Divorce, single-parent households and its negative effects on children

Many fam­i­lies are low-income but sit above the fed­er­al­ly-defined pover­ty line. Chil­dren from these fam­i­lies often face sim­i­lar chal­lenges and live in com­mu­ni­ties with lim­it­ed access to qual­i­ty health care, com­pre­hen­sive sup­port ser­vices and enrich­ing activities...

Kids from sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies are more like­ly to face emo­tion­al and behav­ioral health chal­lenges — like aggres­sion or engag­ing in high-risk behav­iors — when com­pared to peers raised by mar­ried par­ents. Research has linked these health chal­lenges with fac­tors often asso­ci­at­ed with sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies, such as parental stress, lost social net­works, wit­ness­ing con­flict, mov­ing homes and socioe­co­nom­ic hurdles.

Chil­dren of sin­gle moth­ers may face addi­tion­al chal­lenges. For instance: Depres­sion, which can neg­a­tive­ly impact par­ent­ing, is com­mon among recent­ly divorced mothers.

Such hard­ships would be dif­fi­cult for any child. But kids can recov­er and thrive — par­tic­u­lar­ly when raised with the ben­e­fits of nur­tur­ing rela­tion­ships, sta­bil­i­ty, and men­tal health support.^[3]

Many developmental problems for children of single parents revolve around their progress in school. They tend to get lower grades, and their dropout rate is higher than their counterparts from two-parent families.

Single parents are more likely to work more hours to make ends meet. They often don't have enough time to assist the child with their schoolwork. Children who have to work to help pay expenses have less time to focus on their schoolwork.

Economic Hardships

Plentiful economic resources allow parents to meet their children's economic needs. When there are two parents in the home, they can pool resources and are less likely to struggle with insufficient income. Single-parent families are more likely to experience financial problems because they only have one earner. Single-parent children can feel frightened, stressed, and frustrated by the difference between their lives and their friends'.

Psychological Effects

Children of single parents are more prone to various psychiatric illnesses, alcohol abuse, and suicide attempts than children from homes with two parents. One of the common reasons for single parenting is divorce. It's not uncommon for children to be exposed and even drawn to the conflicts between the parents during and even after divorce, which may leave children feeling lonely, abandoned, and even guilty.

Single parents are more likely to experience disruptions such as moves and remarriage. Major changes can affect the children. Kids do well in a controlled environment. Any emotional turmoil and uncertainty may lead to increased psychological problems.^[6]

While this link between illegitimacy and chronic welfare dependency now is better understood, policymakers also need to appreciate another strong and disturbing pattern evident in scholarly studies: the link between illegitimacy and violent crime and between the lack of parental attachment and violent crime. Without an understanding of the root causes of criminal behavior -- how criminals are formed -- Members of Congress and state legislators cannot understand why whole sectors of society, particularly in urban areas, are being torn apart by crime. And without that knowledge, sound policymaking is impossible.

A review of the empirical evidence in the professional literature of the social sciences gives policymakers an insight into the root causes of crime. Consider, for instance:

• Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.

• High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.

• State-by-state analysis by Heritage scholars indicates that a 10 percent increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads typically to a 17 percent increase in juvenile crime.

• The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers.

• The type of aggression and hostility demonstrated by a future criminal often is foreshadowed in unusual aggressiveness as early as age five or six.

• The future criminal tends to be an individual rejected by other children as early as the first grade who goes on to form his own group of friends, often the future delinquent gang.^[10]

Researchers who follow these children say their ranks are swelling and their lives are often rocky. Studies comparing families of multiple divorce with families of single divorces have found that children with more family disruptions report higher levels of anxiety and depression, worse academic records and more troubled marriages of their own. The more breakups children experience, the studies show, the worse they fare.

"You get cumulative effects," said Lawrence A. Kurdek, a professor of psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and the author of one such study. "You're losing or gaining a lot more than a parent; you're changing households, schools, friends. The kids get rooted; they get uprooted. Their overall sense of stability has got to be pretty shaky."...

Frank F. Furstenberg Jr. and Andrew J. Cherlin, two leading divorce researchers, estimate that 15 percent of all children in divorced families will see the parent they live with remarry and redivorce before they reach age 18. And that figure is a conservative estimate, they say, because it does not include couples who live together instead of remarry...

Researchers caution that much of the damage of single or repeated divorces depends on factors that are hard to measure: how much conflict dogged the relationship and the breakup, how much continuity parents are able to preserve in children's lives and how well parents who are bruised themselves are able to help their children. And while most children of multiple divorces are not consigned to bleak fates, the upheavals take their toll.^[13]