Hélder Silva Raposo
Mestrando em Psicologia Clínica da Universidade do Minho (UM), Portugal
Barbara Fernandes de Carvalho Figueiredo
Doutora pela UM, professora-associada do Departamento de Psicologia da UM, coordenadora da Unidade dos Estudos do Divórcio e Intervenção da UM.
Diogo Jorge Pereira do Vale Lamela
Doutorando no Programa Doutoral em Psicologia Clínica da UM, professor-assistente na Escola Superior de Educação de Viana do Castelo, Portugal
Rui Alexandre Nunes-Costa, Maria Conceição Castro, Joana Prego
Mestrando em Psicologia Clínica da Universidade do Minho (UM), Portugal
Abstract:
Objective: Current theoretical and empirical evidences about the impact and the factors associated with the impact of parents’ separation/divorce in children’s adjustment were related and examined. Method: An aggregative literature review was made, using the keywords “divorce adjustment”, “child divorce” e “divorce impact”, from the databases JSTOR, PsycInfo, SciELO, and Medline and from reference books. Results: Child unadaptive and adaptive responses are described, as well as potential positive results. Mediators and moderators factors of the impact of parents’ separation/divorce in children’s adjustment often referenced in literature are mainly discussed. Among these are: characteristics of children, financial problems, parents’ psychopathological symptoms, quality of parenting practices and inter-parental conflict. Discussion: Based on the existing results, and considering the divorce as a developmental transition, we put a hypothesis that adjustment problems showed by children’s of divorce can be better explained by other factors than the divorce/separation by itself. Finally we assume a conceptual innovation that this familiar transition can represent a growth opportunity and developmental promotion.
Keywords:Adjustment, children, divorce, co-parenting, inter-parental conflict.