This model is centered on the child and how his immediate environment effects his development, and from there stems out to broader environments. There are five systems in this model: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chornosystem. The microsystem is the relationships between the child and his/her own immediate environment. The mesosystem deals with the immediate settings such as the immediate family. The exosystem is the social settings that indirectly effect the childs development, such as the extended family. The macrosystem more is the societal and cultural settings on a larger scale, like the laws, customs, and values of where the child is growing up. The chronosystem is a little harder define, this refers to how the environment is not constant it is ever changing, and the chronosystem is the temporal changes in a childs environment, that produce new conditions that will effect his/hers development.
Growing up in a single parent house greatly affects how each system or layer of the Brofenbrenner model will influence or affect the childs development. After interviewing Mrs. Hinkel a mother, who was a single parent for the first 7 years of her childs life and also a grade school teacher, and using my own insight as being a child who grew up in a single parent home for the first 6 years of my life I was able to really dissect how each level of the model affects the child. At the microsystem level I feel that being in a single parent home really doesn't affect the childs development any differently than other children, say as much as other levels may. I always felt that at that young of an age the child doesn't know that only having one parent present and giving him/her attention is not the norm. I feel that here it still is just more on the type of parent the child has rather than how many. In my interview with Mrs. Hinkel I learned that she had similar views.