Since parents are their child’s first teachers and role models, their responsibilities are not simply just limited to providing food and shelter to their children, but also include their child’s emotional well-being and safety. Children who are deprived of any of these things are prone to develop significant behavioral problems throughout their lives. It has been learned through various researches that majority of the teens involved in criminal activities come from a household which has either one or both the parents missing. The U.S. Census Bureau has further highlighted the seriousness of the matter by revealing that nearly one in three teens live in homes where the father is absent. Children with absent fathers grow up with a large set of problems.
With one parent or no parents, children go through emotional health, low self-esteem, educational problems, behavioral problems, delinquency (mainly boys), sexual behavior, teen pregnancy, alcohol/drug abuse, and problems getting where they want or need to be academically. Compared with peers whose parents are often absent throughout the day, teens whose parents are present when they go to bed, wake up, and come home from school are less likely to experience emotional distress. They were also less likely to experience emotional distress if they engaged in activities with their parents, and if their parents had high expectations regarding their academic performance. In addition, those who had low self-esteem were more likely to experience emotional distress. Teens whose parents show love, responsiveness, and involvement tend to have higher levels of self-esteem and internal self-control. All of those things have a strong association with adolescent psychosocial development as measured in global self-esteem, feelings of internal control and ability, and awareness to negative peer pressure.
Students whose parents are more involved with their schooling tend to complete higher levels of education and are more likely to graduate from high school than peers whose parents are not so involved. Some even go on to further their education after high school. Students whose teachers reported higher levels of parental involvement were more likely to graduate high school or earn a GED than peers whose parents were not so involved, and those who did not graduate were more likely to have completed a higher grade in high school.
On average, adolescents whose fathers are more involved in their lives and discuss important decisions with them exhibit lower levels of aggression and antisocial behavior than peers who experience less paternal involvement. The greater the fathers’ involvement was, the lower the level of adolescents’ behavioral problems, both in terms of aggression and antisocial behavior and negative feelings such as anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. The fathers’ involvement was measured by the frequency with which fathers discussed important decisions with their teen and listened to their child whether fathers knew who their adolescents were with when not at home and whether fathers missed events or activities that were important to their adolescents. Communication is key between a father and an adolescent, especially with the son.
Adolescents who experience supportive and