The study gained data through interviews with children across America who had been faced with their parent's separation. The children were interviewed three times during the study, the first when they were aged 5-11, the second when aged 12-16 and the third when aged 18-22. The data in the study made for interesting reading. No mal-effects could be seen in the first two interviews, right through the adolescence of the children, however from the third and final interview some interesting statistics came about. 65% had poor relationships with their fathers which they directly linked with their mother gaining their custody following the divorce and 35% had a negative relationship with their mothers following their father gaining custody. It should be noted however that the reasons given for these poor relationships were mainly due to a dysfunctionality in their relationship, eg. the parent without custody not giving monetary support. Also in the final interview 40% admitted to having received psychological help and 25% had dropped out of high school. Also worth noting is that when the interviewed the final time many participants claimed that they had lacked the emotional maturity to realise the implications of their parent's divorce in the previous interviews. The researchers in the study theorized that three factors influenced whether the child would suffer effects, these were the sex of the child, the age of the child, and whether remarriage occurred with whoever gained custody of the child. Also they commented that their data seemed to imply that children under the age of 6 were at more of a risk of short term effects then those older and that older children did not see the effects until the end of adolescence. The time around the age of 6 is seen as critical in a child's development. (Santrock, 2010).
The study published by Zill et al in 1993 was not unique; many subsequent studies show that many children from divorced families suffered mal effects as a result of the separation (Santrock, 2010) and studies have shown that children experience substantial distress following divorce (McIntosh, Burke, Dour & Gridley, 2008).
