Single Parent Families In Jamaica

Crime and its impact seem to be the number one focus for the police and other stakeholders in Jamaica. The role of the family and the impact that malfunctioning families have on the society and the education system often goes unnoticed.
The word family under regular circumstances refers to a group of people living together who are related by blood or marriage. The nuclear family which is considered a “normal family” is now being affected by the rapid growth of single parent households. Single parent may be defined as one parent, mother or father taking care of child/children on their own whilst doing work which was meant for two people being carried out by only one person. Fathers are very important and special in household as they provide

Biller (1970), reported evidence showing a correlation between father absence and child delinquency. He also showed evidence that boys living in father absent homes face difficulties forming peer relationships and long lasting heterosexual relationships. These children have additional academic problems scoring poorly on almost every test received. They are the ones who subsequently move on to becoming teenage parents. The females who live in father absent households usually hunger for a male or father figure in their lives, these girls usually are exploited by older men. Fatherless children are at a greater risk Kruk says at suffering physical, emotional and sexual abuse. One study showed that pre-schoolers not living with both parents are forty times more likely to be sexually abused. Fatherlessness also has the ability to affect children’s physical and mental health. Children living in absent father homes report more psychosomatic health symptoms and illnesses such as asthma, headaches, chronic pains and stomach pains. Fatherless children grow up with poorer life situations which results in less opportunities

Kellaghan et al (1993) further stated that the family social status or cultural backgrounds do not determine a child's achievement at school. They propose that for academic success, it is what parents do in the home, and not children's family background, that is significant. Phillips (1998) found that parental education and family socioeconomic status alone are not good predictors of student academic achievement. Other researchers contend that dysfunctional home environments, low parental expectations and ineffective parenting might account for lower levels of academic achievement among students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. (Frymier and Gansneder, 1989; Ceci et al (1997) propose that the efficacy of a family influence for academic success is determined to a large degree by a child's family background. In addition, they claim that academic success is achieved only if family background resources can be accessed to maximize the association between family influence and outcomes. The relationships between family influences and academic achievement need to take into account the potentially constraining or expanding opportunities provided by children's family backgrounds. Studies have revealed that high home environment groups achieved greater