Study: A Home with a Mom and a Dad Improves Boys’ Behavior in School

An analysis of 20 years’ worth of school suspension rates nationwide shows that the greatest influence on boys’ behavior at school is not the type of school they attend or teacher they have, but the type of home in which they’re being raised.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found that boys being raised in intact homes with both parents had the least behavioral problems and school suspensions, while those being raised by single mothers had the most. However, this was not found to be the case among girls.

Glenn T. Stanton, director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family, said intact families are the best for children of either gender.

“This supports over three decades of consistent research showing that kids who grow up in a home with their married parents tend to do better in all measures of educational attainment than their peers being raised in single, divorced and cohabiting-parent homes,” he said. “This is true from everything from grade-point average, behavioral issues, high school graduation and going on to graduate from college. Moms and dads both matter here, as well as the type of relationship between them.”