Should Parents Leave Education to Teachers?

While working on our annual review (we were established in the month of August – thus the oddity of timing), we noticed the lack of participations in our parenting seminars and the little response we got in our parenting surveys. In the past three years, on average, parents’ participations on free seminars we conducted had been less than 5%, while surveys, although waged better than seminars, were at less than 20% of our database.

While this result came as no surprise, this year we discussed the issue and were strucked by our own conclusion. In general, we categorize parents into: (1) those who want to get involved with their children’s education and development vs. those who don’t want to get involved; (2) those who have time to get involved vs. those who don’t have time; (3) those who are motivated to get involved and put (1) and (2) into action vs. those who are not motivated.

Now this coming part may come across rather harsh and judgmental, but we find that we can only get through to parents who want to get involved, have time to get involved, and are motivated to get involved with their children’s education and development. Any other combination won’t work (e.g. want to, have time, but don’t have motivation; or want to, have motivation, but don’t have time; and the rest of the variations).

Point (2) that has to do with time is probably the least problematic. Time is a luxury that not everybody has. While some people can schedule their own time, others are strictly regulated by schedules that are set by other people. So we can understand if parents can’t find the time to attend our seminars or fill in our parenting surveys, with a note that they actually spend time for their children’s education and development at home. But if the latter one is also difficult, then maybe it’s time for them to rethink their priorities in allocating time. Time is finite, so we often must juggle our priorities to figure out which one we will spend time for. And we would argue that if we find something is important, we will definitely spend the time for. Thus, we would ask: What is more important than your own children?

Point (1) gets a little bit more tricky, and can be broken down into three sub-problems. Don’t parents want to get involved because (a) they don’t want to or because (b) they can’t or because (c) they feel they can’t? Of these three sub-problems, the last one is the least problematic. Parents can always get involve. In fact, parents must get involved. When you look at who you are today, we bet that a lot of who you are is influenced by your parents – be it in a positive or in a negative way. So is and will be your influence to your own children. We think that you can always get involved if you want to – a sub-problem we will turn into soon enough.

Now, to the sub-problem (1b): what if one can not get involved? We will have to ask: Why? Is it because of time (which has been discussed in point (2) above)? Is it because of capability? What other possibilities are there? If it’s a matter of capability, there’s a saying that we would like to share at this point: “I can, because I believe I can”. We would add to this that as long as there’s will (which is related to point (3) motivation), and time (i.e. you want to put your children as a priority for your time allocation), you will be able to get involved in your own children’s education and development.

But what if the problem is the sub-problem (1a): you don’t want to get involved? Well, we can only rest our case. We would just ask you to remember the time when your child was born: how did you feel about him or her? What were your hopes and fear for him or her?

We could only say the same when it comes to point (3), which is motivation to get involved in the education and development of your own children. As we discussed in this article, education is as much a responsibility of students as it is of teachers. When the students are young, then parents do have major part in sharing this responsibily with teachers. As the best kind of motivation comes from within, when parents role-model intrinsic motivation for their children, they too will most likely become intrinsically motivated individuals.

Education is as much a responsibility of parents as it is of teachers.