The Impact of Parental Divorce on Teens

It’s tough for children when they find out their parents are getting a divorce. The experience can be especially difficult for teenagers. If you’re the parent of a teenager and are planning to divorce, consider this brief guide on what to expect and how you can help your teen.

How Divorce Affects Teenagers

Teenagers are typically sad when they learn that their parents are divorcing. Parental divorce signals a momentous change in the household, and can result in the weakening of significant relationships. Teens are already undergoing a myriad of life changes and social pressures with emotional highs and lows. The impact of parental divorce can be overwhelming. When sad and suffering, teenagers typically retreat from the family as a whole and exhibit high levels of frustration, irritability, and anger. The split between parents can be viewed as a personal betrayal. Teens need the parental unit to be predictable and a stable foundation as they navigate their processes of identity development and individuation. Wrecked by their grief and confusion, teens may adopt many different negative behaviors. Some may become less responsible in school, lose interest in extracurricular activities, become oppositional to authority figures and the law, or try to numb their feelings with substance abuse or self-harm.

Divorce Impacts Teens Later in their Lives

Parental divorce can derail the healthy development of an teenager’s identify and individuation. The divorce, then, can influence a teenager’s future attitudes regarding relationships. Some, for instance, can develop a general sense of distrust in relationships that makes it hard for them to get close to others. Other teens may develop maladaptive relationship behaviors out of fear that a partner will abandon them.

How Can I Help?

Parents can have open and honest conversation with their teen about the upcoming divorce. Parents need to be clear about what the teen can expect, such as where they will live and how future family decisions will be made. Parents need to provide a united front for their teen and discuss and support a reconfiguration of rules of engagement with the other parent. Parents must eliminate overt conflict with the other parent and be especially mindful to not use the teen as a go between. Understanding that your teen will experience a range of intense emotions, you should make yourself available to listen and to be there to provide support.

It can help to seek group counseling from a family therapist who can provide a safe environment for everyone to share their feelings. An individual therapist can provide your child with one-on-one counseling to help address related mental health concerns, such as poor self-esteem, anger, and depression and the grief from the loss of their family unit.

Providing counseling for over three decades, Fairbanks Psychiatric & Neurological Clinic APC is a leading resource for families of divorce. Under the care of Sally Caldwell, LPC-S, and parents and teens will be able to express their thoughts and feelings, identify self-defeating behaviors, and increase their resilience to the impact of parental divorce. Sally Caldwell, LPC-S is highly qualified to address the full spectrum of mental health conditions—depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other conditions. Visit the clinic online to learn more about clinic’s individualized approach to care or call (907) 452-1739 to start the process of scheduling an appointment. The clinic does not accept Medicaid or Medicare insurances for counseling.

Special thanks to Sally Caldwell, LPC-S, for her contributions to this article.