Rowing parents increase teenage risk factors

When a relationship breaks down there are many factors to consider, and if there are children involved then often there is conflict over whether it’s better to divorce or stay together for their sake. New research published as a report from the California Center for Population Research at the University of California-Los Angeles shows clearly that staying together is not always the answer. The research was carried out jointly by the universities at Cornell and Minnesota and reported that adolescents tend to get on better at school, and socially, when they live with both parents. But, and it’s a big but, if staying together means the parents argue a lot and there is a feeling of tension and conflict then the children are significantly more likely to binge drink, smoke and get poorer grades than other teenagers. In fact they are comparable results to those seen in single parent families, and are significantly more likely to binge drink.So staying together ‘for the kids’ only benefits them if you can do so by minimizing conflict and reducing arguments.