Student · Department of Psychology & Child Development ·
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
Why is caregiver involvement in children's education important? How can caregivers get involved?
Caregiver Involvement in Education
Support of caregivers can play a vital role in a child’s success in preschool and early elementary school. The ways in which families influence the success of young students includes their support of children’s social-emotional skills, parental engagement within the classroom, and parental engagement outside of the classroom. First, the connection between children’s social-emotional skills and early schooling is mediated by familial interactions (Williams & Lerner, 2019). These social-emotional skills include self-confidence, ability to develop positive relationships with adults and peers, social problem solving skills, the ability to follow instructions, and the ability to communicate emotions (Ashdown & Bernard, 2019). Another way caregivers are directly involved during early education is by their time spent inside the child’s classroom. Research shows that students who have support of a caregiver and a teacher in the classroom during early childhood have more motivation to complete their work, take responsibility for their learning, develop a goal-oriented mindset, and score higher on assessments (Gonzales-DeHass et al., 2005). If caregivers have the means to do so, they can participate in their child’s education directly in the classroom through volunteering. Third, caregivers have the opportunity to provide support to their children’s education from home. This can be done by facilitating communication, creating academic environments in the home, supporting the child’s personality development, and helping with homework (Sad & Gurbuzturk, 2013). Parental engagement in student education at home is linked to academic readiness, academic performance, well-being, communication skills, school behavior, and developmental benchmarks of the student (Barnett et al., 2020; Dettmers et al., 2019; Ogg & Anthony, 2019).
