Kids in single-mother families ‘well-adjusted’

While young children who grow up with single mothers have questions about the absence of their fathers, they tend to be well-adjusted and generally have positive feelings about family life, a new study has found.

UK researchers focused on children who had been conceived as a result of donor insemination, as the number of women choosing to start families in this way is on the increase. They looked at 51 single-mother families and compared them to 52 heterosexual two-parent families, with at least one child conceived though donor insemination. All of the children were aged between four and nine years.

This is the first study to look at child adjustment and children's perspectives in single-mother families at an age when children are old enough to understand their circumstances and what it means to grow up in a home without a father.

It is also the first study to examine children's own reports about their family experiences.

The mothers in both groups filled in questionnaires and underwent an interview, while 47 of the children within the single-mother families were also interviewed.

When assessing how children adjust to things, the study noted no significant difference between the two family types.

Source: http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=25448