Same-sex couples face a lot of social and legislative stress, and a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Cologne explored how this can affect their kids.
The findings show that kids are likely to develop well socially, regardless of their parents’ stress.
“The new findings clearly show that same-sex families have strong resilience strategies to protect their children from prevailing legal hurdles and societal rejection,” said researcher Dr. Mirjam Fischer.
“For example, parents create an environment in which their children receive appreciation and recognition from others and where other same-sex families provide positive role models.
However, it should not be necessary in the first place that parents have to develop these strategies.”
Kids’ behavior is likely to remain solid
For the study, the researchers compared data from the Dutch national register on 62 kids from same-sex parents and 72 kids from different-sex parents.
Parents were between the ages of 30 and 65, and children were between the ages of 6 and 16 years old.
The parents completed surveys about their children’s behavior, relationships with other kids, emotional adjustment, hyperactivity, social behavior, and more.
Ultimately, the researchers learned that there were no developmental differences between children from same-sex and different-sex parents.
Both groups of kids were ranked similarly by their parents when it came to important social and emotional areas.
Though many same-sex couples may deal with struggles socially and emotionally, this study showed that those same concerns aren’t passed down to their children.
The researchers explained that these results are positive, as the type of stress felt by many same-sex couples may lead to both physical and mental health struggles.
Based on these findings, parents may not need to worry about how their stress is affecting their kids.
The team hopes that more work is done to show the similarities between children of same-sex and different-sex parents.
They believe that the goal moving forward should be to have resources in place for same-sex parents who may be struggling with various stressors.
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