https://bold.org/scholarships/children-of-divorce-lend-your-voices-scholarship/#winners
The image of the blanket in the winning essay wove together the words to earn the $500 winning prize for Tallia D’Orazi of Henderson, Kentucky, a graduate of Evansville Christian School. Out of 887 applicants and 22 finalists for the “Children of Divorce: Lend Your Voices” Scholarship offered by Soul Custody Press through bold.org, hers best responded to the prompt, “How your parents divorce or consideration of divorce has impacted you or affected your childhood.”
The winning essay demonstrated personal impact past, present and future, and the image of the blanket showed the need for children to have security and comfort provided by the intact family.
Common threads among all the essays underscoring their experiences revealed that the trauma of divorce causes children to see their childhoods from the standpoint of their parents’ marital troubles, instead of permitting their childhoods to remain the central theme of the family. The trauma and drama takes over such that the parents’ troubles become the child’s story, and the childhood is lost in the shuffle.
Another common thread among the essays was demonstrated by what’s missing: consideration by parents about the impact of divorce on their children, by the very actions students described. This lack of consideration about the impact on the children caused them to feel ignored, abandoned, left out, and unaccounted for, in all the family drama.
Overall, the shift that occurs from the original family story to a divided one that never comes back together, is like an injury that never heals, but often continues on to create new and unique hardships as a result of divorce.
While many of the essays demonstrated students’ abilities to overcome adversity and exercise resilience, I would call the divorce trauma optional trauma, and therefore imposed adversity and resilience. Whereas accidental trauma is unavoidable, divorce trauma is an intentional harm, and one that has continuing effects long after the initial split. The intentional trauma that divorce it makes it particularly cruel by nature in its effect.
Congratulations to Tallia and best wishes for her desired career in Ministry. Congratulations to all the finalists. Congratulations to every student who with such courage told their story of bravery facing the issue of divorce in their lives. You have lent your voices, and you have been heard!
Soul Custody Press 