A new report is showing more and more Louisiana kids are growing up in homes with just one parent.
The figures are released in the latest version of the Annie E. Casey Foundation report on the well-being of children across the country.
Louisiana fares poorly again, and that's disappointing to social worker and marriage therapist David Brashear with the Ochsner department of Psychiatry. Forty-five percent of the children in Louisiana are now living in a single-parent household compared to the national rate of 34 percent.
"It generally means we have the higher rates of all the things you don't want, like failure to graduate from high school and they have higher rates of mental health problems," said Brashear. "It's devastating, we are not generally doing the best for our kids."
Brashear suggests that parents can do a much better job of co-parenting, which he contends can change some of the negative categories.
A high poverty rate and health issues are also included in the report.
