Family rows upset children not single parenting

The level of family conflict affects a child’s happiness far more than the actual structure of the family, a new study has discovered.

The study, Understanding Children’s Well-being: A National Survey of Young People’s Well-Being, has been conducted by The Children’s Society in collaboration with the University of York and research organisation Ipsos MORI.

Researchers spent two years questioning around 7,000 children aged between 10 and 15 from more than 4,700 secondary schools.

Aiming to create a benchmark, The Children’s Society is planning to use this data to measure how the well-being of children changes every two years.

Relevant findings show that children from single parent families, those with step parents or other non-nuclear family structures are only 2 per cent less happy than those living with both birth parents.

An average of two children in every class were unhappy with 7 per cent admitting to being significantly unhappy.

Chief Executive of The Children’s Society, Bob Reitemeier said: “Family conflict emerges in this study as a major cause of childhood unhappiness, and so it is vital that families can get the sort of family mediation and counselling The Children’s Society offers to help them resolve and avoid conflicts.  This report is a stark reminder that our actions as adults can have a profound impact on our children’s well-being – and the importance of listening to what children are telling us.”