Different Family Configurations and the Effects It Has on Children

In an article titled 40 Facts About Two Parent Families it states ¨A solid, intact family structure can have a significantly positive impact on a child’s present and future wellbeing and offers countless benefits for both adults and children.¨ also ¨In two parent families, for example, children typically have access to more of the economic and community resources because parents are able to pool their time, money and energy; children tend to be more of the focus of the home.¨ Children with two parents at home are more likely to feel at peace and are more likely to succeed. Having both parents working together in a home is better, rather than having a single parent because it has an impact on academics, it has an impact on emotions, and last but not least it has a very high impact on social life. The impact that academics has on children with only a single-parent in the home is that the household income is generally lower than it would be with both parent.

A family helps mold each person into who they eventually will become. The family is a guide for the success of a child's future. The stability of family creates a building block for how the child will progress throughout life. When parents divorce, the children are left with no stability causing them to lose basic concepts of childhood that may carry with them throughout life. Children of divorced parents have less success and happiness creating less productive citizens in our nation.

During the 1990’s, a total of 71.5 million children under the age of 18 lived within the U.S. Of these children more than 70% lived in a traditional two-parent family, 25% lived with one parent, and less than four percent of children lived with another relative. As of 2013, about 46% of children live in a traditional two-parent family. The remaining 54% are divided into three categories: 15% live with two parents remarried, 34% live with a single parent, and five percent live without a parent. Studies show that children who live in an non-traditional family are at a greater disadvantage than children living in a traditional family. Children who live in non-traditional families are at a higher risk of experiencing economic and psychological/health

For various reasons, many children in the United States are living without their fathers in their homes or absent from their lives entirely. This is an issue all across the world and the children are having to deal with the disadvantages caused by the lack of support from their fathers. This issue has a significant effect on society and can be viewed and interpreted from the three sociological perspectives. As a result of many studies, it was found that children raised in father absent homes almost universally experience disadvantages such as: worse health, poorer academic achievement, and a less enjoyable educational experience. There are many variables that need to be taken into effect when considering

However, by rising to these challenges, custodial single parents develop significant strengths. The positive benefits of being a single parent are that the child receives a lesson in independence. The child sees how strong the one parent is at providing them with everything they need without having to depend on someone else. The parents are showing their children that it is possible to live on their own, have an enjoyable life and take care of others while doing so. The children will know that they are a priority to the parent. When there is a second parent around the house, it can be easy to put responsibility off on them, but when the children see how hard the parent is working for them, they will understand how important they are to their parent. (Dowd, 1997)

Growing up in a single parent household can affect your life in many different aspects, for instance how you view relationships, how you support yourself, and your future. I grew up in a single parent household and I understand the struggle of trying to provide for five children on a single income. When you just have one parent that must be the mom and the dad for the family it can get very difficult on some days. For instance, when you and your siblings have different things that you must do the same day. My grandparents had to help most of the time because my mom had to work and she could not be everywhere that she need to be.

In the United States it is becoming more and more likely for children to grow up without their fathers. Father absence is a crucial social issue and can be linked to dozens of our most pressing social dilemmas. David Blankenhorn of the American Experiment said “this trend of fatherlessness is the most socially consequential family trend of our generation” (Blankenhorn). Father absence in the American home has a serious and negative effect on the well-being of our society.

The second model used to analyze how family structure affects the wellbeing of children is when the father lives apart from mother and child. In this model an assumption is made that the father values the wellbeing of his child. This implies the father will contribute his time and economic resources toward the child. It can then be assumed that with the additional resources provided by the father, it would only increase the wellbeing of the child. Having both parents involved also increases the likelihood that the child has access to health insurance and other social networks. One caveat to the scenario is when the mother and father can observe each other’s contributions. What often happens is, as one party contributes more to the child’s

Divorced families present a greater risk for children with depression or other serious psychiatric disorders to develop. Spencer (1982) said in his book entitled Foundations of Modern Technology that children are more likely to die of coronary heart disease in later years if they had lost one or both parents before entering college. According to Traci S Campbell (2010) education of children can also be affected she said that children that are raised in a single parent household have lower grades than those who are raised in a home with both parents. This can be in a home where the child has always been raised by one parent or in homes where a divorce or separation has recently taken place. Studies also show children raised in a single parent household are less likely to go to college or take steps to continue their education. There are also a higher percentage of drop outs that were raised in a single family home. Time spent with a single parent during the formative preschool years seems to have particularly bad effects on a boy's education, according to Sheila Fitzgerald Krein and Andrea H. Beller of the school of human resources and family studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

Being raised by a single parent can ultimately lead to less achievement in life. This is because of the lack of parental support in childhood. Events such as divorce, leading to parents no longer living together cause emotional instability and lack of support, usually from the father figure because “about 50% of the approximately one million annual divorces involve couples with children (Anderson et al., 2004).In most cases, the mother has primary custody of the children”. Also, “Parental divorce during childhood or early adolescence deprives children mainly of the opportunity to get a male role model (McLanahan 1988). This large percentage of custody going to the mother and the deprivation of a father figure leaves many kids without a man to look up to and learn from. I know in my experience of having both parents I learned a lot from each one. For example, my father taught me how important it was to get an education and my mother taught me a lot about how to be respectful and helpful around the house. I know that if i was lacking one of

The debate on the type of family structure that has a positive influence on children has been widely contentious. In the recent years, the family structure has continued to change. Many people in the modern society have continued to change their attitudes when it comes to matters of marriage and raising children. There are more single parents in the society today as a result of divorce and separations. Consequently, this has contributed to an increase in the number of children brought up by single parents. The current changes in family structure have become an issue of public concern because of the effect it has on both the parents and children. It is evident that children who are brought up by two biological parents do well as compared to children raised by single parents. Biological parents in this case refer to married couples who relate to their children through blood (Bachman et al., 2012). The single parent can be a biological father or mother who takes care of the needs of his or her children. Two biological parents play an important role in providing the children with necessary support during younger age by employing various parenting styles and practices. Marriage is a social norm and the idea of raising children should be a combined effort of both parents. Children raised by single parents lack good parental care and support which impact on their lives years later. This paper discusses why two biological

This paper will examine the effects of family structure and its influence on educational achievement. The link between family structure and educational achievement suggests that children living in nuclear families are more successful academically. Research has consistently shown that family structure can facilitate or limit the ways in which parents are able to positively influence the future educational outcomes of their children. Family influences on children’s educational achievement are evident throughout literature; it has been

Issues of financially stability and romantic patterns of the mother are always the first and main points of argument when on the topic of single motherhood. It’s as though money and both parents being present in a child’s life are the only important factors of raising the child. A person raised in “perfect” households can a screwed up alcoholic high school dropout and the person who grew up with only one parent present can live a completely normal life. Parenting is much more than having the money to get a child through the first eighteen years of their life. Marriages may be unstable or parents may be overbearing, causing the child to act out. There is absolutely no way of telling how the child will turn out once out of the house. Similar things can, of course, be applied to single mother. There is no set perfectly outlined plan on raising a child. Parents, single or not, can only raise their kids in hope that they are doing the right thing.

In recent decades, the changes in the structure of families cause public attention. Among those changes, children may experience non-marital childbirth, parents ' divorce or step-parent family in their process of growing. In order see how does the family structure changes affect children 's development. Many researches compare children from a two-biological-parent family and children who are not living with both biological parents. The result suggests that children who grow up with biological parents have a better performance in several aspects than the others(Acock and Demo, 1994). Indeed, both parents are the essential components of traditional family structure, missing one of them will result in a non traditional family structure and somehow affect children 's development.

In today’s society, there are more and more families that are being raised by a single parent, whether it’s a mother or father. In the world of political correctness we live in today, it’s frowned upon to say there’s anything wrong with a single parent household. Society views single fathers and mothers as strong willed people, and while they may be so, it’s be proven that a child growing up in a single parent household often times has negative outcomes. While in some situations single parenting cannot be avoided, a child growing up in a single parent household is affected in many different ways.