I am new to the site, I am a single parent of a 5 yr old little boy and am a college student full time as well as full time employee so I thought this site may help me with a class project I am working on. I have a research paper due and my chosen topic for it is about how family structure does not determine a child's outcome, what goes on in the family is what determines this. Love, patience and an active roll in a child's life are what determine a child's future outcome and not simply because the child lives in a certain family structure. Single parent families are credited as being responsible for so many negative things but I know from personal experience this is not always the case. I also know from personal experience that being from the traditional family does not automatically mean the child will be great and perfect. We had a child here in our local community that was from a very prominent traditional family and very wealthy, he recently shot himself. My reason for posting this however is that with such a topic, it is hard to find many positive responses. There is so much negativity out there about single parent children and I am having a hard time finding much positive. I thought that some of you could share your stories of success or even provide links to places where I could find some upbeat information supporting my claim. If anyone can help that would be great, even personal stories will contribute to my project
:thanks:

Well if I would have stayed with my sons mom to keep the quote on quote nuclear family together he would have been raised with a drug addict in the house. While I know having to healthy, loving parents in the house is the best possible scenario its not always possible. A single parent can raise a healthy loving child just as it took parents Jeffrey Dahmer who grew up to be a serial killer. I believe bottom line its the quality of the parent not the quality. I think where a lot of single parents lack, me included is not getting there child involved or around the healthy people the same gender of that parent missing. Not a father or mother figure as much as maybe a family member or close friend of that missing gender who can be a positive influence on that child. Everything I stated here is just my opinion as whole. I like the topic though a lot. I bet the paper turns out great. God bless you !

Drew

I have finished my paper now and would love to share it with readers. I am not sure how I would go about posting an 8 page paper. But I do have to say I was very proud of the paper and felt that I did get my point across. I did include in their scenarios such as the one you mentioned. I defintely agree that it is the internal workings that help raise childrena nd not he number of adults int eh households. I also recently watched a show on children of gay couples and found that the children are flourishing and this concept kind of goes along with my topic.

quote:

I have finished my paper now and would love to share it with readers. I am not sure how I would go about posting an 8 page paper.

They easiest way would be to create a personal webpage and post the link. I'm sure there would be a few members who would be interested.My MSN Space, Yahoo Geocities and numerous others can host your page.