In this article we provide the results of a review study on parental involvement in children’s education with a focus on the specific position of illiterate parents. Research results indicate that parental involvement in children’s education matters. It matters for their achievement, motivation and wellbeing at school. Over the last decade, parents and teachers are supposed to collaborate more andmore as partners in education. To establish these partnerships, the primacy is placed on teachers and schools as they are the professional partners. The results of our review study reveal different good practices to enhance parental involvement: from parent and teacher training programs to reorganization of the school structure and family interventions. When illiterate parents want to be involved in their children’s education, they are faced with many difficulties. Remarkably, the research findings on the involvement of illiterate parents appeared to be limited, in contrast with the resultsof our literature search on the topic of parental involvement in children’s education in general, which was very extensive. However, we have found some good practices to foster the involvement of illiterateparents in their children’s education.
Objective: The majority of parents with a disabled child experience chronic sorrow, characterized by recurrent feelings of grief and loss related to their child’s disability. There is a significant lack of research on parents’ lived experiences of chronic sorrow, which limits our ability to understand parents’ needs and provide proper support. Design: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was conducted based on in-depth interviews with six parents of severely disabled children. Results: In the literature on chronic sorrow, an important aspect has been consistently overlooked: the particular position of being a parent, experiencing an awareness of being ultimately responsible for their children. The analysis revealed how this awareness, experienced as a deeply felt ethical commitment, unconditional, largely in isolation, and without a limit in time, shaped the experience of chronic sorrow. Because of this awareness, the parents experienced themselves facing a Herculean task of navigating their intricate motions while struggling to maintain their ability to function. Conclusions: By revealing the importance of considering the unique parental position, the study enriches the concept of chronic sorrow, simultaneously offering insights into what it means to be a parent of a disabled child. These insights can improve care professionals’ responsiveness to parental needs.
Parents who grew up without digital monitoring have a plethora of parental monitoring opportunities at their disposal. While they can engage in surveillance practices to safeguard their children, they also have to balance freedom against control. This research is based on in-depth interviews with eleven early adolescents and eleven parents to investigate everyday negotiations of parental monitoring. Parental monitoring is presented as a form of lateral surveillance because it entails parents engaging in surveillance practices to monitor their children. The results indicate that some parents are motivated to use digital monitoring tools to safeguard and guide their children, while others refrain from surveillance practices to prioritise freedom and trust. The most common forms of surveillance are location tracking and the monitoring of digital behaviour and screen time. Moreover, we provide unique insights into the use of student tracking systems as an impactful form of control. Early adolescents negotiate these parental monitoring practices, with responses ranging from acceptance to active forms of resistance. Some children also monitor their parents, showcasing a reciprocal form of lateral surveillance. In all families, monitoring practices are negotiated in open conversations that also foster digital resilience. This study shows that the concepts of parental monitoring and lateral surveillance fall short in grasping the reciprocal character of monitoring and the power dynamics in parent-child relations. We therefore propose that monitoring practices in families can best be understood as family surveillance, providing a novel concept to understand how surveillance is embedded in contemporary media practices among interconnected family members.
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Kinderfysiotherapeuten begeleiden baby's waarbij er zorgen zijn over de motorische ontwikkeling. Een goed ontwikkelde motoriek is belangrijk voor o.a. de cognitieve en de taalontwikkeling, en maakt het gemakkelijker om een fysiek actieve leefstijl te ontwikkelen die voorwaardelijk is voor een lang gezond leven. Interventies van kinderfysiotherapeuten bij baby’s met een bewegingsprobleem richten zich op het ondersteunen van ouders in een gelijkwaardige samenwerking. Kinderfysiotherapeuten zien daarbij een diversiteit in ideeën en overtuigingen die ouders hebben over ontwikkeling. Deze ideeën en overtuigingen, ook wel Parental Beliefs genoemd, vormen de basis van hun doen en laten in het zorgen voor hun baby (Parental Practices). Om een interventie goed te laten aansluiten bij het gezin, is het belangrijk dat kinderfysiotherapeuten zicht hebben op de Parental Beliefs. Kinderfysiotherapeuten ervaren echter belemmeringen om dit uit te vragen en werken hierin nu vaak intuïtief, omdat goede instrumenten ontbreken. In het project PEBBLES (ParEntal Beliefs concerning their Baby, Lifestyle and Experience Study) staat daarom de volgende onderzoeksvraag centraal: Hoe kunnen we samen met ouders en kinderfysiotherapeuten tools voor het in kaart brengen van Parental Beliefs & Practices ten aanzien van de motorische ontwikkeling van kinderen van 0-2 jaar ontwikkelen, die ingezet kunnen worden in de kinderfysiotherapeutische beroepspraktijk en in interventiestudies? In het PEBBLES-project ontwerpen we een toolbox om kinderfysiotherapeuten te ondersteunen bij het in kaart brengen van het denken en doen van ouders. In een iteratief proces ontwikkelen we dit samen met co-designers, Living Labs van zes MKB-kinderfysiotherapiepraktijken, ouders en onderzoekers. Een co-design-aanpak met aandacht voor de menselijke waarden borgt dat er tijdens het ontwerpproces voldoende aandacht is voor de impact van deze innovaties op de ouders en kinderfysiotherapeuten. Ook doen kinderfysiotherapeuten ervaring op met ontwerpprocessen en ontwikkelen daarbij ontwerpend vermogen.
Bullying at school is an emotionally charged topic that significantly tests the relationship between parents and teachers. It is a sensitive issue as it directly relates to the child's upbringing at home. Furthermore, parents and teachers have differing perspectives on the child, and the strategies they adopt to curb bullying are based on different perspectives and spheres of influence. In recent years, a variety of measures have been implemented in order to combat bullying at primary schools. Many different anti-bullying programmes have been developed for schools and a wide range of methods, training courses and tools are available to help teachers work together with parents in order to optimise their child's educational development. However, all of these anti-bullying methods lack concrete advice and tools to help teachers work together with parents whose children are personally involved in an incidence of bullying, despite experts across the board agreeing that cooperation between parents and teachers is of vital importance.The goal of this project is to develop an effective strategy to facilitate cooperation between parents and teachers that can be employed in the event of bullying as a supplement to existing anti-bullying programmes. This consortium's ambition is to boost the social safety of children in primary education by applying expertise in the field of bullying and parental involvement, and by combining past experiences.
