離異家庭子女數學差 不善社交

Children of divorced parents often fall behind their classmates in math and social skills and are more likely to suffer anxiety, stress and low self-esteem, according to a new study。

Researcher Hyun Sik Kim, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the study showed that the detrimental effects on the children do not start until after the parents begin divorce proceedings。

"People tend to think that couples go through intense marital conflict before the divorce," Kim, a PhD candidate in sociology, said in a statement。

"My original prediction was that children of divorce would experience negative impacts even before formal divorce processes began. But my study finds that this is not the case."

The findings, published in the American Sociological Review, are based on data that tracked the development of 3,585 students from kindergarten through fifth grade to examine the impact before, during and after the divorce。

Kim compared the progress of children whose parents were going through a divorce with youngsters from stable families. He found that developmental problems continued after the divorce。

"This study reveals that these negative impacts do not worsen in the post-divorce stage, although there is no sign that children of divorce catch up with their counterparts, either," Kim explained。

He added that math studies were particularly sensitive to impact of divorce。

"Reading is not that cumulative. But with math, you must understand previous things to develop. For example, if I do not understand that one plus one is two, then I cannot understand multiplication."

He attributed the developmental setbacks of the children to several factors, including the stress of living with bickering

and potentially depressed parents, unstable living arrangements and being forced to divide time between parents and economic hardship from a drop in family income。

"Children may also experience some disturbing signs," he said. "Divorcing parents maybe cannot focus on caring about children. They may be prone to argue with children and I think that may influence children's development."最新調查顯示，離異家庭孩子的數學成績和社交能力比同班同學要差，而且更容易受焦慮、壓力、自卑所擾。

威斯康星大學麥迪遜分校研究人員金賢植稱，離婚程序開始後，這些不利影響纔會在孩子身上體現出來。

社會學博士生金賢植在聲明中說：“人們通常認爲離婚前兩人就已經鬧得不可開交了。”

“我原本以爲在父母正式離婚程序開始前，不利影響就已經體現到孩子們身上了。但研究發現事實並非如此。”

此次研究共調查了3585名學生，考察了他們自幼兒園到五年級的成長過程中，家長離婚前、離婚中及離婚後他們的成長狀況。這項研究發表在《美國社會學評論》期刊上。

金賢植將家長正鬧離婚的孩子們的成長與穩定家庭的孩子們做對比，結果發現父母離婚後孩子會繼續遭遇成長問題。

金賢植解釋道：“研究顯示，這些負面影響在父母離婚後不會加劇，但也沒有跡象表明離異家庭孩子的成長會趕上同齡人。”

他補充稱，離婚對孩子的數學成績影響非常大。

“閱讀的累積效應不太顯著，而學數學時，你必須先學會基礎知識，才能提高。比如如果我不知道一加一等於二，那就不可能學會乘法。”

他認爲孩子的成長受阻有很多原因，包括和爭吵不休、心情鬱悶的家長生活在一起時的壓力；多變的生活安排；以及由於家庭收入下降，在和家長相處時還要分心考慮經濟難題。

他說：“離異家庭的孩子們還會心煩意亂。離異家長也許無法專心照顧孩子，他們更容易和孩子吵起來，我覺得這影響了孩子的成長。”