Assignment 3

Abstract
This paper will describe the growing percentage of divorce in the United States
and some of the possible effects of divorce on children. Difficulties adjusting such as
lack of ability to regulate emotions and the creation of dysfunctional thoughts will be
described. This paper will propose a study to pursue an intervention using group
counseling within an elementary school setting to aid in the resolution of some of these
issues for children of divorce. The description of the study and the curriculum for the
group counseling sessions will be provided as well as implications for generalizability of
the data.

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Introduction
Divorce in our society has been a consistent nation-wide epidemic. As families
struggle to maintain some sense of normalcy during divorce, it is often the children of
divorce that suffer life-long consequences. Rich et al (2007) state that divorce rates in the
United States nearly doubled between 1966 and 1977 and now, close to 32% of children
live with unmarried parents. Carroll & Cowen (1985) support these statistics, adding that
nearly 1 million children in the United States face the divorce of their parents each year.
DeLucia-Waack & Gellman (2007) discuss the growing rates of divorce in our society,
stating that over 1 million divorces are granted each year in this country, and that over
30% of first marriages dissolve within 10 years. These authors also describe the negative
effects that divorce can have on a child under the age of 18. These negative effects
include maladjustment in school and at home, and increased likelihood of divorce
themselves.
DeLuciaWaack & Gellman (2007) state that children of divorce are more likely
to have difficulty adjusting in society, being consistently happy, creating relationships of
their own and having a healthy relationship with their parents. Carroll & Cowen (1985)
add that the high stress that divorce can put on a family may make the children of divorce
more susceptible for emotional and behavioral difficulties. A childs immediate reactions
to their parents divorce may include sadness, anger, increased anxiety and depression.
Although some children may resolve these emotions within a reasonable amount of time
following the divorce, some children may reach adulthood still struggling with how to

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process the divorce. For these children who have difficulty coping with the divorce of
their parents, developing relationships of their own may be difficult as well as developing
a healthy psyche as they grow into adolescence and adulthood. Kurdek & Berg (1987)
describe the possible effect of divorce of a childs cognitive thought process. Following a
divorce, children may experience dysfunctional thoughts regarding the divorce including
impressions of abandonment, self-blame, irrational thoughts regarding reconciliation of
the family, and believing that good behavior on their part will result in parental
reunification. Because of these severe issues that can occur as a result of experiencing
their parents divorce, an effective intervention must be found for these children.
Alpert-Gillis et al (1989) state that group counseling with children of divorce can
be particularly effective. The group setting encourages the emotional regulation and skill
building that many children need following this loss. The group counseling setting also
provides a uniquely supportive environment that children may not experience with
individual counseling. Creative tasks such as art therapy and games in the group
environment may help lower childrens anxiety levels while increasing their self-esteem.
Carroll & Cowen (1985) support this research and add that in past studies, children
participating in these types of groups have shown increased self-confidence and an
improved self-concept. Alpert Gillis et al (1989) add to the benefits demonstrated by
group counseling with children of divorce by stating that following a group counseling
intervention, the children in the group demonstrated more rational beliefs about their
parents divorce and a higher level of coping skills. Although the current research for the
use of group counseling for children of divorce demonstrates a positive relationship
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between the development of coping skills, emotional regulation, increased self-esteem
and improved self-concept, additional research should be conducted regarding group
therapy a an intervention for the irrational and dysfunctional beliefs that children develop
regarding their parents divorce.
Methods
Subjects
For the purposes of this study, criterion sampling ok will be used to select
participants. The researchers will contact school counselors in 10 elementary schools
within the Lake Washington School District, Bellevue School District and Northshore
School District, and with their cooperation, become connected with a minimum of 100
students. The mixed gender sample must include children between 2nd and 5th grade who
have parents that are divorced or in the process of divorcing. The parents or guardians of
these selected children will be contacted and given information about the research study
that will be happening shortly within their elementary schools. As soon as all the families
have been contacted and given permission for their children to participate in the study,
the children will be randomly assigned into two groups, an experimental group and a
control group.
As each of the group counseling sessions will be held at the elementary schools,
there should be a minimum of 3 participants per school to ensure consistency across all
the elementary groups. This form of sampling technique will be used because of practical
reasons. As the goal of the study is to investigate the efficacy of group counseling on
childrens perceptions of divorce, it is important that the children who are in the groups
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have all experienced divorce. Some possible sample biases include: First, if the
counselor does not know the child is experiencing divorce at home, they will not be
selected, and second, the counselor may only suggest participants that they think would
benefit from the counseling sessions.
Instruments
As this study will examine interventions that decrease dysfunctional beliefs that
children experience after parental divorce, the instrument used as the post-test will be The
Childrens Beliefs about Parental Divorce Scale, created by L.A. Kurdek and B. Berg in
1987. This 36-item survey was adapted from the original Childrens Beliefs about
Parental Separation Scale. This measure uses 36 yes/no questions to examine six types
of problematic thoughts following divorce. These subscales include: Peer Ridicule and
Avoidance, Paternal Blame and Maternal Blame, Fear of Abandonment, and Hope of
Reunification. The instructions for the scoring of the measure state that if a child answers
yes on questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14-20, 22, 23, 27, 29, 30, 35, 36, or the child
responds with a no on questions 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 21, 24-26, 28, 31-34, they have
indicated that they are experiencing problematic or dysfunctional thoughts in regards to
their parents divorce. The measure is scored by adding up the number of problematic
belief responses that the child has selected. The higher the score, the greater the level of
dysfunctional beliefs about divorce. The subjects for whom this test was designed were
children and adolescents ages 6 through 17 who had experienced a parental divorce in the
previous two years. Kurdek & Berg (1987) state that the subscales of this scale were
created based upon the questions in the Childrens Beliefs about Parental Separation
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Scale as well as Gardners (1976) research stating that childrens problematic beliefs
about divorce may include lack of connection with peers, feeling the need to hold their
family together, believing that reconciliation is possible, and feelings of abandonment.
To examine the validity of this tool, Kurdek & Berg (1987), compared the tool to
other similar scales examining childrens levels of anxiety, self-esteem, peer
relationships, and teacher ratings of behavioral outburst and emotional regulation. In the
initial study examining the CBAPS, the relationship between percentage of problematic
beliefs expressed on this scale related closely to those children who had poor selfconcepts, high levels of anxiety and low social support from peers. Re-test data across 9
weeks among 30 middle school students demonstrated moderate reliability. Kurdek &
Berg (1987) state that the problematic beliefs expressed by the participants were not
strongly correlated with the teacher and parent ratings, making a self-rating scale such as
the CBAPD increasingly important in future studies examining childrens beliefs about
their parents divorce. ok
Research Design
This study will follow a Randomized-to-Groups Posttest-Only Design.ok After
the sample selection is complete, the children within the sample will be randomly
assigned into groups. The experimental group will participate in 6 weeks of weekly 30minute group counseling sessions while the control group will not. The researcher will
work with the counselor at each school to contact all of the students in the experimental
group and schedule a weekly meeting time that will remain consistent throughout the six
weeks. Each week the children will participate in group counseling sessions that employ
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group discussions, narrative activities and art activities to help the children focus on the
emotional and cognitive processing portion of coping with their parents divorce. For the
purposes of consistency, one leader is chosen from the team of researchers to conduct the
group counseling sessions at the elementary schools. Listed below are the activities
implemented during each group counseling session.
Session 1: The children are introduced to the group leader, each other and their purpose
for being there. The leader will explain that this group is a safe place to talk about the
separation and divorce of our parents and explain the idea of confidentiality. They will
then provide paper and markers and the children will work for the remainder of the
session on an art therapy activity where they draw what their home and family look like.
Children may choose to share what they have drawn with the group.
Session 2: This session will involve an art narrative activity where the children tell the
story of how they have processed this change in their family. Children should be
encouraged to draw whatever they want to show the progression of their emotions during
this time.
Session 3: This session will be devoted to increasing self-confidence. The children will
practice giving compliments to one another and then turn those received compliments
into praises for themselves. The goal is to help the children recognize their strengths and
improve their positive self-talk. ?? I would suggest that you look at Martin Seligmans
research on learned helplessness, optimism, and attributions. There is good information
in his work on getting children and adults to rewrite how they attribute successes and
failures internally vs. externally
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Session 4: This session will be a continuation of session 3. This day will involve taking
the positive compliments and self-talk they practiced the week before and turning these
into a two or three-sentence song. The purpose of this session is to give them a tool to
continue to improve their self-concept after leaving the counseling session.
Session 5: The purpose of this session is to give the children tools to improve
communication with their parents. The counselor will implement an art therapy
technique and have each child illustrate what their relationship looks like with their
parent or parents. They will then use group discussion techniques to talk about each
picture and any conflicts that are present within these relationships.
Session 6: This last session will be completely devoted to closing the group and having
the children fill out the post-test.
During the last ten minutes of the 6th counseling session, the children in the
groups will complete the Childrens Beliefs about Parental Divorce Scale for the
purposes of the post-test. On that same day, the children in the control groups will be
called out of their classrooms to complete the same scale for the purposes of examining
the impact of the intervention.
To attempt to reduce any threat to internal validity, the researchers have created
several controls within the research design. First, the length of the study is such that it
lowers the risk of history or maturation as a threat to internal validity.ok To combat the
threat of instrumentation, one leader will be chosen within the research team to lead all
the groups and the research team will aim to ensure that all group-meeting locations are

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similar in appearance and size. Lastly, to avoid subject attrition, parents and teachers will
be notified and given information about the study and its short duration. ok
Because of the sample and the environment there are several limits to external
validity. Although the three school districts represent a wide diversity of socioeconomic
statuses and cultures, it is a relatively small geographical region.yes-good Because of this
factor, generalizability of the study can only be applied to families of similar cultures and
SES. In addition because all the group counseling sessions were completed in public
elementary schools, generalizability is limited if the results are compared to groups in
private schools or group counseling outside the school setting.
Results
In this study there are only two groups being analyzed. In this case the
independent variable is nominal and the dependent variable is measured using intervals.
Because of these factors, a t-test will be used to analyze the collected data.
All Tables need a table number and a title.
Student

Mean

Groups

Standard

Standard

Deviation

Error of
Mean

Experimental 50

20

1.5

0.212

Control

33

0.424

50

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P < .001
t = 27.4 you need a t test table like the ones we have been seeinh in class
The statistically significant results of this data indicate the possibility that this
group counseling intervention may help children, grades 2 through 5, in resolving
dysfunctional thoughts associated with parental divorce. As there was random
assignment of the sample into the experimental group and the control group, there is an
increased likelihood that the intervention is responsible for the difference of the collected
data between the two groups. Because the sample only address 2nd to 5th grade students
who had experienced divorce, further research should be conducted to examine to
efficacy of this form of treatment with younger children and adolescents.

-2 as noted for results, otherwise a good paper!

References
Alpert-Gillis, L. J., Pedro-Carroll, J. L., & Cowen, E. L. (1989). The Children of Divorce
Intervention Program: Development, implementation, and evaluation of a
program for young urban children. Journal Of Consulting And Clinical
Psychology, 57(5), 583-589. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.57.5.583
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Delucia-Waack, J. L., & Gellman, R. A. (2007). The efficacy of using music in children
of divorce groups: Impact on anxiety, depression, and irrational beliefs about
divorce. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, And Practice, 11(4), 272-282. doi:
10.1037/1089-2699.11.4.272
Kurdek, L. A., & Berg, B. (1987). Children's Beliefs About Parental Divorce Scale:
Psychometric characteristics and concurrent validity. Journal Of Consulting And
Clinical Psychology, 55(5), 712-718. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.55.5.712
Pedro-Carroll, J. L., & Cowen, E. L. (1985). The Children of Divorce Intervention
Program: An investigation of the efficacy of a school-based prevention program.
Journal Of Consulting And Clinical Psychology, 53(5), 603-611. doi:
10.1037/0022-006X.53.5.603
Rich, B., Molloy, P., Hart, B., Ginsberg, S., & Mulvey, T. (2007). Conducting a children's
divorce group: One approach. Journal Of Child And Adolescent Psychiatric
Nursing, 20(3), 163-175. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6171.2007.00107.x

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