are 14% more likely to experience a divorce themselves than their counterparts whose parents have stayed happily married throughout the entirety of the child's life.
In addition, siblings of adult age can very easily enter into the fighting stage and become estranged from one another because each one sides with a different parent, causing further rifts and irreparable damage that only years of intensive family counseling will repair.
Though it may be difficult to believe, as one can see it is evident that an adult child has more opportunity and likelihood to be negatively affected by the rupture in the family caused by the splitting of his parents.
Of course a minor child will be affected too, but only as far as his whether or not he is directly at fault for the family situation at hand.