Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The devastating effects of divorce on children

Monica Epperson's book, “A Heart with Two Homes,” covers the trauma of an early childhood with five fathers due to multiple divorces.

After listening to Monica Epperson’s story, most would say that she is a survivor. They would be wrong. Monica Epperson is an over-comer, a vivid example of how a child can overcome the trauma of divorce. Epperson’s story is particularly ompelling.

She was not a child of one divorce. The first divorce happened when she was only one year old. Four more would happen before she reached the age of 12. It is the sum of these experiences that led Epperson to write “A Heart With Two Homes” to help children living with divorce. Her personal experience has made her keenly aware of the issues and problems that children of divorce confront, and the impact it has on them.

One issue Epperson describes is the mistrust of men that developed at an early age, “The revolving door of men in my life deeply impacted my ability to trust them. My experiences as a child taught me that people you care about, especially men, leave. This just seemed normal to me.”

Another issue Epperson had to confront as a child of divorce was intimacy. “Attaching and detaching from men so frequently made me automatically self-protective and defensive,” she says. “You learn that you should not get close to someone because they’ll just leave and it will hurt you.”

Check out the rest of the article here.

No comments: