Difficulties experienced from the perspective of children of divorced parents: A phenomenological study

The objective of this study is to define the experiences of children of divorced parents as to divorce in a subjective and versatile manner.Phenomenological research method, one of the qualitative research methods has been utilized in the research. In-depth interviews were carried out with 15 children whose parents were divorced since at least 1 year within the purview of the research. The research group was selected through employment of purposeful and criteria based sampling method. Data collection tools utilized in the research included face-to-face interviews with children whose parents were divorced by usage of semi-structured interview forms, personal information form and pictures parents drawn by children of divorced parents after the interviews expressing how they feel about divorce. Face-to-face interviews conducted with children whose parents were divorced were recorded to voice recorders by written permission of their guardians and subsequently the audio recordings were deciphered. Content analysis, one of the qualitative data analysis methods was employed to analyze the data. The experiences of children of divorced parents as to divorce were collected under four main categories and 16 subcategories as a result of the content analysis. Sub-categories within the family life main category are as follows: (1) Change in life order, (2) Absence of someone to guide in child's life, (3) Lack of authority, (4) Wish of reuniting divorced parents. Sub-categories within the school life main category are as follows: (1) Negative effects on school achievement, (2) Shame and fear of exclusion. Sub-categories within the emotional life main category are as follows: (1) Anger, (2) Longing (3) Grief and Crying, (4) Fear, (5) Self-worthlessness, (6) One's feeling being responsible from divorce , (7) Exhibition of aggressive behaviors (bad temper), (8) Feeling good when sharing the situation with someone, (9) I will not have my children experience this. Sub-category within the social life main category is as follows: (1) Giving an end to social life. Research results have revealed the fact that post-divorce change in the child's family environment and life order the child is accustomed to have affected negatively the school life, social life and emotional life of the child. Most of the participants experienced changes in their life order which has affected their school life, emotional life and social life in a negative way. The negative effects of divorce also affect the school life and school success of the children. Feelings such as anger, grief, fear, longing, worthlessness, shame and exclusion subsequent to divorce created a negative impact on children in terms of focusing on their lessons in the school and they have experienced problems such as decrease in achievement in their lessons and adapting to school. Children of divorced parents have mentioned that sharing their experiences on divorce has comforted them and made them feel good. Children have stated that their social lives have been adversely affected from the divorce of their parents after of that this situation, they have become introvert and they have isolated themselves from the society. Children affected by adverse events during and subsequent to divorce have expressed that they would not desire their children to experience this. Keywords: Children of divorced parents, experiences as to the divorce process, school lives of children of divorced parents, phenomenological research.