Why parents should be involved in the education of their children

Parents or family as a whole, are one of the direct holder of educational work.

Most parents dump their children in schools and delegate their parental duties to teachers. Their roles have been reduced to paying school fees. This laissez-faire approach to parenting, will only result into chronically joblessness and intellectual deficits in the future.

The ‘home education’ as a term, represents educational impact of the family on children. It has been proved that in various family environments, children do acquire a variety of experiences, through performing various activities and is constantly exposed to a range of influence and expectations from the people he/she cohabits. 

The influence of the parents over their children’s education within family environment is crucial. Each family has different educational potentials. In nowadays social circumstances, the family has a huge and very tough responsibility; as it has to take proper care on their health, their physicaldevelopment, their overall education, the development of their intellectual affinities, as well as creation for abetter moral values and convictions and attitudes, habits to a firm and well behaved cultural relations in thefamily itself as well as in the society where the child lives. On the other hand, the family as an institution has to create conditions for development of positive relationship towards work, which as such is a predisposition towards a better establishment of a realistic approach for a better development of the children’s personality.

Determinants of parental involvementparents’ cognitions about their role have been identified as a major contributor to their willingness to engage in supportive parenting.  Three forms of parental cognition include parents’ aspirations concerning their children’s future occupation, their self-efficacy in rearing and educating their Parental aspirations refer to idealistic hopes or goals that parents may form regarding future attainment.

Parents who hold high aspirations for their children’s future are likely to be more willing to exert efforts to ensure that those aspirations are realized. Indeed, evidence from research suggests that educational and occupational aspirations are associated with the ways in which parents shape children’s activities, time, and learning environment.

Parents’ degree of involvement is likely tobe affected by the school itself. If teachers appear to care about the welfare of the child, communicate respect for parents, and develop effective means of parental involvement as an important factor for successful education communicating with families, parents are more willing and able to become involved in their children’s schooling. Parents and families have a major impact on the success of the process of education and upbringing of children.

Involvement of parents is related to theirposition at home (monitoring the learning of children, as well as participationin activities organized at school (parent-teacher conferences, volunteer activities, various forms of parental activism, workshops and seminars for parents. It is well established that parental involvement is correlated with school achievement of both children and adolescents.

Children whose parents are actively involved in their schooling benefit better than children whose parents are passively involved. Specifically, if parents attend teacher conferences, accept phone calls from the school, and read and sign messages from school, their children will benefit academically more than children whose parents do none of the above.

Furthermore, children excel even more when their parents assist them at home with their homework, attend school sponsored events, and volunteer at their children’s schools. Although parental involvement is recognized as being of significance in the education of children, there remains great diversity concerning parental involvement. To overcome the barriers preventing parental involvement, schools need to provide a welcoming climate where the school staff is respectful and responsive to parents.