Parental death or divorce and the school adjustment of young children

This study examined the effects of two potentially crisis-producing experiences, parental divorce or death, on the school adjustment of young children. Children with such "crisis" histories were found to show greater overall school maladaptation than children without such histories. Children of divorce had significantly more acting-out problems than noncrisis controls or death children and those with histories of parental death more serious shy-anxious problems than the other groups. These effects were stable across (a) independent year samples, (b) referred and "normal" nonreferred groups, and (c) urban and rural samples. Differential judgments about the competencies of children who have experienced parental divorce, death, or neither were also found. Divorce children were seen as having fewer competencies than death children or noncrisis controls. The association between specific crisis history and specific school adjustment patterns is seen to have implications for the study of coping with stressful life events and for preventive efforts.