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Students will work in groups to discuss how children of single parent homes might feel discriminated against sometimes.
Students will work together to advocate changes made to help them feel more included.
(ex. on family night, mothers day, fathers day, father daughter dances)

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Children who live with a single parent are 'no less happy than those who live with mom and dad

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Children who live with a single parent are 'no less happy than those who live with mom and dad

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By: Simon Tomlinson

This article looks into the research behind the happiness of children living in single parent homes.

Discussion Activity
Students will use this article in the class debate.The class will be split into two groups and each will have a side ( single parent families harm the children or single parent families do not harm the family) and they will use points from the books they read and other research to argue/ pursued their point.

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Quality of relationship far more important, study of 12,000 children finds

Researcher: ' The f amily type had no significant effect on their happiness'

Children who live with a single parent are just as happy as those living with a mother and father, new research has found.

A study of more than 12,000 seven-year-olds found that the quality of the relationship was more important than the composition of the family.

The results will question the widely held belief that it is better for parents to stay together 'for the sake of the children' than breaking up.

Researchers from the NatCen research institute asked children from three groups - those living with their two biological parents, those with a step-parent and biological parent, and those in a single-parent family - how often they feel happy.

In each category, 36 per cent of children said they were happy 'all the time', while the remaining 64 per cent replied 'sometimes or never'.

Shouty parents, arguing with siblings and being bullied at school were found to have the biggest effect on happiness.

The research is due to be presented at the British Sociological Association's annual conference in Leeds.

Jenny Chanfreau, a senior researcher from NatCen, a London-based social research institute, said: 'The family relationship is more important than the type of family.

'Staying together for the children but fighting all the time and shouting at the children, not having fun together, not sitting down to eat dinner is not going to be good for a child's happiness.

'We found that the family type had no significant effect on the happiness of the seven-year-olds or the 11 to 15-year-olds.

'It's the quality of the relationships in the home that matters - not the family composition.'

She added: 'Pupil relations at school are also important- being bullied at school or being 'horrible' to others was strongly associated with lower happiness in the seven-year-olds, for instance.

'I think it's more about the dynamics of what goes on inside the household and whether there's stability in every day life.

'If they feel secure in the home it doesn't mean so much whether there's one parent or more.'

Larissa Pople, senior researcher at charity The Children's Society, agreed that being in a loving home was far more important than the number of parents in it.

She told MailOnline: 'Family is massively important to children's happiness.

'But it is quality of relationships that are much, much more important than the structure of the family.

'Of course single parents face challenges, for example when it comes to finding flexible work and affordable childcare.

'But for children's happiness, being in a loving home and protected from conflict is much more important than living with one parent or two.'

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Children with one parent are 'no less happy than those with two'

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Quality of relationship far more important, study of 12,000 children finds Researcher: ' The f amily type had no significant effect on their happiness' Children who live with a single parent are just as happy as those living with a mother and father, new research has found.

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By:Kay Hymowitz
This news article looks into the effects of single parent households and how it can effect children.

Discussion Questions:
After reading the many children books about single parent families,  children will be asked to critque the authors argument.

The class will be split into two groups and each will have a side ( single parent families harm the children or single parent families do not harm the family)
and they will use points from the books they read and other research to argue/ pursued their point.

Students will question the authors perspective and look into the authors credibility for writing this article.

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The last few weeks have brought an unusual convergence of voices from both the center and the left about a topic that is typically part of conservative rhetorical territory: poverty and single-parent families. Just as some conservatives have started talking seriously about rising inequality and stagnant incomes, some liberals have finally begun to admit that our stubbornly high rates of poverty and social and economic immobility are closely entwined with the rise of single motherhood.

But that's where agreement ends. Consistent with its belief in self-sufficiency, the right wants to see more married-couple families. For the left, widespread single motherhood is a fact of modern life that has to be met with vigorously expanded government support. Liberals point out, correctly, that poverty rates for single-parent households are lower in most other advanced economies, where the welfare state is more generous.

That argument ignores a troubling truth: Single-parent families are not the same in the United States as elsewhere. Simply put, unmarried parents here are more likely to enter into parenthood in ways guaranteed to create turmoil in their children's lives. The typical American single mother is younger than her counterpart in other developed nations. She is also more likely to live in a community where single motherhood is the norm rather than an alternative life choice.

The sociologist Kathryn Edin has shown that unlike their more educated peers, these younger, low-income women tend to stop using contraception several weeks or months after starting a sexual relationship. The pregnancy - not lasting affection and mutual decision-making - that often follows is the impetus for announcing that they are a couple. Unsurprisingly, by the time the thrill of sleepless nights and colicky days has worn off, two relative strangers who have drifted into becoming parents together notice they're just not that into each other. Hence, the high breakup rates among low-income couples: Only a third of unmarried parents are still together by the time their children reach age 5.

Also complicating low-income single parenthood in America is what the experts call "multipartner fertility." Both divorced and never-married Americans are more likely to repartner and start "second families" than Europeans, but the trend is far more common among unmarried parents. According to data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study at Princeton and Columbia Universities, over 60 percent of low-income babies will have at least one half sibling when they are born; by the time they are 5, the proportion will have climbed to over 70 percent.

All of this would be of merely passing interest if it weren't for the evidence that this kind of domestic churn is really bad news for kids. The more "transitions" experienced by a child - the arrival of a stepparent, a parental boyfriend or girlfriend, or a step- or half sibling - the more children are likely to have either emotional or academic problems, or both. (My own research indicates that boys, especially, suffer from these transitions.)

Part of the problem is that a nonresident father tends to fade out of his children's lives if there's a new man in his ex's house or if he has children with a new partner. For logistical, emotional and financial reasons, his loyalty to his previous children slackens once he has a child with a new girlfriend or wife. Nor is it likely, from the overlooked child's point of view, that a mother's new boyfriend or husband can fill the gap. There's substantial research showing that stepfathers are sometimes worse than none at all.

These realities help explain the meager results of government marriage promotion programs. It doesn't make much sense to encourage, much less pressure, a couple with no shared history, interests or deep affection to marry. At any rate, given the prevalence of multipartner fertility it's not clear, as one scholar asked in a paper, "who should marry whom."

But those same realities raise serious doubts about the accept-and-prop-up response to single-parent families. Increasing government largess could actually incentivize, or at least enable, parental choices that everyone admits are damaging to kids. The United States aside, scholars have found a connection between the size of a welfare state and rates of both nonmarital births and divorce. Even if you believe that enlarging the infrastructure of support for single-parent families shows compassion for today's children, it's not at all obvious that it shows much concern for tomorrow's.

Most surprising, given the likely feminist sympathies of liberal advocates for single mothers, is their fatalism toward men. While it's a safe bet that most in this camp wouldn't hesitate to scold married "bastards on the couch" for not pulling their weight at home, they seem more than willing to write off unmarried fathers. Not only does this merely accept the personal loss suffered by millions of children living without their fathers; it also virtually guarantees a permanent gender gap - single mothers are inevitably competing in the labor market with one hand tied behind their backs - and entrenched inequality.

So where does that leave us, policy-wise? Liberal critics of marriage promotion are probably correct that there are only limited steps government can take to change the way low-income couples meet and mate. But that doesn't mean the status quo is the way things have to be. Not so long ago, the rise of teenage motherhood seemed unstoppable. Instead, over the past two decades adolescent births have declined to record lows. Researchers believe the decline was caused by a combination of better contraceptive use and delayed sexual activity. Both were grounded in a growing consensus - including by the policy makers, educators, the public and teenagers themselves - that having a baby when you are 16 is just a really bad idea.

It's not impossible that Americans could reach a similarly robust consensus about having children outside of a committed relationship, which in the United States, at least, tends to mean marriage. But despite the growing list of center-left writers willing to admit that single motherhood is complicit in our high levels of poverty and inequality, that consensus still seems a long way off.
Kay S. Hymowitz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal, is the author of "Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age."

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The last few weeks have brought an unusual convergence of voices from both the center and the left about a topic that is typically part of conservative rhetorical territory: poverty and single-parent families.

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By Natalie Laborer
This video explores what it is like for a young girl to live only with her papa. When this eccentric inventor realizes he's not a perfect father, he tries to build one. They have many differences but in the end realizes she loves him very much for his uniqueness.

Discussion Questions:
Does the father and little girl enjoy doing the same activities?
Is that okay?

Why does the father build her a robot?

Do you think it is hard for the father being a single father?

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"When an eccentric inventor realizes he's not a perfect father, he tries to make one." Papa by animator and illustrator Natalie Labarre. From an interview with her on Idea Rocket Animation:

So, for some reason, most of my art is based on my life. And definitely my father, for some reason. Which drives my mom crazy. She's like: hello, can you make something about me?! Like I've done portraits of him, for fine art. Oil paintings and that was exhibited a little bit. I don't know, for some reason he inspires me because he's a total character...

He's a carpenter by trade, but he's a great artist and he's invented machines to help with his work, like upgrades on hand tools and stuff like that...

The monster game in the film-you know, where I'm on his back-that's real. My drawing on his stuff is real (and I got in big time trouble for that). But as I said, my dad's a great artist. He would teach me how to sculpt and draw. And whenever I drew something, he'd always say, "Oh it could be worse." Like that was his mentality. [laughing a little] So I just kept trying to get better so that when I showed it to him, one day he'd say, "That's amazing!"

More dads: Four-year-old Léa's first aerobatic flight with her pilot father, Dad teaches his daughter how to cast a ring from scrap pewter, and Michaël Dudok De Wit's Father and Daughter.

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"When an eccentric inventor realizes he's not a perfect father, he tries to make one." Papa by animator and illustrator Natalie Labarre. From an interview with her on Idea Rocket Animation: So, for some reason, most of my art is based on my life. And definitely my father, for some reason.

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By: Roma Downey
This story is about a young girl being raised by her mother. She longs for a large family like her friends. At the school family fun night, she sees all the different family combinations, and realizes it is love that makes a family.

Discussion Questions/ Activities:
Lily storms home to her mother one day, demanding a real family.
What do you think she is talking about when she says "real family"

At first lily is worried about just brining her mom to family night at school, but then sees many different families. What are some families she might have saw?

Not only are each of these families different, but the way they show love is different, too! Draw a picture of your family and add words around it of how you show love to them.

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Roma Downey, star of the heartwarming television series Touched by an Angel, has a beautiful message for all families. "Sometimes I wish I had sisters, or a dad who lived with me, or at least a brother or something! "said Lily.

"I know, " said Mama. "Sometimes I wish that, too. But most of the time our little family feels just right to me. Love is what makes a family, and we've got plenty of that."

Irrepressible young Lily loves her mother dearly. But when it's time for Family Fun Night at her school, she worries...and worries. What will the other kids think when she just brings her mother? Will they be the strangest family there?

But when they arrive at Family Fun Night, Lily sees all her friends having fun with their families -- of every shape, size, and-color. She learns that there are as many ways of showing love as there are stars in the sky.

In this enchanting, beautifully illustrated story, beloved actress Roma Downey shows children that family should not be defined by mother, father, and child, but by love.

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Love Is a Family [Downey, Roma] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Love Is a Family

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By: Anne Rockwell
The children discuss the different ways that they will celebrate the holiday, making breakfast, snuggling, and various other ways. Anne deals with the difficulties of the holday with a student who was celebrating with her grandmother as her mother had passed away.

Discussion Questions/ Activities

How do you think Anne is feeling?

What is mothers day?

Do you think its okay to celebrate someone who loves us like a mother?

Each student celebrates their mother in a different way. How do you celebrate your mother on mother day?

The children were asked to bring in a button for class. The children used the button to make a tissue paper flower as a gift. The book gives step by step directions. With a loved one at home or mother figure students will be asked to pick out buttons that have meaning and we will create flowers similar to the ones in the book.All the flowers will be displayed and children will write about the uniqueness of their flowers.

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juvenile fiction / family / general (see also headings under social themes)

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juvenile fiction / holidays & celebrations / general (see also religious / christian / holidays & celebrations)

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juvenile fiction / holidays & celebrations / other

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Each child in Mrs. Madoff's class knows just how to celebrate Mother's Day. Jessica and her mom go hiking together. Sam helps pick out a new kitchen table. Sarah and her dad take Grandma to her favorite restaurant. And when a surprise visitor comes to class, the kids learn how to make a handmade ...

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By: Mary Kilgore
A father and son are the central characters in this text and they are dealing with confusion and agony of a mother who has disappeared.

Discussion Questions:
What does it mean to grieve?

How could we answer Zack's question of "Why did my mommy abandon me?"
Do you think his mom left because something he did?

Zack talks to his favorite toy soldier about how he is feeling. Do you have someone special that you talk to?

What are some emotions Zack might be feeling?

How are some ways you would deal with a loved one leaving you?

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Where Is My Mommy?: A Book about Children's Fears

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How does a child cope when a parent disappears? This gentle story is ideal for sharing with a child who can t understand why Mom or Dad is gone, and when if ever the parent might return. Created by a clinical social worker and school social worker/mother and son team, Where Is My Mommy?

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By: Melanie Lightbourn- Rowe
This text takes you on a heartfelt journey as you eavesdrop on an intimate conversation between a child and his absent father.

Discussion Questions:
What is the authors message?

How do you feel about John talking to him self?
How do you think that helps him?

How do you cope with hard times?

John doesn't have a dad on fathers day. How do you think he feels?

Have you had a classmate in that didn't have a dad on fathers day?

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By: Jeanne Warren Lindsay
This text explores how to deal with absent, deceased, and unknown dads and how to deal with this difficult situation. When Erik, a preschooler, is teased by other children about not having a dad, his mother explains that there are many kinds of fathers, and not all of them live with their children.

Discussion Questions:
What are some characteristics of a father?

Is there any one in your life that shows these characteristics?

Do you agree that there are many kinds of fathers?

How do you think Erik is feeling?
Have you ever been teased about something? How did it make you feel?

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do i have a daddy?: a story about a single-parent child

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children's / teenage personal & social issues: family issues

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family & relationships / parenting / general

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juvenile nonfiction / family / alternative family

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personal & social issues: family issues (children's / teenage)

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Do I Have a Daddy?: A Story About a Single-Parent Child

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Do I Have a Daddy?: A Story About a Single-Parent Child [Jeanne Warren Lindsay, Jami Moffett] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A single mother explains to her son that his daddy left soon after he was born and includes a section with suggestions for answering the question