Divorce, single parenting, and child development

Application of "crisis" and "social facilitation" theory to program intervention with preschool-age children was undertaken to asses the effects of a preschool education experience on recovery of psychological functions following divorce. A pretest-posttest control group design was completed using single-parent (n = 7) and two-parent (n = 8) children in an educational setting as the treatment groups and two-parent (n = 8) children at home as the control. Maternal reports on self-assesed childrearing and child's behavior were obtained during an interview, while intellectual assessments and observational data on social behavior were collected by trained observers and teachers. Little evidence could be noted that suggested weakened mother-child interaction as a function of divorce. Crisis intervention was observed to be an effective technique in assisting single-parent children toward cognitive recovery. However, it remains unclear whether social behavioral problems of single-parent children were positively affected by the crisis intervention program.