Parental Divorce And Its Impacts On Children’s Wellbeing In Mizan-Aman Town South West Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was aimed at assessing the impacts of parental divorce on the well-being of children in Mizan-Aman Town. To attain the aim, the study employed cross-sectional survey design. And in the process of sampling simple random and stratified sampling were employed. Both primary and secondary source of data were used and both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis were applied. To collect the data both open and close ended questioner, key informant interview, in-depth interview and FGD were employed. To this end the Qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis, and the quantitative one was analyzed by using spss (stastical package for social science). Based on the finding of the study children from such family are vulnerable for different inter-related and interconnected problems like social problem which include impact on their relation with their parents specially with their non-custodial parent, academic achievement and the economic impact are lack of financial support for the major expense including food, shelter, education and other basic needs of the children. In terms of the emotional or the psychological impact children level of satisfaction, losing of most important person in their life, and their feeling about themselves was measured. The finding show that most children wear not satisfied with what they have got after divorce and half of the respondents in the study feel that they lose the most important person in their life and parental divorce also negatively affects children’s perception about themselves. The finding concludes that conclusion parental divorce has inter-related problem on the overall well-being of children including the social, economic and psychological problem and finally the study recommended that pre-marital education and counseling service should provide for the spouse before their marriage in order to reduce the reat of divorce and its impact on children, and also encourage joint custody of their children after the occurrence of the problem to reduce or minimize the problem.