As they grow, children encounter many large and small crises both expected and unexpected:
birth itself, weaning, toilet training, separation from
parents, illness, accidents, the
birth of a brother or sister,
bad dreams, starting school, learning to read, making friends, adolescence — these and many other experiences provide the potential for problems of varying intensity.
The FFCWS studies add to a large body of earlier work that suggested that children who live with single or cohabiting
parents fare
worse as adolescents and young adults in terms of their educational outcomes, risk of teen
birth, and attachment to school and the labor market than do children who grow up in married - couple families.