Head Start: Parental Involvement and Parent-Child Relationships
Deonté Hughes
Longwood University
November 30, 2019
Abstract
Parental involvement is something that can help children develop in many aspects of their lives. These aspects can include health, social, and educational development. In the United States there are programs that are designed to encourage parents to get involved with their children more whether it be through play or homework. Head Start is one of these programs that are designed to facilitate and encourage parental involvement. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Head Start program to research the relationship between parental involvement and the parent-child relationship. The study included all families with children ages 3-5 that were not enrolled in Head Start programs in three rural counties in southern Virginia. The children were sent home with 5 different activities to be done along with their parents and other family members. Surveys were sent home along with the last activity to be completed by the parents or guardians and sent back to the researcher. The results show that parents who spend more than 5.1 hours with their children on a typical day rate their relationship with their children mostly positive. Parents who spend 5 hours or less with their children rated their relationship with their children mostly positive as well with some parents rating their relationship fairly positive. These results are significant because this shows that parental involvement and the parent-child relationship are directly correlated. Programs such as Head Start that encourage parental involvement are also helping to improve parent-child relationships due to the correlation between them.
Introduction
When parents or guardians get involved with their children, the children’s development can be facilitated or hindered depending on whether the interactions were positive or not. Positive interactions can be anything like helping with homework, parental attendance in extracurricular activities, and discipline. Negative interactions can be anything like neglect or punishment. The important part of parental involvement is how parental involvement affects the parent-child relationship. The purpose of this study is the evaluation of programs such as Head Start that were created to encourage parental involvement in children’s lives. This study was designed to research the relationship between parental involvement and the parent-child relationship. The researcher was specifically researching if an increase in positive parental involvement correlates to a more positive rating of the parent-child relationship.
This study focused on Head Start programs in three rural Virginia counties. The population included all families with children ages 3-5 enrolled in Head Start programs in three rural counties in southern Virginia. The researcher sent activities designed to be done by the children with the help of their parents or other family members to Head Start. The children were then sent home with the activities and a survey is sent home with the last activity. The parent or guardian completes the survey and sends the survey back to Head Start, and then Head Start sends the survey back to the researcher to be analyzed. There were both quantitative and qualitative measurements in the surveys that were analyzed. After the analysis, the researcher drew a conclusion that parents who spend more time being involved with their children, rate their relationship with their children more positively. This conclusion provides insight on how parental involvement and parent-child relationships directly affect each other. These results provide a basic understanding of the correlation between parental involvement and the rating of the parent-child relationship.
Literature Review
Background information
Children from low income families are known to come into kindergarten with lower academic abilities than children of middle- and upper-class families by as much as one-half to a full standard deviation below their higher-class peers (Duncan & Magnuson, 2013). One of the major factors that researchers have attributed to this situation is parental involvement. Parental involvement can include many different dimensions such as health, education, and discipline. Due to this discrepancy in parental involvement in young children ages 3-5, the Head Start program was created to encourage parental involvement by providing children with early preschool level education and pushing parents to get involved in their children’s schooling (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). Head Start and other preschool programs encourage parents to involve themselves in their children’s school lives in order to gain knowledge and understanding of developmental needs for their children.
Research has shown that participation in preschool programs such as Head Start has shown to improve the academic abilities of their children as well as increase parental involvement in the program and in the home. Researchers Ansari and Gershoff (2016) conducted a cross sectional study which focused on children who have been in Head Start for two years which sought to measure the difference in parental involvement from before the children were involved in the program and the current parental involvement two years into the program. The study measured different behaviors linked to parental involvement such as cognitive stimulation, spanking, and controlling behavior. The results of the study showed that participation in Head Start increased positive parental involvement like cognitive stimulation and a decrease in problematic parental behavior such as controlling behavior and spanking (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). Various models and theories such as social capital theory and the parent investment model have also illustrated that the more parents get involved in their children’s lives, the better their children do in school (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). These findings are not just tied to financial parental involvement, but also emotional, physical, cognitive, and home involvement which influences their children’s behavior and achievement (Chen & Zhu, 2017). Head Start and other similar preschool programs are being studied in order to increase parental involvement in preschool age children.
Definition of Parental Involvement
Parental involvement has been defined by researchers in various ways due to the ambiguous nature of the term. There are multiple dimensions of parental involvement which can include home involvement, school involvement, parental aspirations, parental expectations, and discipline (Chen & Zhu, 2017). Many behaviors and parenting styles can be included in these dimensions such as attending extracurricular activities of children, participation in the school PTA, and the use of corporal punishment. These dimensions of parental involvement affect child outcomes differently depending on how positive or negative the parent-child interactions are. For example, parental attendance in extracurricular activities of children is a positive form of parental involvement whereas engaging in controlling behavior is a negative form of parental involvement. Researchers Forsberg and Lucas (2009) also added two broad categories to parental involvement, time spent for the child and time spent with the child. These distinctions are primarily based on how and why time is used in relation with the child. Forsberg and Lucas gathered the data from a study on various families in the United States, Sweden, and Italy which used participant observation to observe various parent-child interactions within the homes. The researchers observed these families over a small period of time and documented various interactions and then classified them. Time spent for the child are things that parents are required to do for their child like childcare and other chores. Whereas time spent with the child is when parents spend time doing leisure activities with their children to bond with them. The study noted that time spent for the child is more common, even though the parents felt that time spent with their children is when they felt more involved (Forsberg & Lucas, 2009). Parent involvement has many definitions and dimensions across various fields which makes defining the term for broad use is difficult.
Parental involvement and parenting styles
Parental involvement does not just apply to involvement in education and health, but also parenting styles. There are various parenting styles that parents use to raise their children. Studies have shown that parenting styles that provide children with warmth and a low harsh controlling environment have contributed to positive child development (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). If children have a nurturing environment that promotes their learning and growth at home alongside their nurturing environment at Head Start, this allows them to keep up developmentally with other children from socioeconomic statuses. Head Start also allows parents to learn more positive parenting styles from observation of the environment. When parents pick up their children from Head Start programs, they will be able to see the positive ways in which Head Start employees are talking to their children and their way of punishing the children. If parents begin to model these behaviors and begin to practice these behaviors in the home, then at home involvement will increase.
Parental involvement that contains parenting styles that engage in problematic behavior also has an affect on children. Examples of problematic behaviors in these parenting styles are controlling behaviors, spanking, yelling, and forms of negative interaction with children (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). These behaviors have a lasting influence on the children rendered by them due to social learning theory in which the children would learn behavior by observing and experiencing, in this case they are directly involved in seeing and experiencing the problematic behavior these parenting styles use. Researchers in Canada conducted a longitudinal study that examined how controlling parenting styles affected the behavior of children from ages 6 to 12 who were raised by such styles. Controlling parenting styles and behaviors included overprotection, spanking, and parental separation. The study revealed that children who were raised by controlling parenting styles showed an increase in the rate of physical aggression children exhibited as well as the development of other maladaptive behaviors (Joussemet et al., 2008). The results of this study illustrate how important parental involvement is for the development of children, specifically positive parental involvement in order to bolster positive child outcomes. Preschool programs like Head Start are great places for parents to learn positive parenting styles and behaviors in order to positively influence their children.
Further Research
Preschool programs and Head Start have been studied in order to give some insight into how parental involvement is affected by these programs. Multiple articles and studies that have noted the correlation between participation in Head Start and increased parental involvement (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). Studies have also highlighted how parental involvement can be negative or positive which can result in different child outcomes based on what the child has been exposed to (Joussemet et al., 2008). But some aspects of this topic have not been researched extensively, this would include how participation in Head Start affects ‘parental involvement’ in non-parental care.
Parental involvement may seem to be exclusive to parents, this does not mean that the same behaviors and expectations of parental involvement cannot be exercised by parental figures or guardians. Only a small amount of research has been conducted on how Head Start affects child outcomes for children in nonparental care. Previous studies would suggest that participation in Head Start would increase home involvement for parental homes as well as nonparental care. However, research has shown that this has yet to be seen rather, the research shows that Head Start has no influence on home-based involvement in nonparental homes (Pratt, Lipscomb, & Schmitt, 2015). In their study of 4,4442 children in nonparental care, Pratt et al., (2015) found no increase in positive home-based involvement such as book reading and other forms of cognitive stimulation interactions which is the opposite of findings for most research into Head Start’s influence on parental involvement. This leaves a gap in the research of participation in Head Start and how the program may affect other family structures rather than just families with biological parents.
Data and Methods
Study Design and Sample
The research that is being done is evaluation research using activities designed to influence parental involvement. The data was collected from a population of 86 families with children in Head Start in three rural counties in southern Virginia. Consent was given by the parents when they filled out the first question of the survey which asked for their consent which was also approved by the Institutional Review Board. The response rate was 40.7% equaling a sample size of 35 respondents.
Procedure
The survey was pen and paper and was sent home with each child, along with the last activity. There was a five-dollar gift card attached to each survey to be given to each parent regardless if they complete the survey or not. The parents filled the survey, the first question on the survey asks for their consent with filling out the survey and the use of the data for research purposes. The surveys are filled out anonymously and any identifying information that may be found will be kept confidential. Afterwards, the parents send the survey back to Head Start with their child then the child gives the completed survey to their Head Start teacher. After the teachers collect all the completed surveys that were given to them, they drop them off to the researchers for the data to be analyzed.
Quantitative Survey Measures
The survey includes many quantitative questions that seek to measure parental involvement. These questions include, “On a scale from 0-10, how well did your family enjoy this activity? (0=Not at all, 10= Very much)”, and “How involved was your family in this activity? (0=Not at all, 10=Very much)” in order to measure parental involvement. However, with the independent variable the researcher was interested in was the parent’s relationship with their child which is also linked to parenting styles. To measure this variable, the researcher used the question, “How would you rate your current relationship with your child/children? (0=Mostly negative, 10=Mostly positive)”. This question gives the parents the chance to rate their relationship with their child, many different factors can be included in their assessment such as positive interactions, negative interactions, and discipline. Many parenting styles may involve negative interactions which could lower their perception of their relationship with their children just as positive interactions associated with supportive parenting styles can increase their perception of their relationship.
Qualitative Survey Measures
The survey also includes qualitative questions for the parents to give detailed responses to survey questions. The qualitative measures on the survey are in the form of open-ended questions. These open-ended questions are for assessing how effective the activities were at increasing parental involvement. These open-ended questions include, “Do you think that being provided with pre-planned activities increased the amount of fun time you got to spend with your family after school? Please explain.”, and “Please explain what your family gained from these activities. How will you use what you gained in the future?”. These questions allow the researchers to see themes in the level of parental involvement as well as what activities worked best, and which did not.
Quantitative Analysis
To analyze the quantitative data from the surveys, the researcher used the 25th edition of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 25) in order to convert survey answers into statistical categories. The demographic survey questions will be coded into the corresponding demographic variables in SPSS 25 to be fully analyzed. The researcher used the data from SPSS 25 to examine survey responses for parental involvement, and enjoyment of activities. Only descriptive statistics are reported.
Qualitative Analysis
The qualitative data is analyzed through the transcription of the parent’s responses to the open-ended questions. Afterwards, the responses will be analyzed for recurring themes related to family involvement. These themes can include things such as time spent with family members, positive interactions, negative interactions, and discipline. The variable of parent-child relationship may be analyzed through some of the themes. Only descriptive statistics are reported.
Mixed-Method Analysis
The mixed-method analysis will use both quantitative and qualitative data from the survey in which the quantitative and qualitative data are examined together to determine whether the data confirm, contrast, enhance, or influence each other in any way. The mixed-method analysis data will be presented at the end of the results section.
Findings
Qualitative Findings
There are three reoccurring themes in the qualitative responses on surveys about activities done at the Head Start programs in three counties in rural Virginia. The three reoccurring themes are: bonding time, learning while completing the activities, and the families had fun doing the activities together. Multiple responses reference these three themes throughout the surveys analyzed, some responses including two or more of the three themes listed. The following findings are from the first 19 surveys that were returned.
The most common theme was bonding time, or ‘family time’. Many respondents stated in their responses how the activities their children brought home helped the family bond and spend time together after school. Respondent 7 stated, “We enjoyed sitting down together doing the activity as family,” which signifies that not only did Respondent 7 and their child do the activity together, but other family members were also involved. Many other respondents echoed this sentiment in that the activities helped bring not only the parent or guardian together with their child, but also other family members. Another respondent has also stated this sentiment. Respondent 13 wrote, “We were together doing these activities: my brother, me and my son. We don’t usually do these things kinds of things together. I want to continue to do these things together,” which is similar to Respondent 7’s response. The similarity between this response and Respondent 7’s response shows that the activities involved more family members, though this response details which family members were involved. Respondent 8 also mentioned spending time together doing the activities in which they said, “It had us spend time together by looking for more things to do as a family.” What’s interesting about Respondent 8’s statement is that the not only did they spend time together doing these activities, but that the activities have opened up other opportunities to do things together as a family. They mention that they are now looking for other things to do as a family outside of these activities. There is a possibility that these activities not only give the family something to do together, but also pushes families to look for other activities to do together which is an interesting latent function of these activities. Bonding or ‘family time’ is the most common theme as most of the responses reference spending time with their child or other family members. There were references to the benefits of the activity bringing the families closer together and even opening the door for other opportunities to spend time together as a family.
The second most common theme among the written responses was learning while completing the activities. Many respondents wrote that participating in the activities helped their child learn or had them discover things about themselves that they did not know of or think about beforehand. Respondents have stated short responses about how the activities helped their child learn, to more elaborate explanations about their child learning by participating in the activities. Respondent 9 stated, “We had fun learning together,” which is a simple quote about how the activities helped the family learn together. Respondent 9’s answer is the baseline for the other respondents’ answers. Respondent 5 stated something similar to Respondent 9’s answer, but with more detail. Respondent 5 wrote, “Our family was able to bond. We learned that we can learn and have fun at the same time.” This response shows that Respondent 5 and their family made a discovery with their child and family that learning can be fun and found a way to keep their child engaged in learning by making the activity fun. Question 2, which asked what the family gained from doing the activities. Respondent 11 answered this question with, “Fun learning activities that we can play in the future.” Respondent 11’s answer clearly states that learning was something that the family gained through the activities, but there is also a continuous factor to their answer. For Respondent 11, the learning from the activities is not a one-time thing, rather that the activities have facilitated learning for the family, and they will continue to use these activities and other activities to learn more things together as a family. Learning seemed to be a relevant theme in the qualitative responses from the respondents. The activities were designed to help facilitate parental involvement with children from Head Start programs and learning or the use of learning was one way for the parents to get engaged with their children.
A third theme that was apparent in the qualitative responses from parents and family members was the family having fun completing the activities. Many respondents referenced how fun the activities were and how the fun from the activities helped them engage with their child more while they were participating in the activities. In response to question 2, Respondent 16 stated, “We gained that we can work together and have fun,” which is what many of the responses that have to do with the theme of having fun while completing these activities. Respondent 4’s response to the question asking about their favorite activity reads, “Animal Dice because my daughter had the most fun with it didn’t want to stop playing it.” This response specifies a specific activity that the respondent and their child had fun playing together and completing to the point that the child did not want to stop playing. This is similar to Respondent 16’s response however, this response has more detail. There does seem to be a unique response that has less to do with having fun completing the activities, but rather this response references setting up the activity. Respondent 6 stated, “For my child, I think she had more fun helping me put the activities together; instead of just playing a game that is already together.” This response is different compared to the other responses related to the theme of the family having fun completing activities. Though these are few examples with two being detailed and different, many of the responses all echoed the same thought that the families had fun doing the activities together.
After analyzing the qualitative responses from the first 19 surveys that were returned, the three themes that emerged were: bonding time, learning from completing the activities, and families having fun completing the activities. Among the responses there were some similarities and differences in each specific theme with respondents reporting how participating in these activities affected their family dynamics when spending time together. These themes are apparent throughout all of the qualitative responses.
Quantitative Findings
In addition to answering open ended questions, survey respondents also answered short survey questions with multiple answer choices. These questions asked about a range of different things related to the participation, completion, and satisfaction of the activities given to the children. At the time of this analysis there were only 35 surveys that were returned to the researcher.
The independent variable the researcher is using to measure parent-child relationships is how many hours a parent spends interacting with their child/children. The question used to measure this variable was asked on the survey as,” During a typical day, how many hours do you get to spend interacting with your child/children? (Please circle from 0-10)” However, due to the spread of the data, the measurements had to be recoded into categorical data. With the new categorical data presented in Table 1, out of 34 responses 20 respondents reported that they spend between 5.1 to 10 hours interacting with their child/children on a typical day. The other 14 respondents reported spending 0 to 5 hours interacting with their child/children on a typical day. These differences in time spent interacting with child may be due to multiple factors like work, disabilities, and physical location.
Table 1
Hours Spent Interacting with Child/Children on a Typical Day
______________________________________________________________
Hours Spent with Child/Children
Respondents Hours %
______________________________________________________________
Parents with Children 0-5 41.2
Parents with Children 5.1-10+ 58.8
Total 100.0
______________________________________________________________
Note. The respondents were grouped based on their responses in the number of hours they spent interacting with their child/children. Group 1 consists of 14 respondents; Group 2 consists of 20 respondents for a total of 31 respondents.
The dependent variable that the researcher is measuring is the parent-child relationship. This is measured on the survey by the question, “How would you rate your current relationship with your child/children? (0=Most negative, 10= Mostly positive)” Out of 35 responses the mean, median, and mode were recorded. The mean of the responses was 9.63, the median response was 10, and the mode was 10. These numbers indicate that out of the 35 responses, almost all of the respondents measured their relationship with their child/children as mostly positive. The responses are independent of other variables.
After analyzing the variables by themselves, the researcher analyzed both variables together to see if there was any relationship between the responses, this analysis is presented in Table 2. From the table shown, out of the 20 respondents who reported they spent 5.1 or more hours interacting with their child, 18 of them reported having a mostly positive relationship with their child/children. Two respondents of that 20, reported a 9 which is still a positive relationship with their child/children. Out of the 14 respondents who reported spending 5 or less hours interacting with their children, 3 of them reported their parent-child relationship as an 8, 2 reported a 9, and 8 reported a 10. Also, out of the 14 respondents who reported spending 5 or less hours interacting with their child/children only 1 respondent reported their relationship with their child/children as a 7. From this collection of data, even when respondents reported spending 5 or less hours interacting with their child/children, they still report positive parent-child relationships. Comparatively from both groups of respondents the majority of each group reported mostly positive parent-child relationships with their child/children.
Table 2
Parent-Child Relationship Ratings by Parents
_____________________________________________________________
Average Parent-Child Relationship Ratings
Ratings 0-5 Hours with Child 5.1-10 Hours with Child Total
______________________________________________________________
Mean 9.21 (14) 9.9 (20) 9.6 (34)
______________________________________________________________
Note. The respondents were grouped based on their responses in the number of hours they spent interacting with their child/children. Group 1 consists of 14 respondents; Group 2 consists of 20 respondents for a total of 31 respondents. The totals are all 100% as the groups are 100% represented.
After analyzing both univariate and bivariate quantitative data, there seems to be a clear trend between respondents spending 5.1 hours or more interacting with their child and a positive parent-child relationship. From the univariate analysis of how much time respondents spent interacting with their child/children, a majority (58.8%) of the respondents reported spending 5.1 hours or more with their children. The univariate analysis for respondents rating their relationship with their child/children on a rating of 0-10, the mean of the ratings was 9.63 and the median of the ratings was 10. The most common rating that was reported was 10 which was the most positive rating. After the univariate analyses, the researcher cross examined both variables with each other and found more results. For the group of respondents who reported that they spend 5 or less hours with their child/children rated their parent-child relationship positively. Similarly, the group of respondents who reported that they spend 5.1 hours or more with their child rated their parent-child relationship as mostly positive. While the majority of both groups rated their parent-child relationship mostly positive, note that the group who spent 5 or less hours interacting with their child/children reported more 7’s and 8’s than the respondents who spent 5.1 hours or more with their child/children. However, based on the cross examination of both variables, a claim can be made that generally if a parent or guardian spends at least 5 or more hours interacting with their child/children on a daily basis they will have a mostly positive parent-child relationship with their child/children.
Conclusion
This study was done to research and evaluate programs that are designed to encourage and facilitate parental involvement. Specifically, this study was done to research the relationship between parental involvement and parent-child relationships of parents of children enrolled in Head Start programs in three rural counties in southern Virginia. Programs such as Head Start allowing young children ages 3-5 to engage in pre-school level education in order to boost their academic skills also have another goal of encouraging parents and guardians to get more involved with their children (Ansari & Gershoff, 2016). A study done by Ansari and Gershoff (2016) found that children who were involved in the Head Start program for 2 years had a significant increase in parental involvement than children who were just starting the Head Start program. This study shows that these programs are helpful in encouraging and facilitating, however what constitutes as parental involvement or how the parent-child relationship is affected is not answered by this study.
Parental involvement has many definitions and dimensions. Multiple dimensions of parental involvement can include home involvement, school involvement, parental aspirations, parental expectations, and discipline (Chen & Zhu, 2017). In these dimensions there is also the difference between positive and negative parental involvement. Positive parental involvement can include involvement in the school such as the PTA, going to extracurricular activities, and discipline. Whereas negative parental involvement can include neglect and punishment. Depending on the use of negative or positive parental involvement can have an impact on child outcomes. There is also a broad distinction of parental involvement split into time spent for the child and time spent with the child (Forsberg & Lucas, 2009). Time spent for the child are required responsibilities of the parent such as providing shelter, food, and safety. Whereas time spent with the child is strictly leisure time or doing activities that may not be included in the expected responsibilities of the parents such as watching a movie with the child. Because there are so many dimensions of this concept, parental involvement is hard to define or confine to one simple definition.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of activities designed to encourage parental involvement and analyzing the relationship between parental involvement and parent-child relationships. The data was collected from a population of 86 families with children in Head Start in three rural counties in southern Virginia. The surveys were sent home along with the last activity to be filled out by the parents or guardians and then sent back to Head Start to be delivered to the researcher. The survey had both qualitative measures which included open ended questions for the parents or guardians to fill out as well as quantitative measures which required parents to rate or choose answers from a list of choices. The use of both quantitative and qualitative measures made this a mixed-methods analysis. Upon analysis, the quantitative measures were analyzed using the 25th edition of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 25) in order to convert survey answers into statistical categories. Meanwhile, the qualitative responses were gathered and analyzed to find common themes among the responses.
The qualitative findings found three main themes from the surveys analyzed. The three themes are as follows from most common to least common: (1) bonding or “family” time, (2) learning while completing the activities, and (3) fun while completing activities. These three themes were pulled from the collective responses to the short-ended questions that mostly asked about the enjoyment of the activities.
The quantitative findings focus on the relationship between two variables, the independent variable was how many hours the parent or guardian spent interacting with their child/children on a typical day. Out of the 34 respondents, 14 reported spending 5 or less hours with their child/children on a typical day. The other 20 respondents reported spending 5.1 hours or more interacting with their child/children on a typical day. The dependent variable was the parent or guardian’s rating of the parent-child relationship on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being mostly negative and 10 being mostly positive. Out of 35 responses the average rating reported was 9.63. The researcher then cross examined both variables and the results showed that parents or guardians who spent 5.1 or more hours with their child/children reported their relationships with their child/children as mostly positive whereas parents or guardians who spent 5 hours or less had more variation in their ratings with the lowest rating being a 7.
These results are significant because these statistics show a relationship between parental involvement and the parent-child relationship. One conclusion that could be drawn from the results of this research is that an increase in positive parental involvement can help build a positive parent-child relationship. This research shows that programs that are designed to encourage parental involvement are not only succeeding in their purpose, but that these programs are also improving parent-child relationships through the increase in positive parental involvement.
There were some limitations in this study, such as a restricted time frame to conduct the study and analyze the data. With a limited time frame, there were two different number of respondents for both the qualitative responses and the quantitative responses. This means that the data set changed which could also change the results for both the quantitative and qualitative analyses. Another limitation is that there is a possibility that the parent and child were having many negative interactions with each other throughout the research period and thus their answers on the survey regarding the rating of the parent-child relationship may be biased due to the immediate relationship. While based on the quantitative analysis of this specific variable may not reveal any low scoring or negative ratings, there is still a possibility that this may have occurred in the group that spent 5 hours or less with their child/children.
Altogether this study was designed to evaluate programs that encourage parental involvement such as Head Start to assess how an increase in parental involvement affects the parent-child relationship. The results of this study did show that an increase in the amount of parental involvement correlates with a more positive rating of parent-child relationships. In the bigger picture, this means that these programs are not only successful in increasing parental involvement, they are also successful in the formation and solidification of positive parent-child relationships which in turn can have many positive impacts of the development on the children in these programs. Getting parents and guardians positively involved with their child/children can increase the child’s academic, social, and overall health.
References:
Ansari, A., & Gershoff, E. (2016). Parent involvement in head Start and children’s development: Indirect effects through parenting. Journal of Marriage & Family, 78(2), 562–579. https://doi-org.proxy.longwood.edu/10.1111/jomf.12266
Chen, H.-F., & Zhu, J. (2017). Optimal items for assessing parental involvement across different groups during middle childhood. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 26(11), 2999–3012. https://doi-org.proxy.longwood.edu/10.1007/s10826-017-0809-2
Duncan, G. J., & Magnuson, K. A. (2013). Investing in preschool programs. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27, 109–132. doi:10.1257/jep.27.2.109
Forsberg, Lucas (2009): Involved parenthood. everyday lives of swedish middle-class families. Linköping: Linköping University (Linkoping Studies in Arts and Science No 473).
Joussemet, M., Vitaro, F., Barker, E. D., Côté, S., Nagin, D. S., Zoccolillo, M., & Tremblay, R. E. (2008). Controlling parenting and physical aggression during elementary school. Child Development, 79, 411–425. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624. 2007.01133.x
Pratt, M., Lipscomb, S., & Schmitt, S. (2015). The effect of head start on parenting outcomes for children living in non-parental care. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 24(10), 2944–2956. https://doi-org.proxy.longwood.edu/10.1007/s10826-014-0098-y