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Divorce And The Divorce Rate Essay

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Introduction In the last 25 years, divorce has become a major issue in American society. Since the turn of the century, the divorce rate has held steady between 4.0-3.2 divorces per 1000 people per year (National Vital Statistics System, 2015). With this rising divorce rate, more children are living between parents, or in single family homes, and many of these children have been exposed to altercations between parents, as well as rough custody battles and divorce settlements. Traumatic experiences like these are highly likely to stick with children of divorce throughout their life, especially if the child is older at the time of the divorce. Compared to children of divorced families, children of non-divorced families are not exposed to custody battles, divorce settlements, etc. Children of intact families are less likely to be exposed to traumatic experiences at a young age, thus keeping their lives stable and secure, while children of divorce are more likely to have an unstable life moving forward. Because of this, children of divorce are more likely to latch onto abusive behaviors throughout adolescent years, such as drug abuse. Since 2000, the drug use rate in America has risen to the highest it’s ever been. In a survey done in 2009, 8.7 percent of people age 12 and up said that they used illegal substances within a month of taking the survey, a 9 percent increase since 2008 (Abuse, National Institute on Drug, 2010). This statistic alone is very concerning due to

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