Family harmony a factor in children's learning
John seemed to be an average eighth-grader until the last few months of the school year. He began having problems — he was inattentive in class, often forgot homework assignments and failed quizzes that he usually would have passed easily.
Rebecca, on the other hand, had never lived up to her potential. Quiet and a bit shy, but always polite and compliant, she frequently seemed distracted and self-absorbed. Batteries of diagnostic tests administered by the school psychologists over the years suggested that there were no apparent reasons she should not be an excellent student.
Tim had been a problem since he walked through the door of the kindergarten classroom. Bright, quick and personable, he could lead the class in grade-point average — or in behavior demerits. There seemed to be no way to predict which Tim would show up on any given day.
Three different children with three different school problems that may have a similar cause. An impressive body of research from the last few decades strongly suggests that the most important factor in children performing to their full potential in school is the health of their families.
More important than teacher, facility and learning resources, even sometimes more important than IQ, family health is what most often seems to determine how a child does in school.
John, for example, is struggling to cope with his parents' recent separation and impending divorce. Rebecca comes from a family dominated by her father's chronic alcoholism and her mother's passive withdrawal. Tim's erratic moods and behavior are directly correlated to the severity of the frequent beatings he receives from his physically abusive mother.
These, and a whole host of other family dynamics, affect our children's school performance. Other factors, such as the number of the parents in the home, family income, number of hours left alone after school, education level of the parents, amount of conflict in the parents' marriage, school performance of older siblings, presence of dependent grandparents in the home, chronic illnesses of family members and the family's ethnic and religious background, all play a part.
Even the more benign parts of being a family impact how our children do in school. The birth of a sibling, a weekend away, adopting a puppy, moving to a better neighborhood — practically anything that involves change — will have some effect on our children's school performance.
Though our schools employ psychologists and social workers to assist teachers in identifying and dealing with family-related problems, there are simply too many families who need help and too few school professionals to help them.
Ultimately, though, the responsibility for dealing with our family's impact on our children's school performance rests with us, not with the schools. Only we — their parents — can really make the changes necessary to free our children to learn to their full potential.
With more severe problems, such as a failing marriage, alcoholism, physical abuse, an absent parent or a severe illness, getting professional help is probably a good idea. A trained marriage and family therapist is often the best resource to help us sort out and solve the problems that impact our children's schooling.
But with or without help, the important thing is that we do something positive about our children's family-related school difficulties.
Schools are responsible for teaching our children what they need to know to be productive citizens, and that's a hard enough job as it is. As parents, we must do all we can to ensure our children's family life is an asset to learning. If our children struggled this last school year, we might want to ask ourselves what role our family might be playing in their difficulties and address that before we blame our kids.
Ÿ The Rev. Ken Potts' book “Mix, Don't Blend: A Guide to Dating, Engagement, and Remarriage with Children” is available through book retailers.