Study: Divorce doesn't change parenting
Published: Dec. 12, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Sociology professor Lisa Strohschein used data from the 1994 and 1996 cycles of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to compare changes in parenting practices among 208 households that divorced between the first and follow up interview and 4,796 households that remained intact.
Strohschein looked at three measures of parenting behavior -- nurturing, consistent and punitive parenting -- and found no differences between divorced and stable married parents for any parenting behavior either before or after a divorce has occurred.
"My findings that parenting practices are unrelated to divorce appear to fly in the face of accepted wisdom," Strohschein said in a statement. "Undoubtedly, some parents will be overwhelmed and unable to cope with the demands of parenting in the post-divorce period, but the expectation that all parents will be negatively affected by divorce is unfounded."
The findings, published in Family Relations, are important because governments in both Canada and the United States have allocated considerable resources to provide parenting seminars on a mandatory or voluntary basis to parents who divorce.
© 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
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