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This article was downloaded by: [Central Michigan University]On: 19 December 2014, At: 21:36Publisher: Taylor & FrancisInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T3JH, UK
Journal of DivorcePublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wzjd20
Group Counseling Children ofDivorceMargaret Crosbie-Burnett PhD a & Laurel L.Newcomer MA ba Assistant Professor, Department of CounselingPsychology and Counselor Education, University ofWisconsin, Madison, Madison, WIb school counselor, Delavan, WIPublished online: 25 Oct 2008.
To cite this article: Margaret Crosbie-Burnett PhD & Laurel L. Newcomer MA (1990)Group Counseling Children of Divorce, Journal of Divorce, 13:3, 69-78, DOI: 10.1300/J279v13n03_06
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J279v13n03_06
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Group Counseling Children of Divorce: The Effects of a Multimodal Intervention
Margaret Crosbie-Burnett Laurel L. Newcomer
ABSTRACT. The effects of a multirnodal group counseling inter- vention on children's beliefs about divorce, depression, and self- concept were tested with sixth graders. The experimental group im- proved significantly on beliefs, depression, and some aspects of self-concept.
It is estimated that forty-three percent of the children born in 1983 will experience parental divorce by the time the child reaches the age of eighteen (Garanzini, 1984). The negative effects of pa- rental divorce on children's lives, including school performance and adjustment, is well documented (Felner, Ginter, Boike, & Cowen, 1981; Hetherington, Cox & Cox, 1985; Hodges & Bloom, 1984; NAESP, 1980; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980; Wallerstein, 1983). School-based group counseling would seem to be an ap- propriate way of minimizing the effects of divorce on children for several reasons. First, children whose families would not seek counseling for financial or social reasons could receive help in schools. Second, because of the magnitude of the social phenome- non of divorce and its effects, counseling children in groups rather than individually would be efficient (Kalter, Pickar, & Lesowitz,
Margaret Crosbie-Burnett, PhD, is a n Assis~ant Professor, Department of Counseling Psychology and Counselor Education, University of Wisconsin, Mad- ison, WI. Laurel L. Newcomer, MA, is a school counselor in Delavan, WI.
Journal of Divorce, Vol. 13(3) 1990 0 1990 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 69
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1984). Third, as children mature, they increasingly look to their peers, rather than adults, for validation and support. Through the group experience, children can see peers as coping models, discov- ering that the experience of parental divorce is survivable (Sonnen- shein-Schneider & Baird, 1980). Fourth, because there is an inter- action between the child's emotional, social, and academic development, it seems appropriate for schools to address problems that may hamper a child's learning (Cantor, 1977).
Due to the potential that group counseling interventions within schools have in addressing the needs of children of divorce, there is a growing number of reports of such groups in the literature, but few that are specifically targeted for the early adolescent popula- tion. The group models that were designed to include this age group and were tested with experimental designs are: Hinton (1984), An- derson, Kinney, and Gerler (1984), Stolberg and Garrison (1985), Pedro-Carroll and Cowen (1985), and Roseby and Deutsch (1985). All of the various methods used in these five studies successfully changed children's maladaptive beliefs and attitudes about their parents' separation or divorce. The interventions which were multi- modal (Anderson et al.) and self-control focused (Pedro-Carroll & Cowen; Stolberg & Garrison) achieved improvements in competent behaviors. The one study which measured anxiety (Pedro-Carroll & Cowen) found a reduction postintervention, but the only study to measure depression (Roseby & Deutsch) found no significant change. Measures of self-concept have shown mixed results; the study which devoted the most time to impulse control, anger con- trol, and communication skills (Stolberg & Garrison) was success- ful at improving self-concept, whereas the other two studies which measured self-concept (Hinton; Pedro-Carroll & Cowen) found no change.
The present study was designed to explore the effectiveness of a new school-based multimodal group intervention for early adoles- cents in changing divorce-related cognitions, depression, and self- concept. It was hypothesized that the intervention would decrease children's maladaptive attitudes and beliefs about parental divorce, decrease depression, and improve self-concept.
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Matgoret Crosbie-Bumett and Laurel L. Newcomer 71
METHOD
Subjects
The subjects for this study were eleven sixth grade students from a small, rural school district in Wisconsin; the district has an enroll- ment of approximately 1500 students. The four girls and seven boys represent 9 percent of the sixth grade class and 31 percent of the total number (n = 35) of children who currently live in single- parent or stepfamilies in the sixth grade. Time since parental sepa- ration/divorce varied from one month to four years.
Instruments
Subjects completed three self-report instruments as pre- and post- test measures of change. These instruments are the Self-Perception Profile for Children (Harter, 1985), the Children's Beliefs about Parental Divorce Scale (Kurdek and Berg, 1986), and the Child Depression Scale (Reynolds, in press).
The Self-Perception Profile (Harter, 1985) is a self-report scale devised to tap third through eighth grade children's judgments of their competency or adequacy in five domain-specific areas (scho- lastic competence, societal acceptance, athletic competence, physi- cal appearance, and behavioral conduct), as well as a global percep- tion of their self-worth. Internal consistency reliability is based on Cronbach's Alpha and yields subscale reliabilities ranging from .71 to .86.
The Children's Beliefs About Paiental Divorce Scale (CBAPD) (Kurdek and Berg, 1986) is a 36-item self-report scale for assessing children's dysfunctional beliefs regarding parental divorce. It has been tested children ages 6-17, and it is a revision of Kurdek and Berg's 70-item scale. This scale can be seen as a measure of chil- dren's appraisal or reasoning about their parents' divorce and as such can be used to assess the cognitive changes that may take place as a result of the group intervention. The CBAPD contains six sub- scales with six items in each scale. The scales are peer ridicule and avoidance, paternal blame, fear of abandonment, maternal blame, hope of reunification, and self blame. Internal consistency of the
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scale has been measured by Cronbach's Alpha, which yielded cor- relations of about .80 for the entire measure. Test-retest reliability for the entire scale resulted in an r = .65.
The Child Depression Scale (CDS) (Reynolds, 1987) measures depressive symptomology in 8-13 year olds. The CDS is a 30-item self-report scale. High internal consistency reliability of the test has been found with coefficient Alphas ranging from .86 -.91. Validity of the CDS has been demonstrated by comparisons with other self- report measures of children's depression. These include the Chil- dren's Depression Inventory, which yielded correlations in the .68- .72 range, teacher ratings of children's depression, which yielded correlations in the .33 -.40 range, and clinical interviews of de- pressed children using the Children's Depression Rating Scale-Re- vised (CDRS-R), which yielded a correlation of .64.
Procedure
Two counselors in the district were co-leaders of a classroom guidance activity entitled "Family Change" (Crosbie-Burnett & Newcomer, in press) which was completed in one session in each of the five sixth grade classrooms. This provided some pre-divorce crisis coping skills to all students and also attempted to normalize the divorce experience by reframing it as one form of family change. At the end of the classroom discussion, sign-up sheets were distributed to all students with the instruction to indicate whether or not they were interested in participating in a small group to discuss in more depth any difficulties they may be having with a parental separation or divorce.
Once all the sign-up sheets had been collected, the two coun- selors arranged individual interviews for all children (n = 18) who had shown an interest in participating in the small group sessions. In the interview, each child was given information about the for- mat, goals, and number of sessions of the group intervention. They were provided answers to any questions they had, and, if they were still interested in participating and the counselor believed the group would be appropriate for them, they were given a parental permis- sion slip to have signed. Those who were not considered appropri- ate were children who were not from divorcedJseparated families
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Margaret Crosbie-Bwnett and Laurel L. Newcomer 73
and who had misunderstood the nature of the group when it was explained in class. Four children chose not to participate when they learned more about the time required for participation or because they did not return a signed parental permission letter.
The eleven subjects were divided into two groups by a stratified (by sex) random procedure, to insure equal distribution of boys and girls. There were six students in the experimental or treatment group and five in the wait list control group with a maletfemale ratio of 4:2 and 3:2 respectively. The groups were co-facilitated by two counselors, a male and a female. Each of the six sessions lasted 44 minutes, the length of the students' lunch break. (Lunches were eaten during the sessions.) Originally designed for eight sessions, the intervention was condensed into six, due to time constraints in the school.
Group Counseling Intervention
The small group counseling intervention (Crosbie-Burnett & Newcomer, in press) was specifically developed for children who have already experienced parental separation andlor divorce. Al- though the intervention was based on a composite of group inter- ventions for children of divorce, it was mainly derived from an eight session multimodal intervention format developed by Green (1978), who organized seven modes of human behavior into a uni- fied framework by employing the acronym of HELPING. This ac- ronym had been used first by Keat (1974) in the development of his multimodal approach to counseling. The letters in HELPING stand for: H-Health, E-Emotions, L-Learning, P-Personal relationships, I-Image, N-Need to know correct information, G-Guidance of actions, behaviors, and consequences. By organizing the sessions in this way, the counselor can be assured of providing attention to the many areas of a child's life that divorce may affect.
RESULTS
Pre- and post-data were collected for all eleven subjects on the Children's Beliefs about Parental Divorce Scale (CBAPD), the Child Depression Scale (CDS), and the Self-Perception Scales. Pre-
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intervention scores were compared, using the t-test for independent samples, to assess any significant differences between the experi- mental and control groups prior to the intervention. No significant differences were found.
Comparison of the mean of the pre-test data with the mean of the post-test data for each group was tested with the t-test for correlated groups. This procedure is more appropriate than comparison of change scores between the two groups, because (1) change scores compound any lack of reliability in the pre-test and the post-test, and (2) change scores are contaminated by their correlation with the pre-scores and are, therefore, a distorted measure of change (Cohen & Cohen, 1983). The pre-post comparisons of the experimental group showed significant differences in the expected direction on the CBAPD (pre-test mean = 19.7; post-test mean = 14.3) and the CDS (pre-test mean = 55.7; post-test mean = 53.3); pre-post com- parisons of the control group showed no change on these measures. Three of the Self-perception subscales showed significant dif- ferences: Scholastic Competence (pre-test mean = 2.5; post-test mean = 2.7) and Athletic Competence (pre-test mean = 2.7; post- test mean = 3.2) improved significantly for the experimental group, while Scholastic Competence (pre-test mean 3.1; post-test mean = 2.8) worsened significantly for the control group. The other subscales remained unchanged for both groups (see Table 1).
DISCUSSION
The results of this study support the hypothesis, with some ex- ceptions. The multimodal group intervention had a significant, pos- itive effect on the children's beliefs about parental divorce and on their level of depression as measured by the CBAPD and the CDS, respectively. Given the relatively large change in scores necessary to reach statistical significance with a small sample, these results are quite encouraging.
The change in attitudes and beliefs about parental divorce is con- sistent with the results of other studies that have measured this vari- able. Apparently, a variety of interventions can effectively correct misunderstandings and allay common fears that children have when parents separate or divorce. However, this study is the first to show
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Margaret Crosbie-Bumett and Lourel L. Newcomer 75
TABLE 1. T-tests for Correlated Groups Measuring Differences Between Pre- Test Means and Post-Test Means .................................................
Dependent Experimental Control
Measures Group=6 Group=5
Beliefs about Divorce 4.2 * * * 1.2
Depression 3.1 * * .4
Scholastic Competence 2.0 * 3.3 *
Social Acceptance .2 .4
Athletic Competence 2.7 * 1.0
Physical Appearance .3 1.0
Behavioral Conduct . 5 . O
Global Self-worth . 5 .4
a significant decrease 'in depression. Only Roseby and Deutsch (1985) measured depression; their social role-taking and assertive- ness intervention did not significantly affect scores on the CDS. Perhaps the foci on feelings and self-image in the present study addressed children's sadness and hopelessness more successfully.
The increase in Scholastic Competence for the experimental group is particularly striking. The study was conducted during the late winter before spring vacation, and teachers reported that this is a difficult time for children academically. Therefore, the control group's negative change is understandable; that the experimental group improved is all the more impressive. The increase in Athletic
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Competence for the experimental group is interesting, because all six subjects improved, and there were no sex differences. These findings are an indication that the experimental subjects' self-con- cepts had been effected in important ways, even though the four remaining subscales were unchanged. The only other study that re- ported improved self-concept scores was a behavioral approach which focused on impulse and anger control, relaxation, and com- munication (Stolberg & Garrison, 1985). Other studies that mea- sured self-concept but found no significant change (Hinton, 1984; Pedro-Carroll & Cowen, 1985) focused on beliefs, feelings, com- munication, and coping skills-they were similar to the present study, but they did not use a multimodal approach. Using a variety of means to teach the same content seems to be as useful in group counseling as it is in the classroom. It may be the key to reach all children emotionally, as well as intellectually. Studies comparing different modes to deliver the same content would advance our knowledge in this area.
Implications
Practical
Divorce adjustment groups for children should be six sessions at the very least; eight to ten sessions is preferred. The emotional po- tency of the topic can leave children feeling vulnerable and emo- tionally abandoned if the group is only long enough to help them identify feelings, but not resolve them or gain new skills. In addi- tion, the richness of the activities in a multimodal intervention stim- ulates discussion that can easily extend beyond a 50 minute session. Longer sessions would be more desirable. Several students men- tioned the importance of the new friends they had made in the group. Future group interventions of this type might be improved by setting up a networking procedure so that the relationships that have begun within the group may continue outside the group.
A multimodal intervention has such a variety of psychological "tools" from which the counselor can choose, that it is easily mod- ifiable to suit the psychology of a particular group. For example, children whose parents have separated or divorced recently may need to focus on feelings and day-to-day coping, whereas children
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Margand Cmbie-Bwnett and Laurel L. Newcomer 77
whose parents have been divorced for quite a while may wish to focus on more cognitive issues and their own future relationships. Also, a multimodal intervention is easily adaptable for use with younger and older children.
Research
Future research of group interventions for children of divorce should take several factors into account. First, the changes sought may not be evident immediately following the intervention; follow- up measures may reveal "sleeper" effects on desired change. Spe- cifically, changed beliefs and affect may lead to a more positive self-concept over time. Second, more objective and observable measures, for example, attendance, discipline, grades, work habits, and peer relations, would add to our understanding of the possible outcomes for children of divorce in group counseling. Third, teacher and parent reports would offer inter-rater reliability of mea- sures and also measure generalizability of treatment effects to other settings (home, playground, etc.). Fourth, the generalizability of the findings of the present study should be tested by replication of the study with other groups of children, specifically, urban groups, ethnic minority groups, and other age groups.
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