Whether the hand-wringing is about bad behavior or bad grades, author Susan Demas argues that if parents are the primary influence, then they are the primary cause of many problems, but also the primary solution to the problems. Concerning low academic achievement, she writes:
As a mom, I say blame the parents. That’s bad politics, as they won’t like you very much and won’t vote for you.
When seeking solutions for underperformance, “it comes down to the” simple “principle of personal responsibility.” Parents can teach responsibility by modeling it themselves, by explaining it to their children, and by expecting it from their children.
As exhausting as parenthood is, it doesn’t mean that you get to cede responsibility to teachers and administrators when your kids are school-aged.
Parents needn’t be experts at school curricula. Simply expecting, from a very young age, that their children get up and out of bed early in the morning, help to straighten up the house, do some cleaning or other chores, clear the table after a meal, etc., all work to develop a sense of responsibility in a child.
In most cases, low academic achievement are not caused by an inability to learn. Rather, low-performing students often lack work habits, organizational skills, self-management practices, and time-management routines.
Numerous studies link achievement to domestic variables during the first five to ten years of life: an orderly environment, regular predictable schedules, adults who model punctuality and hard work, etc.
Kids are only in school seven hours a day. What goes on for the remaining 17 hours is critical. And if children are playing video games and eating junk food nonstop, or living in far worse circumstances of abuse, starvation and neglect - you can bet that will have a big impact on how they’re doing in the classroom.
Core aspects of a child’s personality — aspects which she or he will carry throughout life — are set at very young ages, and are set primarily by parents, even if parents aren’t aware of the process. If a child doesn’t respond promptly to directions given by an adult, if a child hasn’t learned appropriate tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, and communication patterns for a conversation with an authority figure, be that person a parent or a teacher, then the root of these failures will be found in the home, with the parents.
Parents can powerfully model habits like getting up every morning at the same time and leaving for work at the same time, and especially doing it when they don’t feel like it: perseverance and self-discipline.
Parents can model continuing in routine duties even after enduring one of life’s painful shocks: resiliency.
I just thoroughly pummeled parents because they’re purposefully left out of our educational debate. But to be clear, they’re not the only reason American students are lagging behind those in other countries.
To be sure, parents are not the only influence on children. Society, media, schools, etc., also affect children, for good or for ill. A school which fails to deliver solid content, media which overstimulate via sight and sound, and a society which models overly-emotional responses to cultural tensions do not help children.
