Describe and discuss how the effects of family breakup, divorce, and conflict impact delinquency

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Family Breakup
The broken home–delinquency relationship is important because, if current trends continue, less than half of all children born today will live continuously with their own mother and father throughout childhood. And because stepfamilies, or so-called blended families, are less stable than families consisting of two biological parents, an increasing number of children will experience family breakup two or even three times during childhood. Children who have experienced family breakup are more likely to demonstrate behavior problems and hyperactivity than children in intact families.

The Effects of Divorce
Among the research findings on the association between divorce and delinquency are the following:
• Children growing up in families disrupted by parental death are better adjusted than children of divorce. Parental absence is not per se a cause of antisocial behavior.
• Remarriage does not lessen the effects of divorce on youth: children living with a stepparent exhibit (a) as many problems as youths in divorce situations and (b) considerably more problems than do children living with both biological parents.
• Continued contact with the noncustodial parent has little effect on a child's well-being.
• Evidence that the behavior of children of divorce improves over time is inconclusive.
• Postdivorce conflict between parents is related to child maladjustment.
• Parental divorce raises the likelihood of teenage marriage.
The effects of divorce also seem gender-, race-, and ethnicity-specific:
• Boys seem to be more affected by the postdivorce absence of the father.
• Girls are more affected by both the quality of the mother's parenting and postdivorce parental conflict.
• There are distinct racial and ethnic differences in the impact of divorce/separation on youth. Some groups (i.e., Hispanics, Asians) have been raised in cultures where divorce is rare, and parents have less experience in developing childrearing practices that buffer the effects of family breakup on adolescent problem behavior.
Family Conflict
The link between parental conflict and delinquency was established more than 50 years ago when F. Ivan Nye found that a child's perception of his or her parents' marital happiness was a significant predictor of delinquency. Contemporary studies also find that children who grow up in maladapted homes and witness discord or violence later exhibit emotional disturbance and behavior problems. There seems to be little difference between the behavior of children who merely witness intrafamily violence and those who are its victims. In fact, some research efforts show that observing the abuse of a family member may be more significant determinant of delinquency than being the actual target of child abuse.