Lead By Example Or Risk Your Child Losing The Plot!

When a child misbehaves or fails to meet expectations at school, the chocolates or Cokes being packed for lunch can’t always be blamed for the poor little rascal’s attention span problem. Home and family life should be considered and taken very seriously when a child’s behaviour is horrendous in the classroom. Several family factors can affect a child’s behaviour and ability to perform in the classroom. These include economic stability, changes in family relationships, parental attitudes toward education and incidents of child abuse. Like the old saying goes, charity begins at home and if a parent is not supporting his/her child and instilling positive mindset, a teachers’ nightmare can take shape in a little human wearing a school uniform.

The above-mentioned factors are described as follows:

Economic Stability

Poverty can affect school readiness in several ways. Children from lower-income homes often experience a lack of parental consistency, a frequent change in part-time caregivers, a lack of supervision, poor nutrition and poor role-models. According to a 2007 article titled “The Impact of Poverty on Educational Outcomes for Children” in the journal “Paediatric Child Health,” studies show that children from impoverished families tend to score lower in communication and vocabulary skills, knowledge of numbers, ability to copy and recognise symbols, concentration and teamwork and cooperative play. Research conducted by the Society for Research in Child Development also found that children from low-income families received less positive parenting and had higher levels of cortisol, which has been associated with lower levels of cognitive development.

Changes in Family Relationships

Divorce has long been linked to behaviour problems, anxiety and depression in children. This is often because single-parent homes feature parents struggling with their own feelings of depression and anxiety, accomplishing household responsibilities previously held by two people and meeting more financial demands. You oh so often also come across a situation where discipline is a problem since the same rules don’t apply at mom and dad’s house and situations are being over-compensated for. Single parents must often take on more hours at work to meet financial responsibilities, which can lead to children feeling neglected and acting out, and cause them to experience the effects of economic instability mentioned above.

Parental Attitudes Toward Education

Children learn first by mimicking behaviour they see modelled for them. According to a 2009 article published in on the website of the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, studies show a positive correlation between the parents’ level of education and their child’s attitudes toward academic achievement. Children who have the example of lazy parents, will take on the same attitude. Every piece of homework will be too much effort and nothing will ever motivate them to work hard to achieve the success they are capable of if the example at home isn’t set to the standard required.

Child Abuse

Child abuse can happen by way of physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, sexual abuse or substance abuse in the home. According to KidsHealth.org, victims of child abuse are known to be at high risk for engaging in risky behaviours and acting out in school. They might have problems socialising with other children and adults and completing or focusing on assignments.

So, there you have it. If you decide to be a parent, there are no shortcuts and no going back. Clichés are some of the biggest gripes that people have, but when the cliché – Lead by Example – was carved in the hardest stone you could ever possibly imagine, nobody would ever comprehend quite how true this will be!