Parents and Education

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving I spent almost 50 years focused on treating ADHD, Autism and learning disorders. I find it interesting how everyone has an opinion on our school system. In many cases their opinion is based upon a tidbit of information that they have chosen to choose as the biggest factor in education.

They fail to recognize the most important component of successful education. That is the parents. Schools educate students for 180 days per year. That is about half the year. They have those students for a maximum of 8 hours a day. That is one-third of the day. If you do the math, it means that schools have students for one-sixth of the entire year.

I have a daughter that teachers high school Spanish. The students doing most poorly in her class are the ones on their cellphones for the entire class. My daughter sends emails to the parents telling them that. There are seldom responses. Even for those that do respond, it seldom has an effect on the student’s behavior.

We all take for granted the fact that schools do not become involved in the education process until well after children have learned a lot of things.

When my children were growing up, we had a nightly routine. We all had dinner together. No TV at the dinner table (for my grandchildren, it is no electronics at the dinner table). Part of the conversation was about the school day. Then after dinner it was time for help with homework. The goal was not to get straight A’s. It was to do your best and as long as you did that the grades would follow. Two of my daughters were A students and the other was a B student.

We know for a fact that parents who read books to young children see multiple beneficial effects. It helps language acquisition. It helps communication skills. It helps social skills. It helps literary skills. That means that some children are more advanced in these areas when they begin school. 

We also know that parental approaches affect student learning. Parents with high educational expectations for their children can create a favorable learning environment. Students with supportive and engaged parents tend to perform better in school. Positive emotional acceptance from parents can have positive results on learning.

Parenting styles can affect learning. Parents who are warm and supportive and have clear rules tend to have children with good self esteem and a positive sense of their abilities to learn.

You might think that parents with high expectations and strict rules have students who do better. However, these parents tend to be so authoritarian that they give limited emotional support. For that reason their children tend to struggle with social skills and self-expression.

Some parents are overprotective. Studies have shown that that situation negatively affects school performance.

Permissive parents do not use consistent discipline or set limits. Their children can be uncertain about their true abilities. They wind up being insecure.

As you might expect some parents are neglectful. In those situations, children tend to lack motivation. They struggle academically.

I used to tell my patients that the number one factor is successful education is the parents. They have five-sixths of the effect on education. The second factor is the student himself/herself. Teachers and classrooms come third.

The next time you hear a pundit telling you how much they know about education, see how much of their wisdom focuses on the role of the parents. If it does not, then they are not looking at the full picture.