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Nathaly C. Perez Luna

Professor Jackie
English 113A
November 12, 2015
Single Parenting Affecting A Childs Development
Most recently, according to the census data, the number of children in the United States
living in a single parent homes have nearly doubled in the last 50 years. It has become common
in todays society for many parents, mothers or fathers to raise a child as a single parent. The
increase in this cause has had great effects to the children involved. The majority of children
involved in cases such as this struggle through life trying to bypass it. Some issues that children
under the age of eighteen may face while living in a single parent household are being
economically stable, being exposed to stressful situations, and having emotional, mental or social
problems. Single parenting can be extremely difficult due to many reasons and can affect the
child in various ways because it causes their developmental growth to not progress well.
Single parents have many more responsibilities than a normal or traditional family.
These single parents, mothers or fathers not only care for the child, but they also take full
responsibility to pay for bills, utilities, food supplies, clothing, and other basic necessities for
both the children and themselves. In situations such as these, many parents raising a child on
their own fall into economic hardship and therefore cannot afford to care properly for the child.
Due to these particular conditions, it becomes difficult for the child to progress. Not having some
of the basic necessities a child might need triggers a reason for the children to become distracted
in their studies or their personal life. For example, a child from a single parent home can ask his
or her parent for a new phone that many of his or her classmates have and the parent might not

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have enough funds to purchase what the child wants; resulting in the child being humiliated or
talked about for not having what the others have. Author April Yackley mentions in her article,
Single Parent Families that fifty seven percent of single parent families are low income. This
means that a bit more than half of single parent families, who are raising a child on their own, do
not have sufficient funds to provide as much for their child or children.
When the parent does not have much to offer for their child or provide the parent
begins to feel stressed and overwhelmed for realizing how much he or she has to do to care for
their child or children. More stressful situations approach single parents when they have more
than one child. As a single parent, they have to think about every single thing that they do
because it has great influence and reflects on the child. In some situations where the parent might
feel stressed is when they have to make decisions on their own because they cannot confirm with
someone else such as the childs parent. In Paul R. Amatos article, The Impact of Family
Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation
he mentions that some triggers of stress in child development might be due to moving from a
place where the child grew up and life is there to a new place where they have to adapt to a new
environment and start all over again. This usually happens when single parent families cannot
afford to pay for their homes, which is why they move to another place that they can afford.
Studies show that frequent moving increases the risk of academic, behavioral, and emotional
problems for children with single parents. (Amato Paul R. The Future of Children) As many
transitions that a child has to make while growing up affects them academically, emotionally, and
behaviorally.
Children that come from single parent families are likely to develop emotional mental or
social problems as they grow into adulthood. The reason they develop these issues is due to the

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lack of their other parent not being there with them. The separation, divorce, death, or breakup of
a couple has had great effects on the child over the years. Children living in single parent
households are at risk to engage in conflict as they grow into adulthood. They are prone to face
cognitive, emotional, social and mental problems, as well as humiliation, bullying, stressful
events and other types of situations where the childs self esteem will most likely drop due to
these circumstances. It is extremely hard on a child when he or she does not have a mother or
father figure in their life because they fail to carry on the characteristics that one would give their
child to help them become a better person and pursue a better life. Due to the child being raised
by one parent, it is likely that by the time the child reaches adulthood, he or she would have
reached their high point and pursue a the wrong path.
A reason as to why the child may develop emotional, mental or social problems is
because they lack some necessities one would have gained through the other parent. If the childs
parent is feeling stressed, as mentioned before, then it will reflect of the child or children in the
household causing them to become distracted. The child or children may develop emotional
problems because it might feel abandonment or rejection from the other parent who is no longer
in its life. It can also face mental problems because of all the things that are running through its
head thinking of what could or what may have happened if it had both its parents. Another
problem the child or children may encounter is having social problems and being awkward in
public. Most children raised in single parent homes are often shy and hidden from society
because they choose to be left alone in most cases blaming themselves for being in the situation
they are in.
Humiliation, bullying and self esteem are other situations a child that comes from a single
parent household might be prone to face. Humiliation occurs to almost everyone once in his or

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her lifetime. In these childs lives, it happens so much more because kids their age like to make
fun of the fact that they do not have another parent, be it a mother or father. The humiliation and
embarrassment that these students or kids in the classroom make towards the child who only has
one parent is considered bullying. Bullying is the reason to why the child or children living in a
single parent household might later face having social problems in life thinking that others might
judge them for who or where they come from. All these problems that the child or children face
are extremely harsh which is why in the long run it affects their developmental growth from a
young age.
Due to the percentages of the increase in single parent families, it is likely that in the
future the kids of todays society who had only one parent will face many harsh challenges.
Single parenting is a huge struggle, and in the end it is the kids who are greatly impacted.
Whether socially, behaviorally, emotionally, socially, economically or etcetera, a childs
development will fail to be progressive if it does not have both its parents. As aforementioned, if
a child does not have both its parents to care for it and guide it through life as a child, then it will
most likely turn out to be guided towards the wrong path, which is what most children that were
raised by one parent end up going through. Being a single parent can be extremely difficult, but it
is even harder for the child to be able to grow up without being affected by its developmental
growth.

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Works Cited
Amato, Paul R. "The impact of family formation change on the cognitive,
social, and emotional well-being of the next generation." The future of
children 15.2 (2005): 75-96.
Anderson, K. "The Number of US Children Living in Single-Parent Homes has
Nearly Doubled in 50 years: Census Data." Lifesitenews. com (2013).
Beckford, Martin. Children in single-parent families more likely to suffer emotional
problems, report finds. The Telegraph.com (2008)
Kunz, Marnie. The Effects of a Single Parent Home on a Child's Behavior Lifestrong.com
(2015)