Family Breakdow

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Children who suffer from a family breakdown can effect the child's educational achievement, behaviour, mental health and long-term health. There are significant differences between children who experience parental separation compared with children from intact families. Although the difference between the two groups is generally statistically significant, effect sizes are nevertheless small, reflecting the fact that within both groups, children vary widely in their experiences. Children from intact families can experience circumstances known to increase the risk of poor outcomes such as poverty, parental conflict, violence and poor parenting, whilst children whose parents separate may not experience these or can cope well, with the result that many children experiencing family …show more content…

Long-term effects in adults, who as children have experienced family breakdown, include problems with mental health and well-being, alcohol use, lower educational attainment and problems with relationships. There are significant differences within and across family types, and simple comparisons between different family types can mask much of the variation that exists. Step families, for example, vary enormously and living in a more complex stepfamily, where both parent and stepparent have brought children into the ‘new’ family has been associated with more adjustment problems than in a step family where all the children are related to the mother. In 1 terms of outcomes, the differences between children within family types can be greater than across family types. This suggests that family functioning, and not family type, is of greater

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