Module 6

Educating and supporting the whole child is essential to the well-being of every child. In order to have a positive impact on the whole child, it is imperative that as educators, the family unit is supported as well and parents are given the necessary tools to ensure their child is successful in school and in life. Research has shown that students, whose parents play an active role in their school life, do far better than children who parents do not play an active role in their school life which clearly means that parent involvement is necessary. In education, Parent Involvement consists of parents committing themselves to participate actively academically with their child and or within the school setting. But how does this information relate to single parent households? Not divorced homes, but single parent households due to the death of a parent.

To help me in my study to investigate the impact that parental involvement of single (widowed) parents has on the academic achievement of students, I selected two individuals to interview. I interviewed a Parent/Community Liaison and a single (widowed) parent. Getting two individuals to commit to this process was not hard at all. In fact, the two were very accessible and were willing to give time from their schedules to help with the process, which I assured them would be confidential. Although conducting interviews are very common when doing research investigations, the interviews allowed me to explore the views of the two individuals, get their experiences, beliefs, and motivations about parent involvement and the impact it has on widowed families.             

I thought scheduling and conducting interviews for research purpose would be a challenge. However, everything went well. The interviews allotted me entry into the personal aspects of the challenge of parental involvement initiatives.

An experience expressed by the widowed parent that I connected with and learned from was when she shared how her children’s school informed her parenting and fostered better parenting skills for her. That information compelled me to work towards ensuring that parents are serviced as well as the students when it comes to learning.

I am excited about my Course Project. Currently I am synthesizing literature. It is important for me to hone in on what professional educational gurus in the field of education are saying about parental involvement and the single/widowed parent. I have also completed an outline of the sections that will be incorporated within the project. The interviews will serve as great data to support my research.

As educators striving to support children and their parents, would this research be compelling to you?