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Single parent homes: How are they affecting our youth?
The cause of many behavioral and 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).
Research and etiology on the problem behaviors in childhood and adolescence often focus on the role of the family on the development of antisocial behavior. An important factor examined in past studies has been family structure and this research has shown that youth from single parent families often have higher rates of problem behaviors including substance abuse, aggression, school dropout, and teenage pregnancy. Although the reasons for the higher rates of problem behavior among single parent families remain unclear, a number of factors are likely to contribute. For example, single parents often have limited financial resources, greater social isolation, and fewer coping resources compared with parents in traditional two parent families. Youth from single parent families appear to be more susceptible to peer pressure and more likely to make decisions without consulting a parent (Griffin, Botvin, Scheier, Diaz, and Miller, 2000, p. 174).
Single parent households can include families that have been disrupted because of marital separation, divorce, or because the child was conceived outside of marriage. Mother (Cairney, Pevalin, Wade, Veldhuizen, and Arboleda-Florez, 2006) guides the typical single parent household. Cairney, Pevalin, Wade, Veldhuizen, and Arboleda-Florez (2006) to analyze psychiatric disorders among single and married mothers did a study. In this study, they found a higher percentage of single mothers developed a psychiatric disorder, which may include depression, anxiety disorders, mood disorders or...