Gareth Manning, Gleaner Writer

With divorce becoming a growing answer to marital problems for couples, there is grave concern over its impact on the family's most vulnerable - children.

Yesterday The Sunday Gleaner reported that the country's divorce rate had jumped by 30 per cent between 1996 and 2005, with most couples splitting up after being married anywhere from a few months to 14 years, according to the national demographic statistics.

Divorce is often traumatic forchildren, experts say, triggering a number of negative psychological and social responses that can last into adulthood.

Marriage therapist Joan Latty says that, among the common issues divorce creates, is a vicious cycle of bad relationships for these children. When they become adults, she explained, they too often go through a series of bad relationships that sometimes end in divorce.

"They went through the pain and the hurt and the emotional trauma during their childhood, seeing what is taking place in that family, seeing how the issues were resolved, hearing the quarrels and trying to not end up in this cycle. But the cycle just comes around and many end up in it," she said.

She says children often do not receive counselling, which could set off alarm bells on trauma and other psychological pain.

"Most times they don't receive counselling and it would help them to work through issues and help them to come to a place where they develop strategies so that it doesn't happen again," she said.

Latty said children usually do not undergo counselling, unable to recognise deep-seated trauma. She added that parents and teachers often do not realise the toll divorce has on children and sometimes dismiss their behaviour as rudeness or absent-mindedness.

Guilt trip

"Children go through a grief process. Because they witnessed the loss of their parents right before their very eyes, they tend to take on a guilt trip because of feelings that they had something to do with the parents divorcing," she explained.

Latty says some children are so traumatised by parental break-ups that they become antisocial.

"They can go to the point where they become drug addicts, they can really have a problem with learning. They can become abusive themselves or they get attracted to self-defeating practices in an effort to cope," she said.