Therapists, teachers, and parents generally understand that the family transition of a divorce can be a significant challenge for a child. Divorce, separation, breakups, and family rearrangements affect all children because their worlds are reorganized. We know that schedules will be altered, living situations will be adjusted, and parents may be in conflict.

What is not as widely discussed is how these factors intersect with a child’s cultural background. Does the ethnic background of a family impact the beliefs around their changes in dynamic? How can this experience differ between groups? How can a play therapist consider the cultural stigmas and impacts on a changing family structure? How do we understand historical factors around blended families, values regarding marriage, self-blame for being a single parent, and shame around divorce or breakups?

Whitehead (1997) notes that culture for white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans in the United States shifted in the 1950s, and Americans began to focus on their individual interests rather than the collective. They started to recognize a personal sense of responsibility........

© Psychology Today