Divorce can have a different impact on young children and adolescents than on adults.

What I can do is attempt to distinguish some general ways in which children (up to and including the age of 8 or 9) frequently react to parental divorce from the ways in which adolescents (beginning around the ages of 9-13) frequently respond. Please keep in mind that I am referring to trends rather than absolutes.

Divorce brings about a significant shift in the lives of both children and adults, regardless of their age. Witnessing the loss of love between parents, having parents break their marriage commitment, adjusting to living in two different households, and the daily absence of one parent while living with the other all combine to create a difficult new family situation in which to live and grow up. The divorce of the parents marks a watershed moment in the life of the boy or girl in question. It is clear that the life that follows is significantly different from the life that preceded it.

If the child or adolescent is still in childhood or has just entered adolescence, the reactions to this traumatic turn of events will be somewhat different. The bottom line is that divorce tends to intensify the child's dependence while simultaneously expediting the adolescent's independence; it frequently causes a more regressive response in the child while simultaneously eliciting a more aggressive response in the adolescent. Consider the reasons for this possible variation.

In the world of a child, he or she is dependent on his or her parents, who are favored companions. The child's world is heavily reliant on parental care, with the family serving as the primary center of one's social life. In the adolescent world, people are becoming more independent, more separated and distant from their parents, more self-sufficient, and friends have replaced family members as the primary source of their social life. The major locus of one's social life has shifted away from the family and into a larger world of life experience.

For young children, divorce shatters their confidence in their ability to rely on their parents, who are now acting in an extremely unreliable manner. When they do this, they surgically divide the family unit into two different households, between which the child must learn to transition back and forth. This creates unfamiliarity, instability, and insecurity in the child for a period of time, as he or she is never able to spend time with one parent without spending time with the other.

Convincing a young child of the permanence of divorce can be difficult when his intense longing fantasizes that somehow, someway, mom and dad will be living together again someday is accompanied by intense longing fantasies. To cope with the pain of separation, he resorts to wishful thinking, holding out hope for a parental reunion for a much longer period of time than the adolescent, who is more willing to accept the finality of this unwelcome family transformation. Consequently, when parents participate together in special family celebrations and holiday events in order to recreate family closeness for their children, they are only feeding the child's fantasy and delaying his or her adjustment.

The short-term reaction of a dependent child to a divorce can be one of anxiety. So much is new, different, unpredictable, and unknown that life becomes filled with frightening questions like "What is going to happen next?" and "How will I know what to do?" "Who is going to look after me?" "Can my parents lose love for each other if they can lose love for each other?" I wonder. "What if I lose both of my parents as a result of one parent moving out?" When children respond to worry questions with their worst fears, the result can be a regressive response.

It is possible that by returning to a previous mode of operation, more parental caretaking will be provided. Separation anxiety, crying at bedtime, failure to complete toilet training, bed-wetting, clinging, whining, tantrums, and a temporary loss of established self-care skills are all symptoms that can necessitate parental intervention and require parental attention.

Read also effects of divorce on teenage sons at https://howtomakeamanloveyou.org/effects-of-divorce-on-teenage-sons

The child wishes to feel more connected in a family situation in which there has been a significant disconnection between the parents. A child's return to a previous dependency can be an attempt to elicit parental concern, bringing them closer together after a divorce has distanced them from one another—the resident parent is now busier and more preoccupied, and the absent parent is simply less available because he or she is no longer present.

In general, the more independent-minded adolescent responds more aggressively to divorce, often reacting in a hysterical, rebellious manner, more determined to disregard family discipline and take care of himself because his parents have failed to uphold the promises they made to the family when they first got together.

Whereas the child may have attempted to win back his or her parents, the adolescent may attempt to exact revenge on them. It is the adolescence who has a grievance where the child had grief: "If they can't be trusted to stay together and take care of the family, then I need to start relying more on myself." I believe that if they can break their marriage and put themselves first, then I can put myself first as well. If they're not bothered by the prospect of hurting me, I'm not bothered by the prospect of hurting them."

Now, the adolescent can act aggressively to take control of his life by behaving even more distantly and defiantly, more determined to live his life his way, and more dedicated to his own self-interest than he was previously able to demonstrate. In a family environment that he perceives as disjointed, he feels increasingly independent. He now feels more empowered and entitled to take independent action.