Abstract
Parenting today is as challenging as ever. People grow into their parental role, and develop their parenting skills as they counter challenges and apply daily routines in response to their children’s needs. Parental effectiveness is significant in the behavior that parents show during the interactions with their children as well as during the entire socialization process. Parents of young children are responsible for their care, their physical safety and for their physical, cognitive and emotional development; they micromanage the child’s inclusion in society and cultivate his/her socially acceptable behaviors. If they feel that they are efficient at their role as parents, then the child’s cognitive and psychosocial development is enhanced. Counselling at the primary school level could enable parents to better manage problematic situations that arise with their child’s learning and/or emotional needs by providing in-school parental education sessions which would facilitate parents to improve their parental skills. This study aims to (a) investigate and measure parental effectiveness and (b) research the perception of parents of primary school children regarding the necessity to implement school Counselling in the Cyprus Elementary School System. A sample of 120 parents of children 6-12 years old, in Limassol, Cyprus, answered two questionnaires, namely the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ) and a questionnaire we constructed to examine parental attitudes on Elementary School Counselling. Results show that parental effectiveness is significantly influenced by the educational background of the parents, the mother’s age, the status of the family, the number of children in the family and the gender of the child. At the same time, our results indicate that the majority of the participating parents acknowledge the importance of early Counselling interventions in parental educational programs at the primary education level.
Highlights
According to the American Psychological Association, parenting practices around the world share three major goals: ensuring children’s health and safely, preparing children for a life as productive adults, and transmitting cultural values (APA, 2018)
Teachers at the primary school are often required to take roles outside of their teaching work in order to help parents cope with children’s unwanted behavior or to help children cope with their parents ineffective parenting skills, roles for which they are insufficiently trained
In the Cyprus public school system, school counselling does not begin until the 2nd grade of high school, when children have already reached the age of 14, so programs that would enhance parenting skills cannot be made available for all the parents through the public-school system
Summary
According to the American Psychological Association, parenting practices around the world share three major goals: ensuring children’s health and safely, preparing children for a life as productive adults, and transmitting cultural values (APA, 2018). According to the American School Counselling Association (ASCA), school counselors work on promoting systemic change in children’s lives through collaborating with and involving parents, teachers, community members and students in the development of comprehensive school counseling programs that promote children’s growth and development. When it comes to the overall wellbeing of children, school counselors play an important role in facilitating the academic, career, and personal/social development of the children at their schools (Bowers & Hatch, 2012). At the same time though, we research parents’ attitudes and opinions on the potential effectiveness of school counseling programs in the elementary school as facilitators of programs to enhance parental effectiveness
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