• Question: How much does parental involvement affect children's learning and cognitive development?

    Asked by tyrrellt to Michael, Katherine, Catriona on 11 Apr 2015.
    • Photo: Catriona Morrison

      Catriona Morrison answered on 11 Apr 2015:

      Good question. This speaks to what we call the “nature-nurture” debate: does you biology shape you, or does the world you live in shape you? Not surprisingly, it’s a bit of both. So if you’re born with the right genetic material and your parents completely neglect you, you might still do well. But if you’re born with a more fragile genetic make-up and your parents completely neglect you, you might fare badly.
      All children have a keen learning instinct, but parents can have a huge impact on maximising their children’s learning potential. Parents have to be sensitive to their children’s interests and strengths, and constantly encouraging. Children hugely value endorsement from their parents – much more than we recognise.
      So, if you’re going to step up to the mark of being a parent, you have to put every ounce of energy into it for your child to fulfil their potential.

Comments

  • Photo: Lucy

    Lucy commented on :

    Jo-Anne LeFevre at Carleton University in Canada has done some great work looking at parents’ influence on children’s literacy and numeracy, particularly in the early years, showing that it can have a positive effect on school outcomes. You can find a list of her papers with links to pdfs here: http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=tIRxtzAAAAAJ&hl=en. It can often be hard to establish causation when looking at this kind of question, e.g. is it really the case that input from parents has led to improvements in school performance, or are parents just picking up on things that their child is good at or interested in anyway. Longitudinal studies like Jo-Anne’s that follow families over several years definitely help with this though.