Often, poverty at home is blamed as the major reason for children’s reduced educational attainment. But findings by experts reveal that broken family structures have the most disastrous effect as far as behavior and educational attainment of children are concerned.
Some disturbed behavior is due to mental difficulties, but in many cases, it is linked to what is happening at home. When the home situation settles, behavior settles. When home flares up, behavior worsens.
It was common in the past for couples to stay together “for the sake of the children”. This attitude changed during the 1970s and 1980s to “better a good divorce than a bad marriage “.
This has resulted in a broken generation.
All children lose out when parents separate and divorce. They lose access to both of their parents when they need them. This loss impacts profoundly on their development. When children are secure, they thrive because they feel safe enough to explore, develop, learn, and grow. Separation creates insecurity which threatens their development and exploration of the world. Their energies are instead shifted into seeking reassurance rather than learning, experimenting, and growing.
Children will be affected by parents’ break-up no matter what age they are. In most cases, younger children will endure more psychological disturbances than older children. In some cases, these disturbances will be evident in the short term, such as oppositional behavior, grief, and sadness, or isolation. In other cases, the challenges may not manifest themselves until they are older, at least in adolescence, and sometimes in early adulthood. Research clearly indicates that the longer you can make your relationship function civilly, the better adjusted your children will be.
What should be universally acknowledged is that children of parents who do not follow the traditional norm (i.e. taking active and personal responsibility for the social upbringing of their children) are thereby disadvantaged in many major aspects of development into a successful life.
By LEONICE N. DACAWE
