A new study has found an interesting correlation between age and homework help.
Researchers have found that parents’ help with their children’s homework dramatically lessens as they approach secondary school.
The research, conducted by Growing Up in Ireland, showed this decrease specifically between the ages of nine and 13.
When their child was nine-years-old, over half of the parents surveyed said they 'always' or 'almost always' helped with homework.
However, this number dropped to only eight percent when their kids turned 13-years-old.
Parents attributed 'rarely' or 'never' helping with homework when their child was 13 to the fact that their kid 'did not need help' (79%) or 'did not want help' (15%).
Families with one parent were 1.7 times more likely to increase their involvement than two-parent families. Over a fifth of children from one-parent households said they ‘never’ received help with homework.
Researchers also found that families where a parent had lower secondary education and families in the lowest income group were less involved in helping with their children’s studies.
Surprisingly, the study also found that attending parent-teacher meetings and school events has little to no effect on these numbers.
Continued parental help when it comes to schoolwork could make a significant change in children's studies.
In fact, those with heightened mathematics skills had parents who had increased their involvement by the time their kid was 13-years-old.
Also, one-parent families were 1.7 times more likely to increase their involvement than two-parent families between the ages of nine and 13.
Exceptions to this average decrease in parental involvement include families with special needs children.
Over a third of parents were more likely to help with homework where the young person had a special educational need compared with a fifth of families whose child did not.
Researchers urged for parents to keep helping their children with homework in these crucial years and encourage them to be open about needing tutorship.
