Single parent homes are becoming more and more common. Because of this, the impact of single parenting and the education of the child has changed in recent years.

Previously, it was thought that any child who went through a divorce or death of a parent or who was raised in a single parent home would have a poor academic record. However, with it being said that more than sixty percent of children will spend on average five years in a single parent home, and that more than thirty percent of all children in the United States alone will grow up entirely in a single parent home, people are focusing more on how to combat the statistics and allow for a normal educational upbringing.

Academic Achievement And Single Parenting

Single parenting and the education of your child is probably very important to you as a single parent. Over the course of many years, information on single parenting and education of the child has been collected in two ways. The first way uses the family deficit model and the second way is the risk and protective factor model. Family Deficit Model Single parenting and education of the child research has been done this way since the 1970s.

This model sees the standard two parent family as the ideal family. This method focuses on the idea that single parents negatively impact children because there is no nuclear two parent family structure. The negative aspect of this model is that it begins with the concept that single parenting is inherently bad for children. Of course the results of the research would support this idea.

Some of the studies done with this method actually ignore the fact that economic influence and other background factors also have an effect on academic achievement. Beware when looking into single parenting and the education of your child that the information is not necessarily done from a family deficit model.

Risk And Protective Factor Model

This particular model for studying single parenting and the education of the child came around in the 1990s. This model does not begin with the disturbing assumption that all single parenting situations are the irregular model. The cornerstone of this model is that all families have weaknesses and strengths.

This model takes into consideration many different factors such as economics, parent employment, and other lifestyle factors. According to this model, single parents have the opportunity to be a protective aspect for a child as well as a risk factor. Knowing this, single parents can work on keeping their children on track with their education.