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TEDx Talks
Published: 2012-05-20
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKcNyfXbQzQ
a few days ago I told my students I was going to be giving a Ted talk and they had two responses the first was that is super cool right would you agree cool right well yeah so I went from being kind of a geeky professor to still being a geeky professor but being able to do a really cool of this second reaction was %HESITATION we want
our voices to be and so what I did was %HESITATION I just ask them for a minute I have to take out a sheet of paper and I said I want you to write down something you know if there is anything that you would change about the way your parents a communicated when you were growing up and the second question I said was I want you
to also thinking of think about something that you appreciate about the way they communicated with you or chat with each other going up and this was one of the responses I mean keep in mind this was Britain in a minute and a half my parents never got a divorce but I always wish they had even when they're both cheating on one another to get back at
each other or in child services got involved were all the friends and family encourage them to end it they still held on now I'm nineteen and scared to believe that anything last forever every relationship I go into a consular mine myself that in a month or a year or whatever I lose them I wish my parents had just ended it back when me and my brothers
were little that they hadn't made me feel like a love hate relationship with each other was more important than however they always reminded us that we were love and that we matter forever and always and we still stayed strong when it really mattered I love them both no no it's in you know in this was anonymous so collecting these and then kind of sifting through them
after class and seeing that you know and they you know I kept sifting through thinking you know and there are a bunch of them the really really sad cases when the majority were super positive keep that in mind he never really made me think is a professor you know looking across in my students almost kind of dumbfounded because late you know talked about divorce for in
conflict for like a class street and a half not once that never occurred to me there soon was feeling that and I think a lot of parents a face a similar situation where they look at their child they think their child is okay and most children are but inside they might be feeling something very different and they don't talk about it so parents just don't know
so today I want to give children of divorce a voice so like I said I don't have any fancy power point slides I just have the voices is a research thrown in %HESITATION in particular I want you to see divorce to the eyes of adolescents and young adults experienced it and I often get asked the question so what impact does the words have on children and
my answer is always depends %HESITATION it depends upon a host of complex %HESITATION circumstances and situations in children really very intrusive how they respond to divorce some children actually feral lot better if they're removed from really conflicted turbulent environment and other children %HESITATION fear really poorly and then other children are infected aren't affected at all divorce does have for most children a short term impact most
children of divorce suffer from lower self esteem anxiety depression less quality contact with their parents %HESITATION their standard of living decreases and a lot of times you know the short term effects actually linger into adulthood have long term effects you know some children continue to have on psychological difficulties %HESITATION children of divorce on average %HESITATION tend to have %HESITATION less satisfied relationships with their parents later
in life they more difficulty in their magic relationships and they're much more like the gift to get divorced themselves and at this point no lecture the children who were from divorced families the students want to get out and walk out because it's like greats I'm screwed ugh is there hope and yes there is because research actually shows that the differences are the effect sizes between children
of divorce until not parents who stay married are very small primarily because there's a lot of variance and help people wrist all children spawn to divorce what's really interesting poll mottos a sociologist in one of my mentors actually showed that these effects sizes actually these differences might be getting bigger he did %HESITATION a meta analysis we looked at hundreds of studies and children whose parents were
divorced in the seventies and eighties and nineties %HESITATION it was really high the affected were some children in the seventies decrease in the eighties an increase in the nineties again so it's kind of perplexing divorce is common it's less stigmatize so why would the differences between to work children divorce not divorced families be increasing you know and Apollo model one of his height you know one
of his suggestions well maybe it's because the reasons for divorce are different then they used to be when people got divorced in the nineteen seventies biz is because of the really bad marriage right you know adultery all these other things and they really need to get out of it today he people are getting divorced for personal and that could really bother children right that's not enough
%HESITATION people are getting divorced too easily what I ask my students a what do you think they actually argue it's because children are closer to their parents now than they ever happen when I think about my generation and I just turned forty and admit it on the web I just turned forty right but I think my generation and older we talked our parents like on a
Sunday night once a week that's good no we say hi in you have good relationships but those era college students how many of you %HESITATION talk to your parents once a day or once every other day yeah the vast majority whenever my I ask my students in a class of a hundred ninety percent of them talk to their parents at least once a day text messaging
the phone will how what whatever they use the talk to the parents a lot they feel extremely close to them times are changing partially due to technology and other things but it might mean that when divorce happens because they're so close to their parents it hurts them so setting that aside though those effect sizes is differences are still very small so the worst matters but what
I want you to remember today's this point there's one variable that determines more than any other how well children function after divorce and that parents conflict I would say them that the most profound finding on divorce in the past four decades is that parents conflict is more important than the words per se in predicting how well children function in fact children whose parents have a lot
of conflict in to stay married those are the children that actually have the most difficulty ecologically and the most of establishing satisfying relationships later in life not that not so much about the divorce as it is how parents you know most most people who've been married for fifty years I have but there's a subgroup of those people who've been married for ever who really test sarcastic
I know it's dark I don't wish there is a special section of the hallmark store for them you don't even because of the hallmark result was like so flowery in beautiful but there should be like a card that says you've been married for fifty years but have you been %HESITATION again dark %HESITATION but there are those sub but people who simply don't believe in divorce and
I'm not saying that you should go and get a divorce I'm not an advocate of divorce it's really painful and people I do think people get divorced way too easily up my parents also need to know that the way that they fight affects the children's bodies I remember a long time ago is doing field research and went into families homes and I was spending anywhere from
four to seven hours in our home you know I was interviewing and surveying you know all the kids in the parents everybody in the home and I remember sitting on a couch %HESITATION with a child Nate twelve years old sitting on the couch within an asking asking about his parents divorce an error in saying you know his stomach hurt a lot that night his stomach with
her and then he would go to school in a stomach would still hurt he had a hard time concentrating any is talking about house parents fought a lot and then I asked him well if you talk to your parents about the fighting so he said no one ever talked about it because I bring it up it makes the conflict workers %HESITATION that defining moment that had
a big impact on my research I walked away from that interaction with a child thinking I don't do something different in different other than self reports in our surveys trying so parents look the way that you're fighting is affecting your children's bodies and from that point forward I began to look at physiology in children's physical and physiological reactions to their parent's conflict and other types of
communication patterns %HESITATION few things like %HESITATION their heart rates their guard galvanic skin response to their sweater arousal in looking at stress hormones and so you know when your body is stressed that your brain tells the rest of your body to omit hormones like cortisol so we take people spit because a lot of things to a person's although sometimes people don't want to give us their
spent a little bit hesitant because they're like are you cloning me what do you get to do with this %HESITATION DNA %HESITATION you can actually tell persons the name but %HESITATION we look at stress form because you can tell from just from someone spit how stressed their bodies %HESITATION and so for example we bring parents in adolescence into the lab with system sit them on a
couch and then we have them talk about something stressful but the parents relationship any Sir parents and kids from divorced and non divorced families %HESITATION enemy take their spent before the interaction in a three or four times after the interruption to look at how their bodies responding but I'm talking about something stressful related the parents %HESITATION relationship and what we found for example is that parents
that have really good communication skills they don't have very much conflict they're supportive they're competent in the way that they communicate either affectionate armpits are stressed out kids very much that type of interaction you is just a little bit get a little bit anxious and then their their bodies are able to calm down really quickly doesn't matter with their parents are divorced or not kids that
have the most difficulty are the ones whose parents have a lot of conflict were still married those kids after that type of interaction their anxiety levels a look at the browsing super ball in this room their bodies are less able to calm down and interaction that address is one interaction now imagine if your parents are chronically fighting you know what that can do inside a child's
body no children of divorce his parents had a lot of conflict also reacted they had a delayed reaction but then they were able to come down again the other group of children that tend to have a really hard time with their parents divorce are the ones who never see it coming %HESITATION selling you become an extreme example I'm a young woman came up to me after
class one day it was really bothered by that it was actually after the lecture on divorce I attend bother people so you know she had her hands Ross what do I get that comment a lot to make people sweaty %HESITATION so she comes up to me after class and he's like you know I thought my parents had the proof my friends always told me your parents
have the perfect man so she went off to college in appearance from the divorce on and that's actually not all that uncommon a and then she said you know my mom is my best friends so my mom confide in me in me that she was cheating on my dad but that my dad didn't know she said should I continue to see this other person should I
break up with your father now you can imagine what that would do to a person's body so she said professor Kofi feet should I do yeah %HESITATION you know you think under is now a better was wrong I you know actually said to I said well I'm really sorry fearing that such number two I said why do you know the sin from so that's a lot
of weight for a college student to have that type of information I said you know what you should be worried about what you can wear and Friday night you should be worried about getting good grades you should be worried about going out with your friends in whatever career you might have instead she was worried day in and day out every minute of the day of the
day what my parents going to do her mom never really close relationship the parents have to be very careful that that doesn't tip over right so that their child doesn't become they're confident their best friend another parent noticeably slope and I think that's a generational difference as well that we're facing through that closeness is a good you know it's a good thing but she felt caught
between her parents that's what really bothers adolescents and young adults is when they feel caught are torn between their parents when children feel caught from between their parents a tug between different loyalties they love both of their parents right so they're trying to maintain these relationships and defend their parents in the presence parent in the presence of the other so it felt warmer there pair when
their parents are make the media Aries when they give them they make the messengers of information they're asking them to relate information they use inappropriate disclosures iniquity very very small things so for example the dad says on-again on Tuesday easy right the child goes to the month mom dad said I have a dentist appointment on Tuesday and the moms like what does this tell me that
what would your father ever talk to you tell your father he needs to talk to me who is a simple task turns into a child feeling because a unfortunately when children feel caught with a ten to do because it creates dissonance anxiety in their brains right so but unfortunately the way they settle that dissonance by forming an alliance with one parent against the other it'll mean
to do it it's just easier unfortunately so they might maintain a really close relationship with one parent but they lose the connection with the other I don't know how many quotes I got from students in these causes that said because of that one thing I lost a relationship with my mom or dad for three years it's never been the same so I'll also chilled respond when
they feel because they avoid they don't want to talk about it right so when the avoid the parents don't realize it exists very much so they keep on talking right the child keeps on avoiding so it's a vicious cycle sometimes the second reaction that they have is they become aggressive bright they mimic their parents in return the third thing they do is they directly confront the
parents a say look like you need to keep me out of this and that actually is the most to say it but that only comes with age because we tell our children don't talk back to your parents right so they're not gonna talk back to their parents usually but as they age they increase in their competence and their ability to %HESITATION earth they get efficacy I