If there is one Christmas list most parents would appreciate receiving from Santa halfway through the school year, it would be a list of ways to help an offspring experience success at school and beyond.
University of Texas professor Keith Robinson has researched such a list and he’s checked it twice against data provided by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics surveys of 25,000 students.
The survey highlights the extent to which family, irrespective of culture or economic background, can contribute to student success — or not.
On the plus side of the list, Robinson says his research indicates that the most consistently effective type of “parental involvement activity” is talking to kids about their post-high school plans. “What this might be hinting at is the psychological component that comes from kids internalizing the parental values message: ‘School is important,’ ” he says.
While there are many jobs out there that do not require a university degree, there are virtually no careers on which kids can build a life that don’t require further education and training (two different things) after high school. Best if kids are ready to accept that.
But talking to kids, who tend to live in the “now,” is tricky. Combine that with other sociological research that indicates most parents would like to see their kids move past the levels of their own life achievements or successes, and that conversation requires tact and a bridge of trust that needs to start at a young age.
I’ve met with parents who complain that their 13-year-old “doesn’t listen to me any more.” I was always tactful enough not to ask: “When did they stop listening and why?”
Lack of trust does not begin overnight.
Reading to your child before the school years has always been a good idea. Robinson’s book suggests that when parents read to their children, it’s one of the parental involvement activities that, apart from creating a bond, also enhances language development.
Other studies talk about the value for very young children of just hearing organized and structured language from their parents, and how that promotes brain development and increases vocabulary, which in turn increases ability to learn.
On the other hand, Robinson cautions parents to tread carefully if they try to involve themselves as their children’s teachers on content-specific stuff such as math and science.
He found that only 15 to 20 per cent of the parental involvement is, in reality, positive. About 30 per cent, he found, is actually negative in terms of school progress.
“There are actually some ways parents can be involved in their kids’ education that leads to declines in their academic performance,” Robinson told Maclean’s magazine. “One of the things that was consistently negative was parents’ help with homework.”
As kids progress through the grades, parents’ abilities to help with homework declines, especially with process-based subjects like math, algebra or calculus and the sciences.
Even though they might want to be active in helping, parents might not remember (if they ever understood) the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases, never learned it at all themselves, but still offer advice that might actually inhibit learning.
There are non-academic steps parents can take to support success in school.
At an elementary school in a low-income neighbourhood in the 1970s, we tried to convince parents that kids who loaded up on sugar-filled breakfast cereals before school would, early in the day, experience the “sugar blues” and become sluggish, moody, hungry and even sleepy in class. The same applied to the sugar-based “treats” in lunch kits.
Being a parent these days is no easier, but common advice agrees that enough sleep, a nutritious diet, exercise and a positive attitude towards school still play a big a part in student success. Kids need self-confidence — the belief that they can succeed in spite of obstacles.
Educators often call this “social-emotional learning skills that don’t show up on standardized tests.”
It’s all on Santa’s list.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
