Abstract

The study investigates the effect of parental separation on children’s psychosocial development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality. Specifically, the study examined the effect of broken homes, single parenting, and the absence of parental care on children’s psychosocial development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality.

The study employed a descriptive research design. Data was collected purposively, with the use of a questionnaire, from a sample population of 60 students. Data were descriptively analyzed from the questionnaire by calculating frequencies and percentages.

Findings revealed that broken homes on children’s psychosocial development as children suffered from anxiety depression and isolation. It was also revealed single parenting has an effect on psychological development as students from singles parents perform poorly in school.

The study further revealed that the absence of parental care has an effect on children’s psychosocial development. The study concludes that parental separation has an effect on children’s personality development. It was recommended that parents and teachers should be provided with information pertaining to the psychosocial development of children.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Family is the child’s first place of social organization, children as a result acquire initial education and socialization from the parents and other significant persons in the family (Kent, 2009). The family lays the psychological, moral, and spiritual foundation in the overall development of the child. Where and when there is harmony within the family, it translates to a happy home for the child.

In happy homes, healthy and peaceful coexistence prevail amongst family members, which in turn breed healthy and happy children. Very often, chances are that some homes are broken that is the members are not living/staying together either as a result of death, separation, divorce or the like.

Parents’ separation in this context refers to the end of a relationship that formerly existed between a husband and a wife. The separation is usually preceded by the experience of a dysfunctional or unsatisfactory relationship.

Hammond, as cited by Alhassan, (2008), discovered that pupils of broken homes exhibit many negative measures such as distractibility, acting out, with the time received from others, these go a long way to influence their academic performance in the schools. Kenkel as cited by Alhassan, (2008) indicated that a child in an incomplete family is socially and psychologically deprived of a father-figure either to emulate directly or to look for a model of the opposite sex. “In terms of other long-term consequences for children, parental disruption has been shown to be associated with lower socioeconomic and academic attainment”.

Wiseman (2007), as cited by Abbas (2010), postulated that it can be deduced/inferred that parental separation may affect the development of the children in all aspects of their life. Thus, children who are victims of parental separation may be emotionally imbalanced and psychologically depressed.

This chapter examines the following:  background to the study, statement of the problem, purpose/objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, the scope of the study, and operational definition of terms.

Background to the Study

Historically, parental separation can be traced far back to 1857 when Matrimonial Clauses Act allowed ordinary people to divorce (Linenr, 2000). Before then, divorce was largely open only to men and had to be granted by an Act of Parliament, which was hugely expensive, and therefore was also open only to the rich. (Long before then, of course, Henry VIII was granted a divorce by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and church courts retained the power to dissolve marriages.).

The big change came in 1969, when the Divorce Reform Act was passed, allowing couples to divorce after they had been separated for two years (or five years if only one of them wanted a divorce). A marriage could be ended if it had irretrievably broken down, and neither partner no longer had to prove “fault” (Linenry, 2000).

However, divorces continued to favour men, with the award and maintenance for the less-wealthy spouse usually the woman –is calculated based on needs, until the White v White case in 1996 (Kyla, 2010). Martin White and his wife Pamela had run a farming business, worth about £4.5m during their 33-year marriage. At first, Pamela White was awarded £800,000, but she took the case to the court of appeal, then the House of Lords in 2000, and was finally awarded £1.5m. It was a landmark case because it was decided the assets should be split more fairly and recognized the contribution of a “homemaker”.

The history of parental separation in Africa dates back to the traditional days when there were no legally constituted courts to settle the disputes among couples (Yakubu, 2017). Thus, differences were taken to the council of elders in the extended family system. The woman stressed her grievance and the husband was called upon by the eldest person in the family or village head for amicable settlement.

In a situation where the unwanted behaviour continued then the woman could report grievances to her parents. The parents of the woman or herself had the sole responsibility to seek divorce or separation. During these golden days, parental separation was not pronounced, and where there were few such cases it was considered taboo; as such the rates of parental separation were minimal in the study area.

In Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa was known to have exceptionally high levels of family instability. Migration, child fostering, and widowhood, especially in the aftermath of civil conflicts and the AIDS epidemic, separate many children from their parents, particularly their fathers. As a result, up to 60% of children in some countries do not live with their fathers (McDaniel and Zulu 1996; Posel and Devey 2006).

These various population processes also mean children’s family structures change frequently (Goldberg 2013). Yet, until recently an important source of family instability, divorce, has attracted surprisingly little attention from demographers and other researchers, outside of a handful of countries, namely Malawi, Ghana, and Ethiopia, where divorce is thought to be particularly high.

Conceptually, parental separation is a legal agreement by which husband and wife choose not live together. Separation is the removal of children from the caregiver (s) to whom they are attached. Separation frees parents from the burden of child-rearing (Caye, 1996). Separation and divorce have both positive and negative effects.

The separation limits can be established for parental behaviour and the child will get the message that society will protect him or her even if the parent will not. Divorce is a legal way of dissolving a marriage between two people.

This separation is a family as well as a personal crisis. Aprons, Tarma, Stephens, Farrant, Thomas & Vickram (1987) described it as a process that entails psychological risks as well as opportunities for the development of the stakeholders. They further stated that the process unfolds in distinct stages that are characterized by qualitative differences of themes and of the degree of coping. Separation and divorce are associated with heart rending emotions, unspeakable sadness, depression, anxiety, and much more. It leads to the creation of two households rather than one, with consequent increased cost, and all parties involved suffer these effects.

Hammond as cited by Alhassan, (2008) discovered that pupils of broken homes exhibit many negative measures such as distractibility, acting out, with the time received from others, these go a long way to influence their academic performance in the schools. Kenkel as cited by Alhassan, (2008) indicated that a child in an incomplete family is socially and psychologically deprived of a father-figure either to emulate directly or to look for a model of the opposite sex. “In terms of other long-term consequences for children, parental disruption has been shown to be associated with lower socioeconomic and academic attainment”.

Wiseman, as cited by Abbas (2010), It can be deduced/inferred that broken homes may affect the development of the children in all aspects of their life. Thus, children of broken homes may be emotionally imbalanced and psychologically depressed.

Theoretically, this study cuts across the following learning theories:

Eric Erikson’s psychosocial theory describes children’s development through a series of eight stages based on the impact of social experience (Erickson, 1968). Erickson’s theory explains how each stage builds upon one another based on the completion of the previous stage.

John Bowlby’s theory of attachment examines a strong affective relationship existing between the children and their parents. He talked of affectionate bond which is a long and enduring tie between the child and parents. This affectionate bond is in jeopardy when parental separation is involved, which can go a long way to affect children’s psychosocial development.

Carl Rogers, a highly influential humanistic psychologist developed a personality theory that emphasizes the importance of self-actualizing tendency in shaping human personality. Rogers believed that humans develop an ideal self and real self based on unconditional status of positive regard. Children are influenced by their parents’ matrimonial status, in case their parents are separated, they feel unloved (Rogers, 1989).

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. This theory propounds that a person’s development was affected by everything in their surrounding environment. He divided a person’s environment into five different levels; the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exo-system, the macro-system, and the chrono-system.  One’s environment impacts individual development and overall well-being. The environment of children goes a long way in influencing their psychosocial development (Bronfenbrenner, 1983).

Contextually, Parental separation has been associated with reduced cognitive development and educational performance in Cameroon schools (Ndonkgo, 2009). Since parental separation can result in multiple negative effects, including perceived guilt, blame, stressors, and diminished resources for the children, it is not surprising that parental separation has also been reported to negatively affect a child’s motivation, engagement, and learning-related behavior in the classroom (Moris, Molenda, Harris, & Houghton, 2008).

Parental separation typically exposes children to a number of challenges, such as observing parents’ heightened emotions and stress, an associated decline in parenting sensitivity, a range of socio-economic and environmental changes including a reduction in financial resources, learning to alternate between households, moving schools and/or neighborhoods, reduced contact with a non-resident parent, and family reformation that may involve step-parents and step-siblings.

It is therefore unsurprising that parental separation tends to be associated with a higher rate of emotional and social adjustment problems than among children in ‘intact’ families. However, many authors have noted the substantial difficulties in drawing causal conclusions in this area (e.g., Amato, 2010; McLanahan, Tach, & Schneider, 2013).

Studies that focus on the consequences of divorce without taking into account the circumstances in the child’s life prior to divorce are liable not only to overstate the effects of divorce on child outcomes, but to imply misleadingly that divorce is the only, or the most critical, determinant of child wellbeing (Strohschein, 2012).

When parents no longer love each other and decide to live apart, a child can feel as if their world has been turned upside down. The level of upset the child feels can vary depending on how their parents separated, the age of the child, how much they understand, and the support they get from parents, family, and friends.

Statement of the problem

Children’s psychosocial development refers to the development of their personality including the acquisition of social attitudes and skills, from infancy through maturity. In the course of their psychosocial development, issues like juvenile delinquency unfold where children become stubborn and involve in criminal acts and activities. They no longer take the advice given by their teachers and even reject counsel coming from elders.

They associate themselves with wrong companies and peers, some have become robbers, heavy smokers, drunkards, drug addicts among others, there is a high rate of promiscuity and unwanted pregnancies. Some of them are sent to school by their parents, stay away from classes, fail exams and even involve in fights and become bullies in school.

This has had adverse effects on the society, as there is a rapid increase in crime waves, on parents, as they spend money, paying fees for their children yet they are unable to move from one class to another, on the part of the government, educational wastage is on the rampant. However, measures like corporal punishment and counseling to curb this issue have proved futile. It was for this cause therefore, the researcher sought to examine the effects of parental separation on children’s psychosocial development.

Objectives of the study

General objective

To find out the effect of parental separation on children’s psychosocial development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality.

Specific Objectives

1. To investigate the effect of broken homes on children’s psychosocial development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality.
2. To determine the effects of single parenting on children’s psychosocial development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality.
3. To determine the influence of absence of parental care on children’s psychosocial development in secondary schools in Buea Municipality.