The Critical Role of Parents

Parents are the front line in establishing students' attitudes about school and achievement in school. The more families support their children's learning and educational progress, the more children tend to continue their schooling. Characteristics of family support and involvement may include providing study aids, setting high educational expectations, and regular parental monitoring and participation.

Parents influence their children's commitment to school by providing both academic and motivational support for learning. Academic support refers broadly to the ways in which parents foster their children's intellectual or cognitive development. Examples of academic support include helping children with their homework and helping them learn how to prepare for tests. Research has shown that when children are involved in intellectual activities at home, their perceptions of their academic competence improve. Children's exposure to and participation in cognitive/intellectual activities at home may bring school and home closer for the child and make such activities feel more achievable. It follows that children who have such experiences at home may feel better able to master activities in school.

Interestingly, many studies have shown that motivational support for learning, in which parents foster the development of attitudes and approaches that are essential for school success, is also important in facilitating academic achievement, perhaps more so than direct assistance and monitoring of homework.

Motivation is fundamental to student achievement. Each student arrives at school with his or her own set of intellectual abilities and talents. Students need to understand that learning sometimes requires persistence, that challenging tasks are more rewarding than easy ones, and that small accomplishments today are the basis for larger successes in the future. Students disengage from education when they fail to make the connections between academic achievement and future success.

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