Family breakdown is having a profound effect on young people’s exam performance, research published today indicates.
65% of 14 - 22 year olds who experience a parental break-up, say that their GCSE results were affected, while 44% indicated that their A-levels were adversely impacted. Nearly one in five (19%) didn’t get the results for which they were hoping.
14% indicated that they started drinking alcohol or drinking more alcohol as a result of parental break-up, whilst 13% reported that they had experimented or thought about experimenting with drugs.
The survey was carried out by the family lawyers’ association, Resolution. Its chair, Jo Edwards commented on the scale of the problem, saying:
“Each year around 100,000 children under 16 see their parents divorce. Almost half of all break-ups (48%) occur when there is at least one child in the relationship, and with 230,000 people in England and Wales going through a divorce each year (and many more separating), this is an issue that affects hundreds of thousands of families in Britain every year.”
She went on to say that it was clear that “children are suffering as a result of parental separation and that in some cases it’s exacerbated when parents place additional stresses on their children during their break-up.”
According to the survey, 32% said that one parent ‘tried to turn them against the other’ whilst more than a quarter (27%) said their parents ‘tried to involve them in their dispute’.
Family breakdown is having a profound effect on young people’s exam performance... Read here: http://t.co/pfqPsK5776 pic.twitter.com/y6szTQ1xSp
— Christian Concern (@CConcern) November 26, 2014‘How many more studies do we need?’
Commenting on the Resolution survey, former family High Court judge and founder of The Marriage Foundation, Sir Paul Coleridge, said:
“Children almost never perform at their highest potential when their emotional life is chaotic, and family breakdown is the arch contributor to that. How many more studies and statistics do we need before we all, including government, wake and take this issue seriously? It is so unfair on the children and their life chances.”
According to the Marriage Foundation, “by the age of 16, a child born today has only a 50 / 50 chance of living with both parents. Every year, half a million children and adults get caught up in the family justice system. That’s enough to fill the O2 Arena 25 times!”
A separate organisation, the Cambridge-based Relationships Foundation, last year estimated the annual cost of family breakdown to be £46bn – more than the entire defence budget.
According to the Centre for Social Justice, a teenager sitting their GCSEs is more likely to “own a smartphone than live with their father”.
‘Parents do not realise the damage they do’
In 2010, the then President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Nicholas Wall, told the charity Families Need Fathers that:
"People think that post-separation parenting is easy - in fact, it is exceedingly difficult, and as a rule of thumb my experience is that the more intelligent the parent, the more intractable the dispute.
“There is nothing worse, for most children, than for their parents to denigrate each other. Parents simply do not realise the damage they do to their children by the battles they wage over them.
"Separating parents rarely behave reasonably, although they always believe that they are doing so, and that the other party is behaving unreasonably."
‘Time for action’
Responding to this latest survey, Andrea Williams of Christian Concern commented:
“The factors involved in family breakdown are usually complex and painful and we need to respond with care and compassion. But the scale of family breakdown is staggering and the suffering experienced by children and young people is devastating. This is a catastrophe that our society is trying to ignore but we cannot afford to do so. Sadly, this is what happens when God’s pattern for family is cast aside.
“Marriage is being systematically dismantled in our society. In the 1970s ‘no-fault’ divorce was introduced. Most recently we’ve had the introduction of same-sex ‘marriage’, robbing children of a mum and a dad. It is all part of the same, regressive journey.
“The questions of how to promote real marriage, prepare people for it and support them within it are ones that ought to be at the centre of public debate as we approach the General Election. Healthy, stable families are vital for healthy, stable societies.”
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