ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire)—About 114,000 same-sex couples are raising kids in the United States. Many wonder if these children adjust the same way as other kids. Now, a new study sheds some light.
Two moms…a mom and a dad…or two dads…. Families today are more diverse than ever. And same-sex parents are seven times more likely to adopt children than heterosexual parents. But does having gay parents affect kids? A new study finds that it doesn’t!
Developmental psychologists at the University of Kentucky followed nearly 100 adoptive families with children from early to middle childhood. They found no differences in family functioning between same-sex parents and heterosexual parents of adopted children. There was also no difference in how family make-up influenced adopted children’s behavior or how the kids thought about adoption. One factor that did impact the kids? How the family managed conflict – regardless of sexual orientation. The scientists concluded that there’s no evidence to show children from same-sex parents are any less well-adjusted.
Another recent study found that children raised by same-sex couples had higher test scores in school and were about seven percent more likely to graduate from high school than children raised by different-sex couples.
Contributors to this news report include: Julie Marks, Executive Producer and Field Producer, Roque Correa, Editor
Produced by Child Trends News Service in partnership with Ivanhoe Broadcast News and funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation
Source: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/dev-dev0000228.pdf