PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN OF YOUNGER SCHOOL AGE FROM ONE-PARTY FAMILIES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of psychological characteristics of children of primary school age from single- parent families. The definition of the concept of a single-parent family in the scientific psychological literature was analyzed in order to understand the topical issues of the psychological development of the personality of a younger schoolboy in a single- parent family. The relevance of studying the psychological characteristics of children of elementary school age from single-parent families, in conditions of uncertainty and socio-economic upheavals, is justified. Modern psychological science faces the urgent problem of researching the life activities and features of the psychological development of children of primary school age who experienced the divorce of their parents (a psychological traumatic event) in early childhood, and the prevention or correction of the consequences of this event, in the form of symptoms of neurotic disorders in adolescents and young adults. The article presents the results of a theoretical analysis of the characteristics of single-parent families and the problem of the influence of single-parent families on the occurrence of negative psychological characteristics of children of primary school age. Factors of family deformation are considered: divorce; death of one of the parents; birth of an illegitimate child; birth of a child by an unmarried woman; adoption of a child by an unmarried woman; long-term absence of one of the parents while legally preserving the marriage. Special attention is paid to the main characteristics and peculiarities of the existence of a single-parent family, which depend on such factors as: the stage of the life cycle at which the single-parent family was formed; the presence of children in the family and their age at the time of the transformation of the family into a single family; the main socio-psychological characteristics of the family during its transformation into an incomplete family; financial situation of a single-parent family. It was noted that children of primary school age who are raised in single-parent families have: an increased level of anxiety, emotional alienation from one of the parents who is not in the family, a lower level of emotional well-being in the family, compared to children of the same age from complete families. The prospects of empirical studies of the problem of the influence of single-parent families on the emergence of psychological characteristics of children of primary school age are outlined.