“At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents”- Jane D. Hull
Parents have always played a great role in the lives of their children. They are always present for support and guidance. That is why it is very important for them to get involved in their children's education process. Parent engagement can directly affect the child's behavior, attitude, and academic outcome.
Gina and Ronal (2014), described the parents as the most important “Stakeholders” in any school environment this is because of the great roles they play in the alteration of the child`s academic process. Not only that but it was also stated that the parent’s involvement in the education process creates more success opportunities. This type of contribution ensures that the child meets the academic requirements while achieving the best performance.
Importance of Parents' Role in Education
Parents' involvement creates a strong profound relationship with the child, as they spend more time with their children while monitoring all their activities. This results in the awareness of the parents; as they can easily know their strengths, weaknesses, and whether they need help or not. Also, students who get parental support tend to have more self-confidence and enhanced behavior. Also, according to (Abie Ntekane, 2018) this parental engagement results in the motivation of the children and is more concentrated in the lesson.
More importantly, the parental role in education is found to be an asset to the parents too, as their role can enhance their parenting techniques. In addition to knowing more about their children’s needs while bringing more awareness to any emotional or intellectual needs. It also allows the parents to have more awareness about the school curriculum (Gina and Ronal, 2014).
Parent’s involvement in the education process
There are many techniques parents can use to be involved in their children’s education journey. These techniques can be classified into two categories: Home-based and School-based engagement. Home-based ideas can be done from home to encourage children and get involved with them while monitoring their learning process. While the other one is done with the help of the teachers, and school management to keep track of the children’s performance and behavior.
Home-based engagement includes several ideas to be applied. First of all, parents should create a pleasant relaxing environment for their children at home. Secondly, spending time with the child is very essential, because it allows the children to be more open and share their concerns, problems, and feelings. This can also make the parents more aware of their children's interests and their ongoing events at the school. Not only that, parents should also encourage their children to read more as reading has a positive effect on their performance.
Last but not least, parents can take their children on educational trips that are relevant to what they took in the class to help them better understand their lessons. Finally, helping with homework is one of the most important factors in the children’s success at school, as it provides guidance and assistance.
On the other hand, School-based involvement allows parents to collaborate more with the school by getting in touch with the teachers to follow up on their progress and performance. This can be done by attending the parent's meeting or by requesting to meet the teacher after class. Also, Volunteering in school is a great idea for parents to get involved with their children for instance applying to be a homeroom parent, or volunteering in any activities held at the school like book fairs or baking activities.
In addition to joining other parents' groups to be updated with any new feeds and news at the school. Finally, parents should ask for frequent updates and feedback about their children to be constantly notified about their progress or if there is any problem arises.