Broken Family Structure Leads to Educational Difficulties for Children

Divorce is one of many controversial subjects in family and human development research. What inspired me to critically analyze the article “Does Divorce Create Long-Term Negative Effects for Children?” is the challenge it would be for me to put my bias aside considering I am from a divorced home. After reading the article and analyzing it over and over, I can’t help but think that the writer answering “YES” to this controversial question overlooked many variables and over generalized his findings and research. With Zinsmeister overgeneralizing his research, not considering enough alternate explanations for long-term negative effects divorce, and his lack of relevant information needed to assess reliability and validity are why I find this article to be insightful but not accurate and hope to show why.

All across the globe, there are children growing up in single-parent households, and through some research

Students from single parent homes also have lower academic achievement compared to students with two-parent families (Pong, Dronkers, & Hampden-Thompson, 2003). Single parent households are also at higher risk for child abuse and neglect (Paxson & Waldfogel, 2002). While poverty does not cause abuse or neglect, there is a direct link between the two (Bower, 2003). If neglect or abuse are present in Amanda’s

Four areas of primary influence are: academic achievement, prosocial, internalizing problems and externalizing problems. Out of these four areas, academic achievement is most sensitive to family stress. Children from intact families often demonstrate higher mental aptitude than children from broken families. Compare to boys from intact families and girls from broken families, boys from broken families exhibit significantly poorer academic functioning. Boys from families which would subsequently divorce exhibit multiple behavioral problems prior to the divorce, which will naturally lead to poorer school functioning. One possible explanation for this is that boys may be more sensitive than girls to the events in home during the predivorce period. Interparental conflict might disrupt the parents’ attention to and monitoring of schoolwork. Poorly monitored boys, but not girls, have lower GPAs than adequately monitored boys and girls. Boys also perceive angry situations more negatively than do girls. In contrast to boys whose parents would divorce, girls showed a decline in GPA over the entire divorce period. One explanation for this is that puberty changes might have bigger effects on girls than on boys. The decline shown in girls across years may primarily have been a function of cumulative stressors. Furthermore, since the father is usually the one who leave the house, the absence of the male role-model makes it ever more difficult for boys to adjust to divorce. By late adolescence, (ages 15-18) teenagers are awakening to romantic relationships. The loss of parental love and the broken parental vows may cause children to find it difficult to make commitment to long lasting love, especially for boys. There are some evidences that children tend to show more problems if they are in the custody of a parent of the opposite sex than a parent of the same

more likely than others to tell investigators that they are unhappy, in poor health and

and set up barriers to doing well and remaining in school. Stress is also mentioned as another possible factor; suggesting that "the trauma of parental confl!ict and divorce can have lasting, adverse psychological consequences for children that reduce their ability to succeed."

Family is the building block of society. One of the most crucial institutions there is. Marriage being the main foundation for family. Not only is divorce increasing psychological problems for children, but it will also, in turn, effect all other institutions in society. Children are becoming less motivated to receive higher education, and many people blame this on

In 2002, number of children living with their single parent was 16.5 million (Davidson). The most important thing is that each single-parent family is different from the other. Children who live with a widowed mother will definitely be living a different home life from children with divorced parents or the one whose parents were never married. Children of the parents who were divorced will always have some kind of relationship with parents and parents’ partners. But it is obvious that children from single-parent families face tougher times economically as well as

School and education happens to be one of the main things affected in the lives of both African American males and females living in single parent households. Parents tend to become less involved in the childs academics and social activities in school from the stress of being a single parent and having so much responsibility on them. It seemingly gets worse by the time the child reaches high school. One survey asked high school students whether their parents helped them with their school work and supervised their social activities. Students whose parents separated between the sophomore and senior years reported a loss of involvement and supervision compared to students whose parents stayed together (Mclanahan, n.d.). This usually leads to the child performing poorly in the classroom and on assignments. The child becomes less motivated to attend school, which leads to poor attendance. Poor attendance and lack of motivation sometimes results in the child dropping out of school. If the parents live apart, the probability that their children will drop out of high school rises by 11 percentage points. And for every child who actually drops out of school, there are likely to be three or four more whose performance is affected even though they manage to graduate (Mclanahan, n.d). Children born to unmarried parents are slightly more likely to drop out of school and become teen mothers than children born to married parents who divorce. But the difference is small compared to the

“In the united states, more than 4 to 5 in 10 marriages end in a divorce, and approximately half of American children are affected by this change in family relationships” ( McDevitt & Ormrod, 2015, p.73). The divorce rate is continuously skyrocketing, and more children are having to learn how to deal with this occurrence. In addition to divorce, there are also many different types of family situations, that are not considered traditional, and these also cause children to go through hardships. For the most part, children who grow up in traditional working households have tended to do better in school and grow developmentally stronger than children in non-traditional household settings due to the hardships and the changes these children are going through.

Education is greatly impacted among children with mothers only. In studies involving over 25,000 children using nationally representative data sets, children who lived with only their mother had lower grade point averages, lower college aspirations, poor attendance records, and much higher drop-out rates than students who lived with both parents (McLanahan). McLanahan also states in her book that fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. These figures all lead to the most important statistic—children without fathers are five times less likely to attend college (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). This stems from a few factors including financial

In recent decades the family institution has undergone a dramatic transformation focusing on increased divorce rates, cohabitation rates, and the number of children raised in step and single marital families (Amato, 2000; Bumpass & Lu, 2000; Graefe & Lichter, 1999). Due to the increase of divorce rates children move more frequently and deal with additional family transitions throughout their childhood (Brown, 2006). As these changes slowly increase, about 40% of kids who are born to wedded, two-biological- parent families have a higher chance of parental divorce prior to reaching adulthood(Amato,2000). In addition, these children will likely experience a multitude of family disruptions and transitions as parents decide to remarry and progress with new partners. The family atmospheres during these times are incredibly detrimental to the growth and development of these children (Sun& Li, 2009). Research studies show that parental divorce can compromise educational success for their children. Children in two-parent families have noticeably higher test scores than children who are in single parent families and also had lower chances of graduating from high school (Sun & Li, 2001). One of the rationalizations for the academic difficulty in divorced

For most people, the home life can affect how you act everyday, this is no different for children and school. The stress from home is shown to affect a child's school life. Research has shown that children that live with a single parent score less than children with two parents, on average, with measurements of educational achievements. The reason why children usually do worse than kids with both parents, is because the single parent must work. Therefore is not home to help with homework. Parents also provide the child with emotional support, encouragement and everyday assistance. So, if there is only one parent, then the child is only receiving half of the previously stated things compared to children with two parents. These things can affect a person at any school level. Over 57 percent of children who live with both parents enter college. Compared to the 32.5 percent of children who have single parents that enter college. This is just one way that single parenting can affect a child's life.\

The cause of behavioral and/or emotional problems among our youth could come from being raised in a single parent home. Many children resort to negative acts of behavior because of limited parental supervision within the single parent household. Children are two to three times more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems in single parent homes (Maginnis, 1997).

Single parent households are a sensitive topic that is highly debated today. This topic is one that has repercussions for both the parents and the children involved. However, regardless of the different consequences, these households continue to grow in the coming years. “In 1970, traditional two-parent married households dominated, making up 81 % of all households in the United States (US). By 2012 this number dropped to around 66 % … In 2012, approximately 21 million children, or 28 % of all children in the US, lived with one parent” (Kramer, 2015). It is interesting to look at the way the single parent households continue to grow throughout the years, all while being a hot topic for discussion on its consequences. When thinking about a book to read for this course, there was no real choice. I stumbled upon this book and knew right away that I could benefit from this book, as well as connect to it on a deeper level and relate to it personally.