Positive Parenting Online

The emotional reaction which a person has on hearing the phrase “single parent family” might very well depend on his or her age.

For Americans who came of age before 1975, the mental picture of an ideal family, as portrayed by the media, included two parents, one of whom, usually the father, was the breadwinner. Those children who came from homes with only one parent present were considered, by researchers, to be experiencing a “Family Deficit Model.” Hardly an attitude designed to help single parents and their children feel good about themselves.

Even worse, researchers did not look past the lack of a father or mother to other factors common in single-parent households when deciding that life in one of them automatically doomed children to second-rate academic and social performance. But with over three-fifths of all US children born in the last twenty-five years now spending at least five years in a single parent household, understanding single parenting positive and negative effects on academics is crucial.

Research into the single parenting positive and negative effects on academics is ongoing, but studies completed in 1991 and 1997 indicated that there was a 300% higher high school drop out rate among children from single family homes than among those in ”nuclear” families. This was in spite of the fact that the academic abilities of the dropouts in either group were equal.

One explanation for this statistic is that single parents, often their family’s sole sources of income, cannot always spend time overseeing their children’s study habits, or being present at extracurricular activities. But an even bigger factor, and probably the single most important one, in single parenting positive and negative effects on academics is the typically lower income level of single parent homes.

Among households of similar size and equal income, regardless of the number of parents present, there is little statistical difference in the children’s academic performance. While this finding sheds real doubt on the assumption that a two parent household is “better” for a child, it is really not surprising.

In a single parent household with an adequate income, the parent will have more free time to devote to the children’s studies and school activities. Children who have that sort of support, even if from “only” one parent, are much better equipped to deal with the intellectual and social demands of school than children in either single or two parent households who do not have it.

It’s also been shown that children in single parent homes who receive regular child support from the absent parent will perform better academically than those who do not. This factor has nothing to do with the single parenting abilities of the parent with whom the child lives, but is another indication that the biggest factor in single parenting positive and negative effects on academics is not a matter of parenting style, but of income.

And in certain circumstances, a single parenting positive effect on academics may actually stem from having a mother who must work full time to support the family. The mother’s income, of course, is an obvious benefit, but a 1986 study headed by Ann Milne indicated that African American elementary school children in low-income single parent homes with working mothers outperformed those in low-income two-parent homes with stay-at-home mothers. When low incomes are involved, it appears that children with mothers who struggle to support them are inspired to overcome their disadvantages.

If the continuing research into single parenting positive and negative effects on academics bears these earlier findings out, we may learn that the secret to raising a successful, well-adjusted student is nothing more than money.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Positive Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.