IMPACT OF DIVORCE ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ORHIONWON LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE (GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
The family is the child’s first place of contact with the world. The child as a result, acquires initial education and socialization from parents and other significant persons in the family. Agulana (2010) pointed out that the family lays the psychological, moral, and spiritual foundation in the overall development of the child. Structurally, family/homes is either broken or intact. A broken home in this context is one that is not structurally intact, as a result of divorce, separation, death of one of parent and illegitimacy. Divorce is a legal termination of valid marriage.
According to Frazer (2004), psychological home conditions arise mainly from divorce and parental deprivation. According to him, such abnormal conditions of the home, are likely to have a detrimental effect on school performance of the child.
Life, in a divorced or broken home can be stressful for both the child and the parent. Such families are faced with challenges of inadequate financial resources (Children Defence Fund, 2004). Schults (2006) noted that if children from unstable homes are to be compared with those from stable homes, it would be seen that the former have more social, academic and emotional problems. Rochlkepartain (2013) is of the opinion that the family and its structure play a great role in children’s academic performance. Levin (2011) states that parents are probably the actor with the clearest interest in a high level of their children’s academic performance. To some extent, there is simple evidence to show the marital instability brings about stress, tension, lack of motivation and frustration obviously, these manifestations act negatively on a child’s academic performance.
According to Fraser (2013) performance and behaviour of children living with a single parent is below that of children living with the two parents. He observed that children who lives with a parent especially a divorced one, usually feels unsecured, always attention seeking and anxious that his/her education may be seriously hindered or disrupted through these feelings and at the end it would affect the child’s total behaviour.
