Impact of Broken Home and Psychosocial Adjustment of Secondary School Student in Itu LGA Akwa Ibom State Nigeria
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Impact of Broken Home and Psychosocial Adjustment of Secondary School Student in Itu LGA Akwa Ibom State Nigeria
ABSTRACT
This study examined the impact of a broken home on the psychosocial adjustment of secondary school students in Itu LGA, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Three objectives were raised, which included:
determining the impact of broken homes on students’ academic performance, establishing if there exists any difference between students from broken homes and their peers from intact homes in academic performance
determining the impact of broken homes on students’ psychological adjustment, and ascertaining the gender impact of broken homes on students’ psychosocial adjustment. A total of 77 responses were received and validated. The hypothesis was investigated using the Chi-Square statistical program (SPSS).
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The family is a society’s fundamental unit and most significant component. According to Alfred Adlers (2021), a family with separated or divorced parents would affect the individual because every child has a problem that both the mother and father are to attend to
for example, the mother is supposed to teach the child some moral attitudes or behaviour while the father is supposed to teach the child (son) how to be a responsible man and to be responsible for the society and to be able to overcome the individual psychological problems such as It is sometimes used interchangeably with the word “house,” although “house” refers to the material structure, whereas “home” refers to the intangible aspects that link family members.
It is the immense love and care that keeps the mother, father, and children together. The family is an important aspect in human well-being; everything about a man, his background, attitude, accomplishments, honour, and dignity
revolves around the structure of his family. Marriage, on the other hand, can be defined as a legal union between two persons, specifically a man and a woman in love as husband and wife. In Nigeria, marriage is viewed as an institution that everyone values.
According to Umahi (2019), marriage is a structure in which a community recognises a man and a woman who are linked by love to remain together as couples, have a sexual connection, and expect children to raise together.
In Nigeria, when a person marries, he or she is expected not only to have children, but also to provide them with psychological, emotional, moral, and economic support, as well as sufficient education, which would benefit them later on.
Couples have the responsibility to provide their children with an education that will allow them to live happily, emotionally secure, and acquire valuable knowledge, understanding, and skills.
According to Egbo (2012), a broken household is one in which the parents argue, fight, suspect, and stay late hours at the expense of the children’s fundamental desire for food, sleep, and other basic necessities.
Divorce, separation, or death are all possible causes of broken homes. Children suffer and pay a high price if their homes lack love, compassion, and serenity.
Those youngsters may be behaviourally faulty, and they are frequently denied valuable education training and skills, which can have a long-term negative impact on societal progress and stability. According to studies, divorce, while frowned upon, is becoming more common among our youth.
Hake (2020) bemoaned that in our modern culture, after couples have formed solemn and holy commitments in front of the public, friends, well-wishers, and family members to stay together till death separates them, the same couples become victims of broken homes within a short period of time.
When a home is broken, it affects many people, including girls who may run into men to pay their school fees. Some of them may become pregnant during the procedure, which may force them to discontinue their education totally (Okoye, 2021).
According to Nwosu (2011), some girls turn to prostitution to help pay their school costs, which can be tough for a single parent. Boys may also engage in school robbery, join criminal gangs, and exhibit a variety of social vices.
Empirical evidence has also shown that children from intact homes are better cared for and socialised. For example, a child with good mother and father care serves as a good model to the child, preventing the child from becoming a deviant. Additionally, peer pressure challenges are avoided through the supervision and help of both parents.
This is because the process of socialisation is dependent on both parents having complementary roles in raising such children, which will undoubtedly have a favourable impact on them later in school.
On the other side, children from single-parent households are more likely to face deprivation and denial of certain rights and opportunities, which will have a detrimental psychosocial influence on them during their school years. According to studies, children from broken households are more likely to exhibit antisocial tendencies and have bad academic records.
Adolescence is a separate era of life. According to literature, it refers to a period of 13-18 years in an individual’s life. It is a period of rapid psychological and social growth. According to Agubosi (2013), this is the peer grouping era, in which teenagers spend the majority of their time with people their own age.
This stage is characterised by storm and stress (Bolarin 1999, Olayinka 1997), as well as identity construction (Osarenren 2011). Adolescence is the transitional period between childhood and adulthood. During this time, an individual is viewed as neither a child nor an adult.
According to Hall in Salami and Alawode (2021), teenagers are characterised by emotional instability and hyperactivity, which causes them to experience storms and stress.
According to Erickson in Salami and Alawode (2021), identity formation causes tension in adolescents, to the point that some become confused about their personality.
Adolescence is a critical time for an individual’s growth. Any leniency on the part of parents in aiding and guiding their children may result in academic lag and the development of unhealthy behaviours.
The basis of who a person becomes in society is laid in the family and during the early stages of life. As a result, parents play a crucial role in ensuring that their children develop the necessary social, psychological, moral, and academic skills.
In Nigeria, parental duties are culturally based. The maternal role is that of childcare and homemaking, whereas the paternal role is that of financial responsibility and child discipline
. In general, it is the family’s job to train and raise the child according to societal norms and values. They are accountable for the child’s psychological and emotional well-being.
Parents are mostly accountable for their children’s education and job development. However, divorce and other forms of separation, as well as the death of one spouse, may force a single parent to assume the position. Single parenting is described as a circumstance in which one of the two adults involved in the child’s conception is responsible for the child’s upbringing (Henslin, 1985).
The family provides the groundwork for education before the child enters school, and the personality that the child brings to school is influenced by the home Maduewesi & Emenogu (1997). According to Fadeye (1985) and Salami and Alawode (2000), both parents play important responsibilities in child education.
The father is responsible for providing the instruments necessary for scholastic advancement, while the mother is expected to augment the father’s efforts in this respect. When the father is absent and the mother is unable to provide all of the child’s basic needs while also supervising his or her academic performance, he or she (the child) will fall behind or withdraw. The same thing happens when the mother is missing and the father is not affluent enough (Ortese, 1998).
A single parent has double the duties, which need time, attention, and money from the parent. As a result, children’s psychological well-being and education receive less attention. Nwachukwu (1998) describes children from single-parent homes as being more hostile, aggressive, anxious, afraid, hyperactive, and distractible than children from intact families.
The notion of adjustment is related with living systems, such as organ systems, psychological systems, or personality systems. During the adjustment process, forces inside the system are automatically balanced with pressures from the environment.
The immediate goals of the process can be described broadly as a form of balance with the system and its interaction with the surroundings. In general, adjustment refers to an individual’s general adaptation to his environment in order to meet the demands of life, such as how he interacts with others (interpersonal behaviour), manages his responsibilities, and deals with stress, such as inadequacy in learning, maturing, and meeting his own needs and life satisfactions.
Adjustment is not a one-way process in which the individual submits to the obligations and requirements of others, but rather a two-way process in which the individual is able to be themselves, hang on to one’s own, and adapt reality to one’s requirements and needs. It does not suggest a state of contentment or a clear mind.
Because life is continuously changing, the ability to alter one’s attitude and behaviour as needed is a vital component of adaptability. Psychosocial adjustment is facilitated when the individual is educated and free of family problems.
There are various challenges that an individual must deal with throughout their lives, including academic, psychological, social, marital, and job experience. Academic hurdles and problems at home are some of the concerns that adolescents may need to adjust to.
According to psychologists, an individual who is emotionally healthy is one who has learnt to effectively cope with himself and his environment. Because the environment is constantly changing and the adolescent is constantly developing and changing, psychological effectiveness or good mental health is an ongoing process.
Secondary school students who come from broken homes are more likely to perform poorly and to be withdrawn, shy, and anti-social among their peers. This study aims to emphasise and quantify the impact of a broken home on the academic performance and psychosocial adjustment of secondary school pupils in Kosofe Local Government.
Statement of the Problem
There is widespread recognition of the role of the home environment in students’ academic progress. Most homes in Nigeria are in disrepair due to relationship incompatibility, the death of a parent, the desire for overseas journeys to make more money, and, in some cases, marital adultery.
This has led to the separation of couples and children. In several states of the federation, it is apparent that the majority of young women forsake their homes and travel abroad to earn money.
Also, some men who migrate abroad forsake their houses and refuse to connect with their families back home, leaving children in a difficult situation, particularly in terms of transition.
According to Chador (2008), the setting in which a student grows up can have a significant impact on family organisation and, as a result, a child’s emotions, personality, and academic achievement.
Given the importance of the family in a child’s education, the family’s inability to do its tasks may jeopardise the child’s academic success. Any nation that wishes to advance technologically will undoubtedly ensure that the future of its leaders (adolescents) is carefully led, protected, and guaranteed.
Furthermore, a single parent has double the duties, which require more time, attention, and money. As a result, children’s education receives less emphasis. Teachers frequently report children from single-parent households as more defiant, aggressive, worried, scared, hyperactive, and distractive than children from intact families (Nwachukwu, 1998).
Children from broken homes display habits such as drug misuse, smoking, drinking, sexual abuse, truancy, and disdain for elders that are detrimental to themselves, their families, and society as a whole.
The purpose of the study
The primary goal of this research is to look into the effects of a broken home on the academic performance and psychological adjustment of secondary school pupils in Lagos State’s Kosofe Local Government Area. Thus, the precise objectives are as follows:
i) Determine the influence of broken homes on students’ academic achievement.
ii) Determine whether there is a difference in academic achievement between students from broken households and their classmates from intact homes.
iii) Determine the influence of broken homes on student psychological adjustment.
iv) Determine the gender impact of broken homes on pupils’ psychosocial adjustment.
Research Questions
To achieve the aforementioned goals, the following research questions were posed.
To what extent will broken homes affect students’ academic performance?
What is the academic performance difference between students from broken homes and those from impact homes?
To what extent do broken homes affect pupils’ psychosocial adjustment?
How does the gender of a broken home affect students’ psychosocial adjustment?
Research Hypotheses
There is no significant relationship between broken homes and students’ academic performance.
Students from broken households will fare similarly to their peers from intact homes in terms of academic achievement.
There will be no major influence of broken homes on students’ psychosocial adjustments.
There will be no substantial gender effect of a fractured household on psychosocial adjustment.
Significance of the Study
The study will help teachers, counsellors, child psychologists, and administrators gain a better understanding of the factors that influence secondary school students from broken homes’ academic performance and psychosocial adjustment, allowing them to better appreciate the behaviours and attitudes of the children they teach or counsel.
Furthermore, children in broken households would have limitations owing to a lack of awareness of the impact of broken homes on children’s psychological and academic performance. This knowledge will put them in an excellent position to assist and enrich the lives of these youngsters.
It is also hoped that the findings of this study will assist practitioners in developing appropriate counselling techniques and programmes that, if implemented, will slow the rate at which broken homes are increasing, given that broken homes do not promote the balanced moral, emotional, physical, social, and educational development of children from such backgrounds.
Scope of the Study
This research will be conducted at Kosofe Local Government in Lagos State, Nigeria’s South West region. The study will only include Senior Secondary School students (SSS II) from chosen schools in Kosofe Local Government.
Operational Definition of Terms
The following concepts used in the study are operationally defined:
Academic Performance: This is how students are evaluated in terms of their educational attainment.
A family is a social unit comprised of people who are connected to one another by blood, birth, or marriage.
Adjustment: A slight change or movement made to obtain the intended fit, look, or outcome.
Impact: To have a strong effect on something or someone. It can also refer to a force that causes someone to behave in a specific way. \
Adolescence is the transitory period between puberty and maturity in human development, lasting mostly throughout the teen years and ending legally when the age of majority is achieved.
A broken home is a household in which both parents are divorced or separated. Psychosocial adjustment is described as the adaptive job of handling uncomfortable feelings and disappointments while maintaining emotional equilibrium.
Marriage is an acceptable social arrangement in which two people form a family. In another sense, marriage is a legally and socially sanctioned union between a man and a woman that is governed by laws, norms, conventions, beliefs, and attitudes that specify the parents’ rights and responsibilities.
The nuclear family is a small unit made up of a man, his wife, and their unmarried children. In a nuclear family, the parents are the sole authorities, and emotional interactions among family members are focused and intense.
Intact families are those in which both biological parents live together.
A home is a permanent residence, particularly for members of a family or household.
Academic Performance: This might be regarded as students stating their previous semester CGPA/GPA and their projected GPA for the current semester.
Psychosocial Adjustment refers to the psychological and social aspects of a child’s behaviour that have been influenced by his or her surroundings.
Gender refers to biological differences between male and female organisms.
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