Effects of divorce on children's family drawings by children in two age groups.

Abstract

It is assumed that when a child draws his or her family, the child is actually drawing his or her perceptions of the family and the child's position within that structure. Omission of a family member in the family drawing may be associated with feelings of anger or rejection towards the omitted individual. When dealing with children whose parents are divorcing these feelings may be directed toward the parent who does not have primary custody. Primary custody is defined as the parent who shares residency with the child, and who takes care of the child's daily needs. Fifteen children in early latency (ages 5 to 8 years) and 15 children in late latency (age 9 to 13 years) were chosen at random from the files at Franklin County Mental Health Center in Ottawa, Kansas. This author was looking for files that contained a family drawing from children whose parents were separated or divorced within 3 to 18 months of the time of the drawing. Only those drawings that had each individual labeled were included in the study. It was hypothesized that the younger age group would omit the parent who does not have primary custody significantly more than the older age group. It was assumed that the medium of drawing would allow the younger children to express their feelings about the divorce or separation without fear of retaliation from the parents. A chi-square procedure was used to analyze the data. The results of the study did not support the hypothesis. The younger age group did not significantly omit the non-primary parent from the family drawing more than the older age group.