The process of parental divorce can cause many changes in children’s lives, behavior, emotions and their attachment to each parent. In the third grade, Dean‘s self-confidence took a hit, due to his parents’ divorce which affected his grades and his parent-child relationship. According to Petrov & Dafinoiu (2017), “Poor school performance, low self-esteem, behavior problems, distress and adjustment difficulties are associated with divorce”. During this stage of development, children have moments of insecurely and need a lot of encouragement from their parents. Children need to feel secure, safe, reassurance, encouraged or they will have difficulty concentrating on schoolwork, and have a lack of interest when this development stage is threatened.
Incorporating Erikson’s stage three of development, Dean’s parent’s divorce affected his ability to master this stage of development. According to Poole & Snarey (2011), “Children who fail to acquire the skills in this stage are left with a sense of guilt, self-doubt and lack of initiative”. The divorce impacted his attachment relationship with his mother, which affected his ability to build healthy relationships with others and difficulties with regulating his feelings. When boys share a strong bond with their mother it makes them feel secure, confident and emotionally strong. Dean has very little contact with his mother, which can cause a securely attached child to become insecure.
According to Yarnoz-Yaben (2010), “During childhood difficulties may arise in relation to the attachment parent that may undermine an individual’s confidence in their accessibility, threats of abandonment, loss of the attachment which can produce the greatest distress, both during childhood and at subsequent points of the life cycle”. However, things stabilized for Dean as he enters into adolescence development and is able to maintain a C average in his schoolwork.
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Adolescence is a time of exploration and self- finding; it’s the time which adolescence develops awareness and understanding of themselves. Dean is a sophomore and his behavior begins to change due to not experiencing having a girlfriend. In the boy’s locker room, his friends boast about having sexual relationships with girls, however, Dean has not developed any sexual feelings toward girls yet. When children attachment relationship is threatened they have difficulties trusting others and are unable to share their feelings because most of their emotions aren’t felt. In Erikson’s stage 4 development, children become competitive and want to do things that other children of the same age are doing. According to Poole & Snarey (2011), “When children make the effort to perform a task and succeed they will develop self-confidence, however; if they fail they tend to feel that they are inferior to others”.
Dean thinks that boys are gay if they don’t show interest in girls because of hearing his peers make this statement. Dean often feels that maybe the feelings will come if he has the opportunity to meet the right girl. According to Russell et al. (2009), “Erikson argued that paramount in adolescence is identity exploration, the optimal and result of which an assumption of a stable and enduring identity”. During this time Dean’s behavior changes, his attention is not focused on his classwork; he’s not connecting with his friends and starts drinking alcohol heavily while driving. He was sentenced to a six- week drug education program, assigned community services for being arrested for drinking and driving. According to Russell et al. (2009), “Adolescents who were actively engaged in identity exploration were more likely to produce a personality pattern characterized by self-doubt and confusion”.
