PARENTAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT A CHILD’S ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE; PARENTAL CARELESSNESS AND NEGLECT. A PAPER PRESENTED AT OPINIONS FROM AFRICA RESEARCH DEPARTMENT’S (#ResearchwithPet) ONLINE CONFERENCE ON THE THEME PARENTAL FACTORS AFFECTING CHILD’S ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE. HOST- JIDECHUKWU ANGELA NWABUEZE.
By Precious Ifunanya Evurunobi
June 19, 2020
INTRODUCTION
We live in a society today where parents are directly in charge of their children’s upbringing unlike in times past where the responsibility of taking care of a child is on the entire community.
In other words, the responsibility of caring for a child rests mainly on the parents. This is the reason parents must embrace intentional parenting as their actions towards their children can make or mar them for life.
A lot of factors ranging from parental income to parental level of education to parental neglect and carelessness can be responsible for low academic performance in students.
For emphasis, the key terms in the topic will be duly defined.
Generally, neglect means failure to care for or attend to something or someone due to carelessness or oversight. Carelessness means lack of care or attention.
Wikipedia (2020), in defining parents and the role of parents, states that “a parent is the care taker of a child.”
Parental neglect on its own can be loosely defined as the exhibition of very little involvement in a child’s life. (Wikipedia, 2020).
The free dictionary gives a legal definition of parental neglect as a crime consisting of acts or omissions of a parent which endangers the health and life of a child or fails to take necessary steps for the proper raising of a child.
Having understood the meaning of neglect and parents we can safely say that parental neglect and carelessness is a situation where parents pay little or no attention to their children’s life and academics. For the sake of the scope of this topic, parental neglect will be studied from the angle of its effect on students’ educational performance.
It is important to state that parental neglect and carelessness is most often not a deliberate action by parents. Rather it usually creeps in on parents unnoticed. As parents go through the rigours of family life and business or career, their attention often gets divided with their personal concerns taking a greater chunk of it. This happens most in families where parents do not take parenting as an intentional venture. Some parents do not really know the roles they are supposed to play in their children’s lives. Wikipedia (2020), classifies the roles of parents as:
- Guardianship
- Parenting
- Guardianship; this is the legal authority of parents to care for the personal, property (and academic) interest of a ward or child.
- Parenting; this is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, financial and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.
To further understand parental neglect and carelessness, let us take a peep into Kamsi’s life.
Kamsi is a basic six pupil, a brilliant and outgoing boy. Kamsi’s father is a banker who is hardly around except on weekends. And those weekends are hardly spent at home as he has meetings and social gatherings to attend.
Kamsi’s mother is a civil servant who is also a business woman by the side. Kamsi is provided with every school material needed but his parents never ask about his welfare in school. Kamsi’s attempts to get attention from his parents always end up in disappointments and frustration.
On this particular day, Kamsi went into his mother’s room with his home work book in his hand.
“Mum, my teacher said…”
“Oh… Kamsi, what is it this time? Can’t you see I’m busy? She said with her eyes on her laptop.
“I know mum, I just wanted you to take a look at my homework, Miss Kay said we can ask our parents to help us.” He handed the book to her.
She glanced at it quickly and gave it back to him.
“My dear, I don’t have time for this now, just go and look in your textbook, I’m sure you’ll find the answer there.”
“Alright mum.” Kamsi said, disappointed.
Ten minutes later he was back in his mother’s room.
“Mum, I…”
“What is it again this boy? Leave this room now and go and read your books. You are always disturbing somebody.”
Kamsi walked out, tears stinging his eyes.
He wanted to tell his mother about the boy in his class who always bullies him. He also wanted her to go through his finished homework. But as usual, his mum was too busy to attend to him.
He went back to his room, lay on his bed and cried himself to sleep.
His midterm test the next day was a mess. He failed four out of the six subjects he wrote. The only voice he kept hearing in class was the voice of his mother yelling at him to leave her room.
I hope we have gotten a glimpse of how some parents neglect their children. Some other students have to cope with parents who do not provide school materials for them even though they can afford to get them.
Negligent parents always have things to do which they place higher than their children. While parents are advised not to lose themselves completely in child rearing, it is however obligatory that they give a level of attention to their children.
Studies have shown that a good number of students who do poorly in school or drop out completely have parents who showed little or no interest in their life and academic performance. Wikipedia (2020) is of the opinion that neglected children are at the risk of developing lifelong social, emotional and health problems.
INCIDENCES OF PARENTAL NEGLECT AND CARELESSNESS
- Lack of concern about children’s tuition process and requirements.
- Showing little or no excitement when children perform well in school.
- Not voicing out any expectation of their children’s academic achievement.
- Pushing children’s welfare and supervision to domestic staff or relatives.
- Refusing to engage their children in age appropriate discussions to find out their life and academic challenges.
All these scenarios can be a source of discouragement to a student, such that even a bright student growing under such atmosphere may find learning difficult. Parental neglect and carelessness is therefore one of the major factors that promote low achievement in a child’s academic performance.
FORMS OF PARENTAL NEGLECT AND CARELESSNESS
- Individual neglect
- Structural neglect
Individual neglect has to do with ignoring the academic progress of a child or children. This happens when parents perceive a child as dull, stubborn or rebellious. They therefore show little attention to such a child believing that investing academically in such a child is a waste of time and resources. Since no interest is shown in the child’s academics, the student may decline academically.
Such students suffer low self esteem, lack of self confidence and low motivation for studies and achievement. This leads to low performance unless the child is shown attention by a kind teacher or an understanding adult.
Structural neglect is a type of neglect that occurs in a situation where parents ignore their responsibilities as parents in a family unit. Here parents are careless with their words and actions and often times compromise the family values. Parents in abusive and unstable relationships create an atmosphere where their children witness them quarreling and fighting. In the heat of this, the children will not be properly taken care of. Also, in the case of domestic violence and divorce, children are the worst hit victims. They are affected academically.
THE WAY FORWARD
It is common knowledge that some parents take their children’s academic progress for granted. Their attention must however be drawn to the fact that parenting is an intentional activity. Successful parenting can still be achieved if parents make out more time for their children and attend to their needs.
Parents need to be reminded that their attitude to their children matters a lot. Children read a lot of meaning into the actions of their parents towards them.
Parents should never write off a child as dull, stubborn or irredeemable. They must desist from neglecting or ignoring such a child as doing so would build a poor self-image in the child.
In the same manner, parents should not be too busy to take an active interest in their children’s life and academics. Being too busy to attend to a child causes him/her more harm than good. Nothing keeps a student on his/her toes like knowing that his academic progress is closely followed by his parents or guardians.
Parents should also ensure that the atmosphere at home is peaceful and inspiring. No child can give his/her optimum best in a home filled with chaos and parents’ marital problems. In such setting, the parents’ numerous marital challenges and unstable relationship may not give them enough time to observe their child’s progress together as a couple. The trauma of living in a dysfunctional home is enough to cause low performance in children.
Classroom teachers are urged to be careful and understanding in dealing with students, especially those that have low academic performance. If a student’s problem is traced to parental neglect, the parents of the student should be invited to the school to have a talk with the management and the school counselor. With such an opportunity, the school management would counsel the negligent parent on the consequences of neglect. They will also be pointed to the right direction as regards engaging their children and monitoring their academic progress. Even though Wikipedia (2020), suggests that cases of neglect should be reported to legal and government authorities, however, for the scope of education, teachers should observe and identify students who have low performance as a result of parental neglect and carelessness. As soon as this is observed, the teacher can do his best to offer helping hands and listening ears to such students.
When these active measures are put in place, the incidence of parental neglect and carelessness as a factor contributing to low academic performance, will be greatly controlled.
REFERENCES
The Free Dictionary (n. d.). Parental Neglect; Legal Definition of Parental Neglect. Retrieved June 19, from https://legal_dictionary_the_freedictionary.com_
Wikipedia (2020). Parents. Retrieved June 19, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org_wiki_parent_
Wikipedia (2020). Parental Neglect. Retrieved June 19, from https://end.m.Wikipedia.org_wiki_parental_neglect_
