How Does An Unstable Household Impact Student Behaviour?

People often think to themselves ‘is it possible to raise a healthy child in an unconventional family. With social norms rapidly changing beyond traditional conceptions, thoughts like these have become more and more common. Therefore it is worth providing an answer not only regarding the consequences of household instability but whether unconventional families can raise healthy children.

The Negative Effects of Instability on Child Development

Within the previous 50 years, the structure and composition of families have changed dramatically. Divorce has soared, and couples have been living together unmarried in much greater numbers. This is known to create an unstable home because these couples are less likely to remain together in the long-term.
More importantly, both cohabiting couples and married couples seem to have greater instability within America than outside of it, and children frequently end up growing up in a lone-parent household. Sometimes they have to live with other members of their family, especially if the relationship between their parents has broken down completely.
Research is increasingly suggesting that students who have to deal with a difficult home life and are witness to a variety of transformations in their family structure do worse than those who are raised conventionally. Therefore, unstable households and student learning are correlated. A student will not do as well academically if they are unable to find the stability they need at home. Changeable family environments can do more harm than being raised by a lone parent, and a lone parent can cause poorer outcomes for their child than a married couple. Sometimes adoption can lead to children feeling like they don’t belong and also worry that they don’t look like their parents.
What this implies is that an unstable home impact student learning greater than a stable home with either both parents or only one parent. This is quite unexpected compared to previous historical research, but it appears to be the trend. Students living in a disruptive home environment will perform worse than those who do not. It also hints that if a single parent does not find a new partner, their child may do better than if they did find someone else.

Another Explanation

The answers given above are only one side of the coin. There is another way of approaching this subject. Just because a family structure is constantly in flux, that does not mean it is the cause of the poor development of the child. It could be the outcome simply because of the way the parents are behaving, rather than the process itself. This would be a great avenue of research for those who take an interest in sociology. Sociology focuses on the wellbeing of children and how early childhood experiences can shape their futures many decades ahead. It also explores the relationship of upbringing to crime and education. However, it does appear to be the case that there is a correlation between family structure and outcomes for children. These poor development experiences causes children to go through a lot of emotional trauma that can lead to difficulty in eating.

How Does Instability Affect A Child?

Since the 1980s, many have claimed that the greater the instability in a student’s family life, the more they would struggle to adjust and develop appropriately, and the lower their performance in academia would be. When mentioning family structure changes, researchers were referring to the divorce of the parents, the departure or arrival of a partner, the second marriage of a lone parent, or a disrupted marriage process. This claim was based on the view that children and parents together form a cohesive unit, and when it is broken many times, the children will suffer negative consequences. These consequences may then turn out to be more severe than if two discontented partners had remained together, or a single parent had found a new partner. The sudden chaos of family upheaval could, according to this view, lead to the degradation of development for that child. As a result, their ability to study and learn at school would also be diminished. Even if the separations and subsequent reformulations of the family structure were peaceful, the student could feel mentally unstable because there is no constancy in their home life. This could cause their emotions to become impaired. The results appear to show that this claim, and the view underlying it, are both correct. Instability causes a variety of negative outcomes for students, and prevent them from leading a normal life.

Conclusion

America has changed beyond recognition in the previous 50 years. In terms of families, there have been significant alterations in the way people live together and raise children. Marriages are now less stable, cohabitation is on the rise, and single-parent homes are much more common. There have also been unconventional families that have emerged that challenge the traditional social fabric. As a result, research has been conducted to determine the effects of all this on children and students.
The results demonstrate that behavior is negatively affected by instability within the family structure. This does not prove that instability is the cause, but shows that it is most certainly a factor. Every time that family structure changes, it requires both the child and their family members to adapt, and this takes a toll on their emotional state, ability to relate to others, and the way they identify themselves.
Therefore, the overall conclusion is that the negative effects of instability on child development do exist, are meaningful, and have profound consequences for children. Students will not be able to focus on their academic tasks and their performance will decline if they are raised within an unstable household.