With the timing and sequence of ‘young adult transitions’ bearing importance for successes in later life, this news about these transitions and their occurrence in ‘high-conflict’ families shows that staying together for the sake of the kids doesn’t necessarily help:
Compared with children in low-conflict families, children from high-conflict families are more likely to drop out of school, have poor grades, smoke, binge drink, use marijuana, have early sex, be young and unmarried when they have a child and then experience the breakup of that relationship.
As interesting as this may be, I find that the opening paragraph taints the whole article. It states that (emphasis mine) “Adolescents tend to fare better—academically and behaviorally—when they live with both biological parents”. However recent research contradicts this, suggesting that this viewpoint is wholly incorrect.
The specific study I’m thinking of (which I admit to being slightly biased towards for various reasons) comes from Cambridge University’s Centre for Family Research and looks at the psychological well being of children from ‘non-traditional families’. This research found no difference in relationship quality between children and their biological or non-biological parents. As the BBC noted of the research; “Children conceived using donor sperm or eggs or through surrogacy do as well emotionally as those conceived naturally”.
via Mind Hacks