Single Parents and Deviant Behavior - Essay Example

Running head: Single parents and deviant behavior Introduction It is very difficult to fully understand the development of human beings without considering the significance of family in a child's growth. The family institution plays a crucial role in a child's development; it is the basic unit that is responsible for nurturing the processes of socialization among the children. Traditionally, families constituting two parents have been considered to be the best in offering a child good parenthood, as they offer a good environment for the development of the child as compared to families of single mothers or fathers. There are some arguments that suggest that children usually try to model themselves with their parents and especially those of the same sex, while at the same time regarding the parent of the opposite sex as a love model whose approval and affection are required by identifying with the parent who is of the same sex as the child (Coley, 2008). Deviant behavior in children from single families Parenthood has now taken a sharp turn and cases of children being brought up in single families have increased significantly. This has been as a result of divorce cases or children born out of wedlock. In other cases children are born by parents who are just cohabitating and are not legally married. Such children face a lot of challenges both at family level and society level. Such children are usually considered by societies to be illegitimate and thus highly condemnable. These children are therefore born with illegitimacy stigma and are therefore faced by several problems and negative altitudes. Thus, the school counselors should consider such children as a special group when dealing with them so that they can better address their problems (Katz, Dunham & Zimmerman, 1997). Research has revealed that there is a relationship between the changing family structures and children in respect to examination performance, the research shows that children who are brought up by both parents perform better are more resistant to peer pressure influence whereas students from single families are more likely to perform poorly and are more vulnerable to influence of peer pressure and have a higher tendency of engaging in acts which are deviant in nature. They also have a higher rate of dropping out of school as compared to those children brought up in a family structure consisting of both parents; they also have greater psychological and social problems. Variation of deviant behavior among the children from single families depends on what caused the single family structure. Studies have shown that those as a result of divorce are more likely to be more deviant as compared to the children raised in single families where one of the parents may have died or born of single mothers. The worst case of deviant behavior is when a child is raised by either a step mother or a step father who mistreat them in their early development stages. Such children develop very negative altitudes in life which often accompany them throughout their lives. While dealing with such children, the school teachers and counselors should consider their plight, so as to be able to assist them in an attempt to prevent them from engaging in deviant behavior (Shih, 2008). Single parents are faced with numerous problems in raising their children, they sped a lot of energy and time in practicing parenting and yet their results usually have numerous shortcomings. With out help from the other spouse and society single parents try to raise their children effectively. However, monitoring discipline among their children is quite difficult since the burden is laid on one person who is also expected to provide for the entire family with all their needs. The children can therefore take advantage of their parents and engage in practices that are considered to be defiant. It might not be possible for the parent to monitor each child closely and therefore the children who have a propensity of misbehaving have an opportunity to do so, the parent might later come to learn some of their acts but it might be too late to change their behaviors and altitudes. Thus they become a problem to their over burdened parents and to the society in general. Such children usually require a lot of guidance and counseling so as to deter them from behaving defiantly. They should be properly guided by their teachers and school counselors so as to assist their parents who might be lacking skills and time to properly guide them (Sauvola, 2001). Single parents and their children usually face a lot of frustrations in life; they are normally rejected by the society on the grounds that they are illegitimate families. They therefore, have to contend with stigmatization. The single parents who are not strong usually give in to their problems and use escapism in an attempt to solving their problems. Quite often they turn these frustrations to their children who start experiencing hatred at a very early stage in life. Some single parents may turn to drug and substance abuse which worsens the situation further. This provides the children with a golden opportunity to behave in a deviant manner. They are also likely to follow the steps of their parents and involve themselves in drug and alcohol abuse, after all their parents are their role models and are using such substances. Coupled with the fact that they are not well monitored these children are likely to use such substances for a long period without being discovered by their parents. During such periods these children are likely to graduate from just taking common drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes to consuming of hard drugs like cocaine. Their indulgence in drug abuse leads to more deviant behaviors like joining gangs and stealing so as to sustain their expensive behaviors. The school counselors can save such children from all these practices by trying to talk to them and assisting them to overcome their challenges. They can also seek audience with the single parents and advice them on the way forward to raising their children properly (Daddis, 2002). Children facing mistreatment in their homes as a result of being brought up by their step parents usually demonstrate their anger and frustrations in various forms. Some of them tend to be violent to their peers since they experience it on a daily basis from the people who are supposed to show them love and affection. They have higher chances of engaging their peers in physical confrontations as a means of resolving their disputes. These children are therefore tailored at family level to be violent people in future. In case they are not provided with enough material support by their single parents, these children will try to obtain what they have not been provided with through illegal means. They therefore pose a lot of challenges to the societies in future if their behavior goes on unchecked (Katz, Dunham & Zimmerman, 1997). Self control which basically is the extent to which someone is vulnerable to temptations, this trait is relatively universal and stable and accounts a lot to a person's likelihood to engage in reckless behaviors and criminal activities. The trait of self control develops at early stages of childhood in which case the family institution plays a significant role as an agent of socializing. The absences of a sound family base will therefore, affect the self control of an individual at a very stage in his or her development. This has led to some researchers to conclude that the primary root of many criminal activities and deviant behaviors is low self control. Therefore, children who do not get proper parenting especially in their early stages in their development process lack self control which makes them better candidates for deviating from the norms and of the society. For a child to fully develop self control the following factors are very important. The child's behavior must be well monitored by his or her parents; the parents must be in a position of identifying any deviant behavior in their children and finally they must be able to punish the children whenever they behave. This clearly shows that parents play a vital role in mentoring their children and helping them to adequately develop self control in their early stages of development. In single parenthood this might not be very possible as children are less likely to be well monitored. Thus students from such families will in most cases have low self control. The teachers and school counselors when dealing with these children should try as much as possible try to equip them with some sense of self control so that they can grow normally and avoid engaging themselves in criminal activities and deviant behaviors now and in future. The up bringing of children from single families is usually dominated by financial problems. This usually makes them vulnerable to exploitation by other members of the society; they are likely to be misused so that they can be able to obtain financial assistance. The worst form of misuse or exploitation that they go through is sexual abuse. Introduction of such awful behaviors in their lives at an early stage in life hampers their development process. They become less social with the other students and children. They are less likely to participate in childhood games and practices with the rest of the children which are very important in their growth and development. This normally makes them to deviate from the values, traditions and practices of their societies. They instead practice in criminal activities and also behave defiantly (Keane, & Krull, 2008). In cases of divorce children are likely to be spoilt by the over protective nature of the parents. The parents usually try to prove to the children that they are better than the other. Such parents might attempt to get the favor of their children by giving them gifts and presents that might not be useful to them, but which will serve the purpose of demonstrating to them that they still love them despite the separation or divorce. Although, such gifts and presents may be good, some of them and especially those in form of cash might be used by the children to ruin their lives. Since these children are in most cases not well monitored, they are likely to spend such monies in buying drugs and other substances and hence spoiling their lives. This eventually leads to moral degradation in the society, as more and more children engage themselves in deviant behaviors and criminal activities (Sauvola, 2001). Studies show that most of the children facing criminal charges are from single families; this is because they lack proper guidance from their parents and are therefore more vulnerable to engaging in deviant behaviors unlike their counter parts who receive attention from both parents. School counselors should offer more counseling to these children so that they can avoid from engaging themselves in deviant behaviors and criminal activities so that they can in future become important members of the society (Daddis, 2002). Most of the single families comprises of single mothers, they are usually unable to control their children adequately especially when they attain adolescent stage. The case is worse if the child in question is a boy who with time perceives himself to be stronger than their mothers and feel that they are not capable of disciplining them. They usually revolt their and their monitoring becomes more and more difficult. This eventually develops into a major conflict at family level and appears to be a deviant behavior. However, the same is not very applicable as far as the females are concerned; they are more compliant with the monitoring of their parents as compared to the boys. The school counselors should advice such children on the need to obey their parents at all times for their own benefit (Keane, & Krull, 2008). School counselors should consider meeting students from single families and discussing with them problems that they might be going through and thereby try to help them solve them. Such students should be taught that use of escapism such as indulging in drug abuse will not help them solve their family frustrations but will only increase them further. These children should be taught on the importance of behaving in the right manner. The school administration should as much as possible discourage mocking children from single families by other students. Mocking of these children by their fellow students usually irritates them and they usually feel unwanted and rejected. This affects their performance in school as they tend to concentrate more on their problems rather than in their studies. Such mocking also contributes significantly to their high rate of dropping out of school. When these children fail to get attention from both their families and schools they usually seek love care and protection from other places such as joining gangs and other illegal groups which are well known in criminal activities and deviant behaviors. The school counselors should emphasize on ensuring that such children maintain high self control while in school and when in the society (Katz, Dunham & Zimmerman, 1997). They can also educate the society so that they can accept such children as legitimate as opposed to clinging on to old traditions that ruin a child and the society in general. Societies should be always ready to assist these children and treat them in a manner that will not make them feel neglected and unwanted in the society. This will make children from single families to feel that they are part of the community and thus have a role to play in making the society better as opposed to instances where they are mistreated and perceived to be outcast, in such cases they develop rebellious altitudes towards every thing and thus finally contribute negatively to the well being of their societies (Daddis, 2002). In circumstances where such children are deprived off their rights by their extended families and society they develop very negative altitudes. Such rights would be for instance denying them the right to inherit their matrimonial property, since they are less defensive and have no one to defend them. Experiences of such nature and magnitude usually maintain very negative perspectives to the children from single families. Therefore, the school counselors have an important task of ensuring that the society does not treat children and students from single families as out casts, since by doing so it will only be to its own disadvantage. Conclusion Proper up bringing of children is very important in their development; this is usually provided in the family level where children are taught to practice good behavior. Single parenting is a new challenge that the society has to contend with since the children born in such families remain part of the society. The society should therefore, not discriminate them in any way but should as much as possible try to incorporate them into the society to assist in its development. The school counselors should treat children from single families carefully taking into considerations their problems and challenges that they face in their daily life. They should assist them to cope up with life, by equipping them with techniques for overcoming frustrations in life. It is also very important for them to inform the society on the importance of taking care of such families and assisting them in any way that they can. Reference: Coley, R. J. (2008): The Failure of the Single Parent Family. Retrieved on 1st May from, http://cssrc.us/publications.aspxid=4012. Daddis, C. (2002): Family Structure, Parental Monitoring, and Adolescent Problem Behavior In middle-Class African American Families. Retrieved on 1st May from, http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/socialdev/pdfs/Family_Structure .pdf. Katz, J.S., Dunham, R. & Zimmerman, R. (1997): Family structure versus parental attachment in controlling adolescent deviant behavior: a social control model. Retrieved on 1st May from, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2248/is_n125_v32/ai_19417327/. Keane, C. & Krull, C (2008): Family Structure and Parental Behavior: Identifying the Sources of Adolescent Self-Control. Retrieved on 1st May from, http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v09n2/phythian.pdf. Sauvola, A. (2001): The Association between Single-Parent Family Background and Physical Morbidity, Mortality, and Criminal Behavior in Adulthood. Retrieved on 1st May from, http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514259416/isbn9514259416. Shih, Y. (2008): Deviant Behavior of Teenagers In Single-Parent Families. Retrieved on 1st May from, http://www.ntpu.edu.tw/gradcrim/temp/P_220081002205612.pdf. Read More