Parental Involvement and Achievement Essay

Parental involvement refers to the participation a parent grants their child regarding schooling and the well-being of the child. Some educational institutions foster parental involvement through volunteer opportunities and events, but most of the times it is up to a parent to decide between getting involved with their children's education. A child benefits from parental involvement when parents stay up to date with proceedings in the classroom, helping a child connect with the school through seizing of school opportunities, ensuring that the child is safe from school bullies, and minding the welfare of the child at large. More so, parental involvement in homework is a home-based involvement that is beneficial in the learning and achievement in a child's education. (Gonida & Cortina, 2014) Indicates that prior poor performances in schools depend on some variables such as parental practices in homework such as monitoring, providing correct answers, exerting pressure by using orders, and generating solutions themselves. Longitudinal studies focused on child achievement, motivation and well-being find that not only does parental involvement affect learning outcomes but also influences attention, receptive vocabulary skills, task persistence, learning motivation, and conduct problems in the classroom setup (Emerson, Fear, Fox & Sanders, 2012).

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Gina Madrigal Sapungan and Ronel Mondragon Sapungan have authored one of the most empirical studies that engage parental involvement in their children's education. Their research encompasses the importance, and benefits and most importantly the barriers that involve as parents try to be part of a child's education. The authors demonstrate that parents involved in the learning process of their child improve a child's morale, attitude towards the learning process, academic achievement across all subjects and social behavior adjustments. Parents are considered stakeholders of the school community not only through contributions to the school's premises but also play a significant role in the success of the education through motivation of their children to achieve more. Many parents are actively involved in the welfare of their children and often communicate with teachers to find out how the child is fairing at the classroom. However, some parents show no concern and posses an 'I don't care' attitude and rarely get involved in the school work and helping their children achieve their goals. The journal finds that the critical factor that prevents parents pessimist attitude towards the school to which their children are admitted. Moreover, the authors state that parental effort is directly related to a higher level of achievement and the magnitude of parental support is substantial.

Family involvement in a child's education helps them to become responsible and reproductive members of the society. This involvement implies that when parents incorporate in the educational endeavors of the child through the school, it results in instilling developmental changes in the child. Parents also have the chance of airing views and ideas to be incorporated in the school thereby achieving a uniform educational program. Additionally, these views also help in ensuring that students receive the quality of education at schools. Contemporary studies show that students at the elementary, middle, and high school tend to activate communication between school and home through taking active roles in ensuring that parents are informed of school proceedings. The authors indicate that when parents report to school regularly, it facilitates the belief that home and school are connected and that the child's education is an integral part of the families life. This belief goes a long way in helping children feel at ease when at school and be active in class work.

As much as parents want to get involved in their children education, some roadblocks prevent it. One of the barriers that prevent parental involvement is the attitude. Some staffs feel that families should carry their duties outside the school and leave the education part to the teachers. Moreover, staffs are uncomfortable speaking about school work in the presence of parents (Sapungan & Sapungan, 2014). On the other hand, parents pose the notion that they have nothing to contribute. Secondly, logistics such as days that meetings are held, parents time off work, and transportation of parents to the school are a significant barrier to parental involvement. The education level of the parents is a critical factor in their involvement in the school endeavors. Illiterate parents are less involved in school meetings and helping their children with their homework.

The article illustrates clearly the benefits of parental involvement in the educational goals of children. More so, the article addresses the barriers that prevent parents from participating in their child's education in the context of parents and school staff. The report also extensively references scholarly works that relate to parental involvement in concluding and strengthening its points. However, the article does not cite how the student may thwart the efforts of their parents involving in school work. Studies show that students knowingly withhold information about their schoolwork to avoid misunderstandings with their parents (Smith et al., 2015). In cases that the student is deemed undisciplined and parent attention is called to, students try to evade the consequences by not telling the parent about the issue and sometimes skip classes. Furthermore, the authors do not cite socioeconomic aspects of families that affect parental involvement. Socioeconomic class is a significant aspect that not only affects students at school but also prevents parents to involve in a child's education for fear of discrimination. A more critical aspect is racial discrimination that the article does not address.

Conclusion

Student performance is tantamount to the level of parental involvement in the school. Therefore, the highlighted factors in the article are a firm basis in ensuring that parents are actively involved in their children's education. To effectually maintain and raise the involvement of parents in education goals of the school and more importantly the child's achievement, I plan to promote awareness of the benefits. This will, in turn, improve parental involvement. Moreover, I plan to reduce the barriers through improving communication between the staff members and parents. The discipline of the students is paramount in ensuring that the parents do not appear far from school proceedings as students tend to withhold information. Introduce learning at home programs that will ensure parents have the upper hand in the education of the students.

References

Emerson, L., Fear, J., Fox, S., & Sanders, E. (2012). Parental engagement in learning and schooling: Lessons from research. A report by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) for the Family-School and Community Partnerships Bureau: Canberra.

Gonida, E. N., & Cortina, K. S. (2014). Parental involvement in homework: Relations with parent and student achievementrelated motivational beliefs and achievement. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(3), 376-396.

Sapungan, G. M., & Sapungan, R. M. (2014). Parental involvement in child's education: Importance, barriers and benefits. Asian Journal of Management Sciences & Education, 3(2), 42-48.

Smith, E., Koerting, J., Latter, S., Knowles, M. M., McCann, D. C., Thompson, M., & SonugaBarke, E. J. (2015). Overcoming barriers to effective early parenting interventions for attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): parent and practitioner views. Child: care, health and development, 41(1), 93-102.