Effects on Children with Single Parents

Michelle Sanks
04/03/12
ENG 101 The Effects on Children with Single Parent In society today, there are a lot of single women and men that are parents. Single parenting is not only hard for the parents, but also hard on the children. Some children to tend to react or respond in a negative way when it comes to living in a one-parent household instead of two. The three main effects on children living in single parent homes are mental and emotional problems, academic problems, and low social status. One effect on children is having mental and emotional problems. When a child becomes isolated from a parent, it can cause severe damage. The results can amount to depression, anger, misbehaving, anxiety, etc. Children do not know how to express their feelings, especially at a young age. These results may acquire a counselor or somebody the child is comfortable talking to. Children also lose insight on what is importance. They are more focus on what is going on with the parents instead of school or hobbies. Another effect on children is academic problems. Children start to isolate themselves at school and lose their attention. They are let things going on at home interfere with school work. Some may even drop out of school because single parents have to work more hours and are not at home enough to help with homework. So the child gives up or skips school. The child is so stressed out to the point where nothing matters because mom and dad are not together. They do whatever they want to do. A third effect on children is low social status. Children sometimes do not want to hang out with friends because of the way they are dressed. Sometimes single parents can’t afford name brand shoes or clothes or the “in style” clothes and it causes the child to not have friends. Even moving a lot causes a child to not have friends. Once you talk and explain to your child that it is not the clothes that make you it is you as a person, they will start to understand it is not the clothes. In conclusion, the combination of these effects, hinder the growth of children. Society needs to realize that getting divorce, being divorced or separated is harming their children and they need to pay attention. We do not want our children to grow up doing the same mistakes we did, being single parents. Let’s try to lower the divorce rate and maintain a healthy marriage for the sake of the children. They are the future.