Exploring Single Parent Families - Essay Example

Exploring Single Parent Families Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Introduction A single parent is a parent staying without partner or spouse and most of the day he/she is responsible for the daily activity in bringing up the children. The single parents are considered as a primary care giver meaning both the child and the parent interact most of the time. If a parent is divorced or separated, the children stay with the custodial parent and also receive secondary residence with a non-custodial parent (Glatzer, Below & Stoffregen 2004). Usually in western society divorce or separation the child live with the mother who is primary caregiver and secondary caregiver usually the father. There have been several causes of death depending with the time and the activities. For example during the war most of the single parental are caused by the deaths and mainly the mothers are the victims. Historically, the common cause of a single parent was the death due to maternal and disease death. Currently, there have been improvement material care and sanitation reducing the mortality rate and making death insignificant factor of causing death. Nowadays, there are more cases of single parent due to unintended pregnancy (Yarber & Sharp 2010). Where out of such births are accepted by the society, the partner may decide to bring and may cause impact on a child. There are those individuals that view marriage as a burden, with the perspective that the partner may fail to enjoy freedom. Such parents prefer getting a child and not a partner or simply foster a child. Single parents are always working parent because they need to earn money for clothing, place to live and provide food. Therefore, most of the single parented children take care of themselves for part all time that their parent is at work; however, it is dangerous if the kids are not prepared to handle the respective responsibility. Due to the commitment of the single parents, they choose to take their kids to neighbours, relatives or to after- school programs (Siegel 2009). There have been debates from the experts as to what advantageous component a family structure have, and whether there is an importance of a complete family or love and affections of the parents are of value to a child (Hale & Napier 2013). There are people who have even argued that single parent is not a real family. Recent public policy debates have raised issues on whether the government should support the households of the single parents and protection of employment in their jobs. Some people believe that by this policy improves their sanitation and reduce poverty. Children adapt to their behaviour, health and the wellbeing and the performance is directly related to family relationship although it might be different according to the gender, age and number of children in the family. The age can also be another factor on how the children respond to divorce (Yarber & Sharp 2010). Children with the age between four and six are already starting to develop an individual self sense and becoming more independent and can even spend time away from their caregiver. However, regular time with a parent is still a crucial concern at this age and especially interaction from both parents (Dowd1997). Lack of this may result to shock and depression especially when they learn of divorces in the family and the children can as well suffer from separation anxiety when the parent attached to is away. A child at this age is much aware of the changes happening in their environment and not easy to resist the changes. The child can show the signs of the distress by indications of the behaviour, toilet habits or sleeping patterns. Other signs may include deterioration of the peer relationship or language skills. (Mulroy 1995). Therefore, when the children are victims of separation at this age, to move from one parent to the other tend to be more difficult. To help the children facing this problem, a single parent should avoid all any argument or conflict with the other parent since this will make it more difficult than before. The parent should solve their conflict when the children are not around. At this age, children become aware of special holidays and occasions and, therefore, as a single parent one should note the several occasions in the calendar and make family arrangements. There should be also a special arrangement for the child to visit the other parent and help a child with other sources of in touch, for example, by making calls to the other parent or use of pictures (Mulroy 1995). Since there is only a single source earner in the household, there is high risk of facing poverty. Living in poverty is stressful and puts the children in an environment with many emotional effects such as increased frustration and anger, high risk of violent behaviour and low self-esteem (Chalkoun 2010). Apart from financial constraints, the children may face feelings of abandonment, loneliness, sadness and difficulty of connecting and socializing with others. Such effects vary from home to home; however, there is a great influence on child’s development as a result of each parenting style. Although there are more disadvantages by children rose from single parent, Studies indicates that single parenting can have positive effects on the responsibility skills (Kugelmass 1987). There is also a strong dependency between the child and the parent as they need help of each other throughout their life. Children raised by single parent may create a strong bond with the family friends or extended family members since they interact with these people while raising the children. Due to much commitment by a single parent in work, the children fail to eat balanced diets. (Hale & Napier 2013). Most of the divorce mainly occurs as a result of the argument and sometimes results to fight or distress to the family. Elsewhere single mothers are sometimes not respected as they have no partner to help in time of conflict (Kinnear 1999). When a single parent argues with the other parent while the child is around, this may lead a child to stress. The lack of emotional attachment result to a feeling of insecurity to the child. There is also an effect of abandonment to children raised by single parents. When a parent divorce, he/she should consider the effect that the left child can have. Abandoned child can lead a question on her or/his own self worth. The single parent should always try to create an environment for the child to forget the other partner before the child develops self esteem (House 2005). Also, the child has a problem of the expressing concerning issues freely especially to the opposite sex parent. Finally, there is the effect of constantly moving the child. Single parents have a tendency of moving from place to place the other in order to find a more affordable place to live. Every time a child moves, they leave behind their friends and the shift is even worse when they change schools. The possible result of frequent change is a sense of depression, anxiety and isolation (Kinnear 1999). Statistics has revealed that the majority of the single parent comes from single mothers. Due to gender biased that faces most of the community, the single mothers may likely face poverty and even lack support of the father in raising the fee of the child (Strong, Devault & Cohen 2008). The lack of financial aid from the father leads the mother to work more; in turn the children receive less guidance and attention from a single mother in their homework affecting their performance in school. Data analysis from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth indicates that, for every $ 100 raised for single mother’s child support, the test scores increases by one eighth to seven tenth of a point (Hirschoff 1988). In addition, the research found out that those children receiving emotional support from their fathers were better in schools compared to those that didn’t have fathers support. There is also less involvement in children’s schooling due to time constraint and few single parents attend to parent-teacher's conferences, school assemblies and PTA meetings. In addition singles parent sometimes denies their children school supplies, trips and lunches because of the cost and time (Engber 2010). In the light to this, government and nongovernmental organizations should put effort in providing social welfare programs to such children. (Mclanahan & Sandefur 1994). Conclusion The single parent should are advised to provide their children with regular meals, school work, entertainment and meals. There are also encouraged not to rely on children in build adult rules and hence they should be there to create that foundation for them. Creating of such basis is only achievable by through communication, cooperation and understanding their behaviour. The parental conflict is a major factor in determining how the child will cope with parent separation. Studies have indicated that high level of parental conflict has a negative impact to the children’s development. Researchers have indicated that it is not much of the problems that are caused by separation of a parent, but result might be noted after separation. Therefore, it is advisable for a parent to encourage and allow their children to maintain contacts from the other partner. References Beauvais-Godwin, L., & Godwin, R. (2005). The complete adoption book everything you need to know to adopt a child. Avon, MA, Adams Media. Chalkoun, S. (2010). Single mother in charge: how to successfully pursue happiness. Santa Barbara, Calif, Praeger/ABC-CLIO. Dowd, N. E. (1997). In defense of single-parent families. New York and London, New York University Press. Engber, A. (2010). The Complete Single Mother Reassuring Answers to Your Most Challenging Concerns. Cincinnati, F+W Media. Glatzer, W., Below, S. V., & Stoffregen, M. (2004). Challenges for quality of life in the contemporary world: advances in quality-of-life studies, theory and research. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic. Hale, S., & Napier, J. (2013). Research Methods in Interpreting A Practical Resource. London, Bloomsbury Publishing. Hirschoff, P. (1988). 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Belmont, CA, Thomson/Wadsworth. Yarber, A. D., & Sharp, P. M. (2010). Focus on single-parent families: past, present, and future. Santa Barbara, Calif, Praeger. Read More