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How Family Influences Students Academic Performance

charter schools vs public schools statistics tin cups holding school supplies - scissors, pencils, brushes and markers Middle Class DadFamily is the first major environment a child is exposed to, and it affects their social and academic performance in more ways than we think. As students, family influence can determine academic success, positively or negatively impacting the kid’s educational achievement or performance.

A family with a stronger interest in education will produce students with better academic achievements than a family whose influences are shallow.

In school, we see different students from different family backgrounds, and we understand how much their educational performance is affected by their prospective families.

Children from separated or failing homes tend to have a more challenging time concentrating and getting their grades up.

As reported by James Coleman in 1967, family is the biggest deciding factor in human life. This family impression would determine how successful their academic development is. Here are a few family factors that can positively or negatively alter a kid’s life:

Parental Education

The role in which the parents’ level of education plays in their children’s academics is high.

Research shows that educated parents are more actively involved in their children’s education than non-educated ones.

Right from birth, kids are unabashedly exposed to their environment. This builds the foundation for their intellectual and societal development. A household of educated parents will ensure that the kids get adequate assistance to achieve intellectual attainment of great heights.

From carefully selecting schools that will offer quality benefits, to actively participating in school activities themselves.

Another important aspect to note is how an educated parent will likely draw from their own advanced communicating and learning skills in teaching their children. This enhances the kid’s cognitive abilities, also increasing their word vocabulary twice more than their peers. Once these kids are admitted into a school, an educated mother is more likely to bolster the relationship between the staff, and her children, ensuring the teachers pay more attention to her kids.

Family Income

As with parental education, family finances have been found to have major effects on children’s scholastic outcomes. This effect may be direct in being unable to afford to send their kids to school, or indirect in the form of not being able to afford essentials their children might need.

Homes with adequate financial resources have access to private schools in stable neighborhoods and even professional tutors. Therefore, kids from these homes have the edge over those whose families can not afford this lifestyle.

In addition, kids from a poor background might grow up with an inferiority complex that will harm their accomplishments. In high school, these kids start to face constant pressure. There is pressure to wear the best designers, drive the fastest cars, and be among the popular, rich kids. Kids who come from a house that can not support this lifestyle will feel menial, which will, in turn, alter their self-esteem, and inadvertently, their studies.

Also, people who struggle financially might not have the chance to build close relationships with their kids. Some parents work three jobs at once, leaving them no chance to help their kids with homework and other tasks.

Home Structure

Separation and divorce are issues known to cause behavioral problems such as depression, irritation, and mental disorders in kids. When parents separate, it causes the kid to feel neglected and guilty. These strong feelings transcend into a series of emotional spirals that will, in turn, disturb their education. Statistics have shown that some kids from divorced homes have low intellectual achievement and higher dropout rates than their peers from stable homes.

Intact households have the greatest positive impressions on kids, and there is evidence to prove how this has helped them stay focused and grounded in their education because they feel loved. Divorce can also be indirectly related to economic instability. For instance, after separation, some fathers leave their children uncatered for. This shifts the focus of the only parent available away from the kids and on to finances.

Neighborhood

Neighborhoods influence the quality of schools accessible to each kid; it also determines how well they perform in their chosen schools. Kids from meager neighborhoods are automatically sent to public schools of lower quality. This is a choice their environment and family background already makes for them, and things change on rare occasions.

In these neighborhoods, schools need extra help, yet they lack the primary amenities needed to make learning effective. They have no access to guidance counselors, tutors, digital devices, modern educational tools, or even conducive classrooms.

All these absent necessities have a profound consequence on their knowledge and growth.

Meanwhile, pupils in affluent neighborhoods enjoy a more conducive learning environment that includes luxuries such as personal laptops, therapists, free lunches, exotic school trips, etc. They have tutors to see them through difficult subjects and can hire someone to write research paper for them to get better grades. All these provide them with suitable space for creative and interactive learning, which makes for an increase in scholarly attainment.

Abuse

The report shows that abuse is one of the biggest problems facing our society today. It comes in different forms, from physical abuse to sibling bullying and even rape. None of these forms is better than the other, and they all have grievous consequences on a kid’s growth.

Kids who were abused in the past tend to have emotional pain and baggage that affects their studies. They are more likely to repeat a class, fail their tests, and live lonely social lives.

This traumatic state stays with them for a long time, affecting their childhood performance up till their university years. It does not matter the economic levels, ethnic groups, background, or neighborhood; abuse can happen anywhere.

When this goes on for too long, it can cause problems that can not easily be curtailed. It is imperative to pay attention to what you can control. Don’t let your older kids bully their younger ones, be mindful of where your kids go or who they visit. And most importantly, every major character change should be dealt with early.

Conclusion

Although many other elements affect a kid, these are the major decisive components. On deeper analysis, we know that it might not be easy to change some of these facts, such as income or financial resources, but all the others can be controlled and looked into to achieve a greater academic height for your kid.

If you show them love and attention, they will bloom like flowers.

 

Jeff Campbell