Sanchez Mira School of Arts and Trades Senior High School

CHAPTER II

REVIEW AND RELATED LITERATURE

Family is said to be the first institution where one starts to equip oneself to grow.

But differences have been found to each family. Having healthy and happy family is what

everyone’s dream. But many could not succeed it. Due to different problems, the healthy

families have been broken up as well. When unwanted things are coming up, many families

have been broken, and the members are separated. This is a tragic happening out of

unrestricted reasons as well as unfortunate reasons.

When we say broken family, it is not distinct and strange thing, rather common and

experiencing problem in and around us. Family life is in a crisis when some problems

aroused and which causes separation of the members in the families, which is simply called

broken family.

However a mere separation due to education, job, etc. is not broken family, even

though the family members are staying away from each other. To be broken in the family,

there must be some crises which are arisen out of misconception, mistreating,

misunderstanding, misacceptance, etc. Then the occurring crises lead to the divorce of

parents, disposal of sons or daughters and leaving home by any members of that family. It

is very controversial that whether to claim every splitting up is broken family, while they

still run the family well. There are many families without father, mother, and other
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members but still conditionally and systematically running. They may not like to call them

broken. Of course they are not broken, rather just some members left away.

Causes of Broken Family Parents’ Divorce

In anytime, anywhere and anyhow, divorce is not healthy for the family life. But

it happens. Divorce is claimed to be the main reason behind broken family. The common

disputes between a husband and a wife are the financial issue, sexual misunderstanding,

early marriage, teen pregnancy, education, health problem, etc. When the parents get

divorced, usually either of them or sometime both of them leave home. Then the absence

of either or both the parents will affect the family administration, then family become

broken. Divorce is the hardest challenge that can happen to a couple especially if they

have kids. It is painful for the husband and wife to finally end their marriage but they are

two matured individuals who are strong enough to handle changes in their lives. The

impact of this turn of events in a family’s life is more devastating on the children.

Not only that it is painful for them on that moment to hear the news that their parents

are getting a divorce. But the worst that can happen is the long term effect that can

eventually ruin their future. Going through a divorce is a very difficult situation to be in;

usually their children are the ones who always suffer. An argument of the parents is one of

the basic causes of broken families. Money is mostly the cause of the basic cause of a

couples arguments. Too much money in a person's mind can cause greediness; this will let

the person forget about love towards its partner. Another one is unfaithfulness; in a

marriage, the couple must be faithful toward his/her partner.

In this situation either the husband or wife has an affair with other persons that will

eventually lead to being unfaithful to their partner. Loss of trust is another factor. Whenever

couple losses trust to each other they end up in divorce. Trust is an important factor in a

marriage, if a person losses trust to his/her partner, the person either ends up getting a

divorce or he/she chooses to have an affair, first then ends up in divorce. Inability to

manage or resolve a conflict is also one of the causes, in this situation both the husband

and the wife fight about something but is unable to resolve it. This makes the couple thick

that they are incompatible in many ways and how much they try to resolve their

incompatibility nothing will happen because they will both end up fighting again

Death: It is obvious that death reduces the family strength. More adversely death

sometime leads to broken family. Like other reason all death in the family do not

necessarily bring any broken, but by the death of mother or father children become

mother/father less. When children realize that the parent will never return, they get

emotionally disturbed. Moreover if the left partner live a drastic life in search of happiness

after losing his/her partner, the results in the family could not be hale and hearty for the

family life. Then it starts to be broken. In early life, loss of mother is more damaging than

loss of the father. The mother plays a very important role in nurturing the child during the

formative years of life. But as the children grow older, loss of the father is often more

serious than loss of the mother, especially for boys. Sometimes mother may lack the time

and energy to give children the care they need as she has double burden of homemaking

and bread-earning. But if children loss both parents, the effects are doubly serious.
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Misconception between family members: Apart from divorce parents and death,

there can be a family problem caused by misconception between the members in the home.

The reason may be differ from each other. However the most common reasons are drugs,

abusing, drinking alcohol, misbehavior manner and doing other intoxicant things by the

father, sons or any other members. Then there comes misconception, ruining and anger,

which in turn caused breaking the relationship of himself and herself from the family.

Unconditional administration: Failure in administration in the family is one cause for the

breaking up of family. If the father or mother or any other heads fail to administer, there

will be problems among the members of the family. They will be free to do whatever and

however they like in the home and outside. Then the unsystematic and improper living will

affect the remaining relationship in the family. If the relationship has been worsening, there

will definitely be losing of caring which can lead to broken in the family.

Parental or friends influence: Another reason why a family has broken up is because

of parental or friends influence. When a third party has involved itself in the matters inside

the home, bad-mouthing will just likely to happen and misunderstanding will only grow

worse. Everyone has friends; we used to share our problems with them. But there can be

negative impact. To whom we thought helps will come, another unexpected advice may

come. Many a time, broken family, particularly splitting up of parents took place due to

the influences made by our friends.

Effects of Broken Homes on Children

The effects of a broken family on child’s development depends on numerous

factors, including her age when her parents separation, and development on her

personality and family relationships. Although infants and young children may

experience few negative developmental effects, older children and teenagers may

experience some problems in social, emotional and educational functioning.

Emotional; After a divorce, children from pre-school through late adolescence can

experience deficits in emotional development. Children of all ages may seem tearful or

depressed, which is a state that can last several years after a child’s parents’ have separated,

explains psychologist Lori Rappaport. Additionally, some older children may show very

little emotional reaction to their parents’ divorce. Rappaport explains that this may not be

developmentally beneficial. Some children who show little emotional response are actually

bottling up their negative feelings. This emotional suppression makes it difficult for

parents, teachers and therapists to help the child process her feelings in developmentally

appropriate ways. Children tend to have a hard time dealing with change. When a parent

leaves the family, a stepparent joins the family, or the child doesn't feel like their emotional

needs are being met by their mother, they may express feelings of anger, resentment,

confusion and jealousy. This can bring on loneliness, isolation, depression and low self-

esteem if children don't know how to express their feelings properly.

Educational; Slowed academic development is another common way that divorce

affects children. The emotional stress of a divorce alone can be enough to stunt your child’s

academic progress, but the lifestyle changes and instability of a broken family can
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contribute to poor educational outcomes. This poor academic progress can stem from a

number of factors, including instability in the home environment, inadequate financial

resources and inconsistent routines.

Social; Divorce affects children’s social relationships in several ways. First, some

children act out their distress about their broken family by acting aggressive and by

engaging in bullying behavior, both of which can negatively affect peer relationships.

Other children may experience anxiety, which can make it difficult for them to seek

positive social interactions and engage in developmentally beneficial activities such as teen

sports. Teens from broken families might develop a cynical attitude toward relationships

and harbor feelings of mistrust, both toward their parents and potential romantic partners,

explains psychologist Carl Pickhardt in the article, ''Parental Divorce and adolescents''

published in Psychology Today.

Family Dynamics; By its very nature, divorce, changes not only the structure of the

family but also its dynamics. Even if you and your spouse have an amicable divorce, simply

creating two new households permanently alters family interactions and roles. Based on

the new living arrangements, your children may need to perform more chores and assume

additional roles in the new household's basic functioning. Additionally, in some broken

families, older children may take on a parentaltype role when interacting with younger

siblings because of their parents’ work schedules or inability to be present in the way that

the parents were before the divorce.

Behavior & learning problems; Children may experience behavior problems at

school with teachers, acting out against peers, and generally not wanting to cooperate with

any assignments or instructions, and they also may have difficulties concentrating and

understanding assignments. Children might lean toward the negative side to peer pressure.

At home, children may act out against siblings, their biological parent and a possible

stepparent. It was found that adolescents had fewer behavior problems if there is a positive

relationship not only with biological parents, but if stepparents are involved, specially a

strong relationship with stepfathers.

High levels of parent-child disagreements; If children are confused with different

things going on in the family or at school and they have feelings of frustration, more

disagreements may occur. Behavior problems tend to increase for boys when a step-father

is introduced to the family.

Low levels of parent-child interactions; In single family homes, children develop

greater autonomy where they tend to spend more time alone or with peers. It was found

that sons are more likely to resist directives and rules, where as daughters typically have a

closer relationship to their mother. However, if mothers inappropriately discuss financial

matters with their children or express a negative feeling toward their ex-spouse, it can

decrease the desire for the child to spend time with the parent due to increase confusion

about the whole situation.

Adjustment problems; Adjusting that children may have include academic

problems, internalizing and externalizing problems, lowself-esteemarly in sexual activities.

How do students cope up with their studies despite of having a broken family?

Paredes and Ugarte (2011) agreed that good attendance had a positive effect on

learning but were curious about the overall significance of this variable. Using data from

public primary schools in Chile, they found two distinct results regarding attendance and

educational performance. First, their study produced results consistent with claims that

poor attendance does in fact have a relevant and significant correlation with educational

performance. Secondly, they

concluded the existence of a threshold where once a student crosses over a certain number

of absences, further decline in performance did not appear to occur. In other words, the

overall impact of student absences seemed, at least in their study, to “cap” or maximize at

thirteen missed school days. Beyond the 13-day threshold, academic decline flat lined.

Considering the 13-day threshold, this study in a North Georgia middle school reviewed

students who had missed ten or more days in an academic year, which should have included

the most severely impacted students.

Further analysis by Paredes and Ugarte (2011) revealed students who were absent

at least nine days led to a reduction in performance on their SIMCE (a Chilean high stakes

assessment) math test of at least 23%. This study went on to suggest that attendance did in

fact have a significant and measureable impact on standardized test scores, and perhaps

American schools should give more credence and conduct their own studies to determine

the magnitude of this phenomenon in our school systems. Consequently, attendance is not

an American issue but a world issue that impacts students in school systems in communities
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on a global scale. Within this same study, were other tidbits that ring out the same family

structure concerns from other

research, such as how socioeconomic status as measured by free or reduced lunch impacts

achievement, but it also listed those students who did not have a home, thus lacking support

and cohesion from a family unit.

Most attendance research focused on either elementary grades or the complete

public education grading system of kindergarten through high school. Specific research

regarding middle school grades six through eight was limited. However, Benner and Wang

(2014) found that middle school students with decreasing rates of attendance were at an

increased disadvantage in high school. Their research found that students already

struggling with attendance issues experienced difficulty with the transition to high school.

This became an increased educational stressor, further disrupting their educational future

measured by graduation rates and academic achievement. This was evident by the

significant drops in attendance between the eighth and ninth grade years of those students

with already decreasing rates of attendance in the middle grade school years. The study

warned that some students (those already exhibiting decreasing attendance) struggled with

the transition from middle to high school by linking attendance issues with increased school

disengagement signaled by 38% of students

shifting to poorer attendance. Only 18% of students experienced improved attendance. On

a positive note, Benner and Wang (2014) found students with good overall attendance

behaviors seemed to continue the trend throughout high school. Roby (2004) found many
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factors that play a direct and indirect role in overall student achievement. Some variables

are more difficult to control and to determine to what level of effect they impacted learning;

however, the goal was to better understand the relationship of attendance with student

achievement. The Ohio study found that not only were proficiency test averages higher,

but also the annual attendance averages of the students in school buildings had higher test

averages. This suggested a strong, positive relationship between student achievement

measured by Ohio Proficiency Tests and annual school building averages (Roby, 2004).

Rather than reviewing individual student attendance and absence rates, Roby (2004)

instead compared overall achievement results from the Ohio state tests with the overall

building level student attendance. Roby’s approach to identify the relationship of

attendance to achievement was unique considering the exclusion of the individual student

component and focus on the building level data. Being absent from school subtracts

instructional hours, which from the basic premise that students are at school to learn and if

they are not present would not learn, was the fundamental element of Bandura (1977)’s

social learning theory.