Impact on Social Development and Social

Communication
Parents provide an initial opportunity for children to develop relationships, communicate, and
interact. Parents are role model for their children to develop healthy relationships and help
them relate positively with people around them. Parental divorce can cause impaired
development of social skills difficulty in social adjustment, insecure attachment, difficulty in
starting a new friendship, poor communication skills, and difficulty in engaging in
satisfactory intimate relationships. Their future relationships are affected due to the lack of a
healthy model of long-term relationships with the situations. Single parents are often
overprotective of their children, which can affect the child’s social skills
development. Children of single parents often miss the other parent’s role who is not
involved in their life, especially if the parent is of the same sex, as there is no role model.
Hence these children may seek support from outside, including unapproved sources by the
parent, such as social media and peers. Lack of parenting and supervision by the single parent
can lead to wrong choice of friends, cyber bullying, being aggressive, over-involvement in
social media, being influenced inappropriately by social media and various internet sites, and
having less physical interaction. Lack of social skills, in turn, can lead to low self-esteem.
Children of single parents may have a different outlook on sexual behavior and adult intimate
relationships, such as increased approval of premarital sex, cohabitation, earlier age of
initiation of sexual activities, teenage pregnancies, and divorce when compared to their
counterparts with nondivorced or dual parent cohabited children. They are less likely to view
marriage as permanent and a lifelong commitment. In adulthood, they experience less trust
and satisfaction in romantic relationships. These children are stigmatized and disrespected for
not having a family and are constantly reminded of the missing parent. The stigma, lack of
social support, lack of social acceptance faced by single-parent children and constant
negative judgments by extended relatives may lead to a socially challenging experience,
reducing their motivation to seek social support, lower participation in social and recreational
activities, experiencing sadness, vulnerability, and lowered sense of belongingness.

Positive Impacts of Single Parenting on Children

Studies have indicated that children and parents’ bonding increases in a single-parenting
family compared to the children and parents in nuclear families. Children raised by single
parents develop a strong sense of community as they and their single parents are more
involved in community activities. They appreciate the value of parenthood and try to be
successful parents in the future to their children. Most of the children are taught by their
single parents to balance their needs and the needs of others, as well as work hard towards
their goals. They become successful in their career as they become resilient at a very young
age. As these children spend more time in household chores and duties helping their single
parent, they are more responsible and mature than their counterparts. These children
understand the struggle of their parents, assume parental responsibilities, become mature
early, are more self-resilient, are involved in family decision-making, and develop elevated
emotional regulation and problem-solving abilities. Few studies have suggested that
adolescents from single-parent households develop confidence and high self-esteem as they
are not subjected to parental conflicts and domestic violence.

Interventions and Recommendations

Single-parent families have become a way of life in the west and are increasing in India.
Children of single-parent families are at risk for diverse short and long-term negative
outcomes. Longitudinal studies have indicated that most youngsters from single parent
families develop normally and only some of them have problems before separation and some
develop problems after separation. There is a need for more holistic approach of interventions
that can tackle the wide-ranging problems that single parents and their children face.

Effective Parenting, Parental Responsibilities, and

Parent Child Relationship
Parenting and parent-child relationships with warmth, nurturance, supportiveness, effective
discipline, limit-setting, develop-mentally appropriate expectations, problem-solving skills,
positive communication, and low levels of conflict and negativity are protective and
resilience-promoting factors for children experiencing parental separation or divorce.
Developing a strong parent-child relationship depends on frequently communicating,
effectively, and openly expressing their love with children. It is difficult to know what the
children are thinking and going through, as most of the children do not communicate about
the divorce with their parents. Parents need to listen without judgment, reflect understanding,
allow silence, respond with empathy, establish family routines, share activities, and increase
one-on-one time with each child. Parents need to control their conflicts, develop a respectful,
business-like relationship with each other, with clear boundaries and ground rules for
interacting and working together towards the children’s best interests and well-being. Both
parents need to be involved in school meetings, school visits and after-school activities of the
child. Support groups and group therapy for children can help them reduce sense of isolation,
clarifies their misconceptions, and helps them learn problem-solving techniques, and
communicate more effectively with parents. Parents need to look after their own health, seek
mental health professional help for their emotional turmoil, compartmentalize time for
different activities, and set aside time for themselves.
When single parents enter into a new relationship too quickly, it can increase a child’s sense
of loss and the fear of being “replaced” as a parent shifts the focus to a new partner.
Introduction to new relationships needs to be done slowly and handled with care. 27, 34 The
stepparents need to build a warm and involved relationship with the child, support the
biological parents’ discipline. Extended families, such as grandparents living together with
single parent needs to be supportive of the parent’s decisions, show limited control, reduce
unwanted advice and criticism.34

Promotion of Social Development

Single parents need to be educated to develop social relationships through healthy
conversations with their children and friends, such as communicating politely, with respect,
with honesty, giving each other space and by, managing their anger, and positively resolving
their conflicts. They need to provide an opportunity to their children to discuss social
conflicts in a nonjudgmental way and let them solve their problems independently. They have
to discuss about bullying and harassment, both in person and on the internet. Single parents
have to be available and approachable. The single parent needs to work towards
understanding their child’s interests and hobbies and help them make friends by getting them
involved in activities that match their interests and have more meaningful interactions. They
are required to make them understand which risks will enable them to test their skills and
which risks may have harmful consequences even though those behaviors are encouraged by
peers.34, 41
Learning institutions can promote social development by developing debate and public
speaking programs. This, in turn, can cultivate self-confidence and self-esteem among
children. Guidance and Counseling teams of schools must serve in identifying children with
poor social skills and help them. Also, they can make provisions for life-skills training
programs in terms of an empowerment program for decision-making, conflict resolution, and
anger managemnt.41

Legal and Therapeutic Interventions

Most of the past guidelines regarding visitation and custody of the child in divorced parents
were designed uniformly as suitable for everyone, in which the children live half the time
with the custodial parent, and several individual days are served for the non-custodial parent,
who is usually the father. In individual custody one parent makes all the decisions and
doesn’t consult or notify the other parent. The introduction of the joint legal custody enables
both parents to participate in important decisions concerning their children (eg, health,
education, daycare, etc). Adolescents want their living arrangements to let them see their
noncustodial parent whenever desired. Children adapt better to a joint custody arrangement
rather than with a single custody parent.32, 34 Studies have suggested that a good relationship
between the child with the custodial parent predicts fewer behavioural problems, better
communication skills, better grades, and higher ratings of adjustment. 27 Emotional and
behavior problems can be treated by mental health professionals through medications as well
as therapy. School-based programs and child-focused interventions appear to be more helpful
in reducing their distress. Programs focused on parents and parenting interventions have been
used in parental adjustment and parenting practices.34

Building Resilience
Although studies have highlighted the negative outcomes of children living in single-parent
families, most children grow up normally and have positive outcomes. Children’s resilience
can be developed by reducing risk factors and cultivating protective factors. Factors that can
reduce the risk of negative outcomes and promote positive outcomes include warm and
competent parents, lack of depression and other psychological disorders among parents, low
conflicts among parents, living arrangements after separation satisfactory for the child, joint
custody of the child, improved communication and healthy relationship between parent and
child, authoritative parenting, financial and household stability and supportive extended
family, sibling relationship, and extra-familial social relationship. 27, 32, 34, 53 The risk of negative
outcomes for these children increased with either or both custodial and noncustodial parents
having a mental illness, substance use disorder, poor parenting habits, multiple family
transitions, unstable household, poverty, bad parent-child relationship, and no social
support.27, 32, 34
Children’s temperament is another critical factor that determines maladjustment or resilience.
Externalizing problems stem from a lack of persistence or intentional self-regulation, and
withdrawal and shyness are more related to internalizing problems. Children with an easy
temperament, physical attractiveness, average or above-average intelligence, high self-
esteem, a sense of humor, persistent temperamental trait, having a social responsibility are
free from the influence of others, have active coping styles, are more resilient, more likely to
evoke positive responses and support from others, are better at adapting to the stresses and
challenges of single-parent family. On the other hand, children with difficult temperaments,
less attractive individual characteristics, low self-efficacy, an external locus of control, who
blame themselves for the divorce, who rely on distraction or avoidance rather than active
coping skills are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems and have difficulty in coping and
adjusting with marital transitions, separation, and challenges of single parent family. 34, 53

Conclusion
For various reasons, single parenting is on the rise in India, especially with the blurring of the
lines of gender roles, gender equality, acceptance of various gender and their preferences, and
also due to the loss of a parent in the COVID-19 pandemic. With such a shift in family
dynamics, we all have to be prepared to face the impacts of single parenting on children and
parents. It is widely known through various studies that single parenting, especially in the
background of parental divorce, separation, parental abandonment, and abuse, negatively
impacts their children. Children of single parents are emotionally disturbed, have behavioural
problems, have difficulty socializing, have impairment in physical, social and cognitive
development, low educational achievement, and low self-esteem. Very few studies have
highlighted the positive outcomes of single-parenting households that include higher
resilience, greater sense of responsibility, better emotional regulation, better problem-solving
skills, and are involved in decision-making of the family. It has also been noted that only a
few of them in a single parenting household have negative impacts, and we need to work to
prevent these negative impacts by identifying the risk factors and promoting resilience-
building, protective factors. As mental health professionals, we need to reach out to these
families to ensure their mental and emotional well-being and help them develop effective
parenting techniques.