Effect of Parents Education on Their Childs Education

Abstract

Parental involvement in children’s educational career allows students to succeed more later on education. This paper discusses the different effects that parents have in student’s education based off of their level of education completed themselves.  There are results found from studies conducted based on the amount of parent’s involvement in comparison to student’s success. When parents are involved it provides the students with a good support system for when they need assistance on homework or be pushed to be the best student they can be. There are concerns about parental involvement creating dependent children however the parent’s involvement ideally is during the early stages of education when it is most important for there to be consistency between home and school. Often times students drop out of school because they are needed to provide at home because they come from low income homes which goes with the fact that their parents haven’t gotten a high education so there is a constant loop that they are struggling with.

Introduction to the Issue

The issue with parental involvement throughout a child’s educational process is underestimated. Students that go through the educational system without having the support at home  Baker and Stevenson (1986) found that compared with parents who were not involved, involved parents developed more complex strategies for working with schools and their children to promote achievement. When parents are involved it provides the students with a good support system for when they need assistance on homework or be pushed to be the best student they can be. The program Head Start, an early childhood learning and knowledge center, was created to assist parents and family’s in building relationships between students and parents in order to promote ongoing learning and development for not only the child but the parents. The reasoning behind this organization is to give assistance to working families that need help with ways to be a more involved parent. It also is a system of support towards low income families. The word of God states, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4). What this verse means is, God is warning fathers that their children look up to them and therefor, what they do the children will then think that is what they are supposed to do. He then advises to them to teach their children what is right and show them the correct way of living. This has been an ongoing issue throughout education because parents are constantly debating whether or not they want to get involved with their child’s education.

Background

The issue of parents being absent in the student’s education is an issue that not many people are aware of. However, it is a simple fix. Back when education was on the back burner to work, parents were more concerned with the children helping out financially rather than going to school. It is known that with a higher education the chances of you falling into the poverty category is less likely than if you haven’t completed high school or furthermore gone on to college. If parents don’t care if their students don’t succeed then it is very difficult for the students to feel driven as well. There is only so much teachers can do to encourage the students to apply themselves. It is very important for there to be support at home. On the topic of Physical Education, if the students come from families that don’t think that physical education is important aspect in education and they are unable to see the benefits to their child even outside of school then the chances of the students to take the class seriously is slim. The student’s education is compromised because they do things to make their parents happy. There is a constant cycle of children coming from poverty that don’t see the need to get a higher education. However, this can all be changed if parents became involved and supportive towards their education. A parent’s goal should be to assist their children to be the best they can be. When children feel the sense of support and approval of their desire to seek out higher education they are able to succeed. However, if a student has to wake up early to take care of their siblings because their parents left early for work and then they have to be at school all day, already they aren’t going to be able to focus with the lack of sleep and stress. Then once they have returned from school they are either off to a job where they have to get as many hours as possible in which leads exhaustion as well as no time to finish their school work. All of these extra chores are getting in the way of their educational success.

Review of Literature

Alyssa R. Gonzalez. (2002). Parental Involvement: Its Contribution to High School Students’

Motivation. The Clearing House, (3), 132. 

This article discusses the issue of parental involvements lacking throughout high school. They did a study that consisted of 6,400 high school students from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. The author showed with its results that parenting practices that continue with being involved with student’s education has a huge impact more so in high school. The main theme of this article is that it is important for parents to remain involved in the students schooling because when they are then the students are more likely to stay involved in school. The different areas of parental involvement examined throughout the study were; helping with homework, watching the student in sports, helping the students with choosing their courses, and staying informed of the students progress. The studies showed that when parents were more involved with the students schooling, the students reported more effort, concentration, and attention across four main subject areas such as English, social studies, science, and math. The main reasoning explained in the article was that the students having the support at home were more likely to have the encouragement and academic assistance.

Baker, D.P., Stevenson, D.L. (1986). Mothers’ strategies for children’s school achievement:

Managing the transition to high school. Sociology of Education, 59, 156–166. 

This article explores the relationship between the socioeconomic status and the academic achievement by examining the actions that parents can partake in order to manage the child’s school career. This article addresses the transitions to high school mainly. It concluded that this point in the school system receives less attention because the idea of Jr. high and high school is based on the students being more independent learners. However, it discusses the fact that old habits from precious years of the parents helping the students was shown to have an effect on their high school educational experience. Some of the results found was that 75 percent of all people in the us schooling system completes high school and between 40 and 45 percent enters college. Then it continues on talking about what leads to the drop out and low numbers of college attendees and states that it relates to the fact that the American school system is based on student management which is best taught at a young age through parent’s involvement and teaching them good habits to help their children effectively manage their time.

El Nokali, N. E., Bachman, H. J., & Votruba-Drzal, E. (2010). Parent involvement and children’s academic and social development in elementary school. Child development, 81(3), 988-1005.

This article discusses the parental involvement using data collected from the NICHID Study of early childcare and youth development. This study was don’t through first and third grades. It used a numerical method to find the relation between the parent’s involvement and students success. Due to the fact that I am not able to transcribe the numerical equations that they provided, I borrowed their overall finding results to show the connection between the two. The difference in this article is that the study was only conducted throughout elementary school in which my argument is that elementary school is the most important time for the parents to instill habits into their children.

Epstein, J.L., Sanders, M.G. (2002). Family, school, and community partnerships. InBornstein, M.H. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 5. Practical issues in parenting (pp.407–437). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 

This handbook discusses many things however I only addressed the sections that is labeled implementing teachers involve parents in schoolwork” Within these sections it goes over the different benefits that comes with parents’ involvements in school encouraging parents to be involved. Some of their results found for the parents that they are aware of school, district, and state policies, input on policies affecting children’s education, involvement in school, awareness of school decisions, and shared experiences and connection with other families. It also implemented a one-year action plan to improve student’s behavior in which the first step is to have parent to parent group meetings on student behaviors. One thing that I felt that was important to my discussion was that they had steps to learning at home and ways to have parents involved in academic activities. This was relevant for my argument because it continues on to state what the results of it are for both students and parents.

Parental Involvement in Schools. (2018, September 16).

This article provides statistics on parental involvement in schools and the relationships between the parent’s educational levels compared to parents that have gone through higher education levels such as college. The reason why these are important is because the parents that have gone through the system and know how important school is in order for there to be success later on in their child’s career. It also gives the numbers on parents involved based off of their poverty levels. The significance of this is the relation between the poverty level and the lack of higher education which also correlates to the fact that previously mentioned that the parents don’t know the importance of having a higher education themselves therefor they don’t promote their own children to further their education.

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Discussion

If parents have negative attitudes towards school because they had bad experiences or didn’t exceed as far as they wished they had it is difficult for the students to see a purpose for school. In the article called Parental Involvement in Schools (2018, stated “In 2016, there were large disparities by educational attainment in the percentage of parents who attended school or class events (54 and 93 percent, respectively, for parents with less than a high school degree and those with a graduate/professional degree), and who volunteered or served on a committee at their child’s school (25 and 65 percent, respectively). These disparities have remained relatively constant since 1996.” In other words, the statistics shown translate to the children’s whose parents had attended any sort of meeting with the school or teacher that had a greater diploma such as collegiate or graduate recorded 93% attendance rate compared to parents who had not attained only a high school diploma of 54% attendance rate. Within those statistics it was also gathered that 62% in relation to 93% were parents that came from a poverty status. These statistics show that students that come from families with low education levels or low-income families are most likely going through their education on their own.

More over the differences in involvement in relation to their poverty status. Some students with low income don’t see a point in doing well in high schools. Parents involvement in the student’s education offers an effective home study system. When children get home from school they might have questions about their homework and the first person that they will turn to is their parents. The National Center for Children in Poverty ran a study about higher education’s effects of poverty levels and the study concluded with the results stating, “82% of children whose parents have less than a high school diploma lives in low-income families. 57% of children whose parents have a high school diploma, but no college education, live in low-income families. Only 24% of children whose parents have some college education or more live in low-income families.” (Also of Interest. 2007). The high percentage of parents lacking a high school diploma correlates to 7.2 million children that are living with parents without a high school diploma and another 10.3 million children that have only a high school diploma. The reason why this is important is because like previously mentioned, teachers aren’t supposed to be the students only form of educational support. Rather it should be a combined effort between the parents and the teachers to get the best support system for the child.

Conclusion

In order for students to really succeed in school, it is very important that they have support at home. Now a days there is an increased dropout rate due to the poverty levels as well as the availability of jobs for the youth. However, there isn’t the emphasis on education that there needs to be. In order for students to truly succeed in school, they must have support both in school and at home. Enforcing habits at a young age is extremely important for the students to succeed later on in the education system such as in junior high and High school when their systems are set up to help students become more independent. By being highly involved in your student’s life in the early stages of education it will lead to your child having great success in school which can lead to them having great success in life.

References

• Alyssa R. Gonzalez. (2002). Parental Involvement: Its Contribution to High School Students’ Motivation. The Clearing House, (3), 132. 
• Baker, D.P., Stevenson, D.L. (1986). Mothers’ strategies for children’s school achievement: Managing the transition to high school. Sociology of Education, 59, 156–166. 
• El Nokali, N. E., Bachman, H. J., & Votruba-Drzal, E. (2010). Parent involvement and children’s academic and social development in elementary school. Child development, 81(3), 988-1005.
• Epstein, J.L., Sanders, M.G. (2002). Family, school, and community partnerships. InBornstein, M.H. (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 5. Practical issues in parenting (pp.407–437). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. 
• Parental Involvement in Schools. (2018, September 16).