The Impact of Divorce on Children from the Structural Balance Perspective
When a couple get a divorce, they have to figure out who gets legal custody of their children, and who gets physical custody of their children. In this post, I am solely going to be focusing on the aspect of physical custody of the children. For the first part of my analysis of the physical custody, I am also going to focus on the scenario where there is only 1 child in the family. For the second part of my analysis of the physical custody, I will be analyzing the situation where there are many children in a family.
There are two types of physical custody that parents can agree on, which are: sole physical custody or joint physical custody (Source 1). Joint physical custody means that the child will be maintain regular contact with both parents, whereas sole physical custody means that the child will permanently stay with their “custodial” parent, and their “non-custodial” parent are allowed to schedule regular visits(Source 1). This connected with the concept of the structural balance property, which states that: “For every set of three nodes, if we consider the three edges connecting them, either all three of these edges are labeled +, or else exactly one of them is labeled +.” To start off connecting the different physical custody scenario with the structural balance property, we will first rule out the case where there are three nodes, with three positive edges, because I am working on the assumption that the divorce only occurred because there exists a negative edge between the parents (for this hypothetical case, between two of the nodes). In the next scenario, there are three nodes, and there exists two positive edges with one negative edge. According to the structural balance theory, this is an unbalanced structure, and this means that there are tension within the relationships of this structure and that the people within this structure will try to minimize/resolve the sources of tension. This connects to the case where there is joint physical custody of the child by the parents, because when the child maintains positive relationship with both of the parents, and there exists a negative relationship between the parents, the child would want the parents to reconcile their relationship, or in the flip case, both parents would want the child to side with them, and this clearly illustrates that there is a tension that exists due to the unbalanced structure of this relationship. In high-conflict divorces, the child would be trapped between the “emotional conflict zone” of the two parents because in these cases both parents really dislike each other, but they are tied together because of the “+” relationship that they have with their child, and this would only induce more stress for the child, as the child would often have to pick sides between the parents. Back to the structural balance property, in the case where there are three nodes, and there exists three negative edges between all of the nodes, this structure is unbalanced, because there would exist the opportunity for two nodes to team up to try to take on the third node. Back to the physical custody of the child example, in the case where there are negative relationships between the parents and negative relationships between the child and both parents, this case would be unbalanced, because most of the time, the child is still young and is unable to care for themself, thus there needs to exists a positive connect between one of the parents and the child, so that the child is taken care of. This brings me to the last scenario, where there are three nodes and there exists a positive relationship between two of the nodes and two negative relationships between the third node and the two nodes that have a positive relationship. In this scenario, the structure is balanced according to the structural balance property, and we can see that reflect in the physical custody example. In the case where there exists a positive relationship between the child and one of the parent, and they both have a negative relationship with the second parent, the child and the parent who the child has a positive relationship with can rely on one another for support again the second parent. Since the second parent has a negative relationship with the first parent and the child, there is not tension that exists between all of the relationships urging a member of this family to change their relationship with another member of this family to make the structure stable. Additionally, the child will have a parent to care for, thus there is again structural balance in this scenario.
In this part, I am going to analyze the courts choice to try to keep all of the siblings together when parents file for divorce, in the best interest of the children. The main reason why courts try to keep children together during divorce is because children already have to go through a lot when their parents go through a divorce, so for most cases (unless in extenuating circumstances), the courts try to keep siblings together so that they can rely on one another as support structures(Source 2). Several studies have shown that during divorces, the relationship of siblings tend to grow closer after a divorce because they have to go through the same experiences together(Source 3). The decision of the courts to keep siblings together is actually backed by the structural balance theorem that we learned in class. According to the structural balance theorem: “If a complete graph is balanced, then either (1) All edges are +, or (2) The nodes can be divided into two groups X and Y so that all of the nodes in group X have positive relationships with one another, all of the nodes in group Y have positive relationships with one another, and all of the nodes in group X have negative relationships with all of the nodes in group Y.” In the case where there are families with multiple children, it would be the best for all of the children to side with one parent, because siblings tend to grow closer and rely on one another when their parents are going through a divorce (this means that I am working with the assumption that there exists positive relationships between all of the children), and if we split the children between the two parents, it would mean that the structural balance theorem would be violated because if each of the parent are in two separate groups and the children are split between the parents, that means that there would be positive edges between the two groups, thus the structure would not be balance. In the case where all of the children are grouped together and are assigned to either the group with the first parent, or the group with the second parent, this would means that all of the children have positive relationship with one another, and they would also all have a positive relationship with the parent that they are grouped with, and the other parents would be in a group by themselves, and there would exists negative relationships between all of the children and the parent that they are assigned to, and the second parent. This scenario would satisfy the structural balance theorem, which means that this structure is balance, thus justifying why the courts/judges tend to keep siblings together. Allowing siblings to be together instead of separated would allow the children to get the feeling that they are not alone and that they can rely on other another to get through these tough times, thus helping with minimizing the amount of stress that they experience instead of maximizing the amount of stress that the children experience why their parents are going through a divorce.
Sources:
- (Source 1) The following source explains the different kinds of physical and legal custody when parents get a divorce.
- (Source 2) The following source explains that in most cases children of parents who are filing for a divorce are kept together for their own best interest
- (Source 3) The following source explains the importance of siblings being kept together when parents are divorced