Throughout my life I have been very lucky; I have a mom who loved and supported me. She was there to drop me off at school, she made sure I had a ride home, she drove me around to countless cross country practice, and she always checked to see if my homework was done. While at the time I might not have realized it, but my mom was instilling in me the importance of school and my education. When my mom helped me through long division and my time tables, she was showing me more than how do divide large numbers, she showed me that be taking time out of her day for me to learn, that education is very important to have and that it is a worthy investment. Since being in college I have gotten the opportunity to meet a lot of people. All of them have their own story. While some people might have had similar upbringings, others had quite different ones. As I continue to meet new people throughout my college career, I always wonder how there upbringing is and how it translates to their school schooling. As I wonder this I cannot help but to ask the question: How does parental involvement affect a child's educational career? .
One thing I was always curious about is simply why parents help their kids. While it seems like a very simple question, I think it is a very important one. As Kathleen Hoover-Dempsey et al wrote in a 2001 article in Educational Psychology: "parents decide to become involved in students' homework because they believe they should be involved, believe their involvement will make a difference, and perceive that their involvement is wanted and expected"" (206). I think my mom would agree to this statement and her reasoning for helping me would include a majority of the list. Because parents feel that being involved in education is important for their child, parents often attend school functions in which they are invited. A survey by Unn-Doris Karlsen Bck reported that: 77 percent report that they attend every parent "teacher conference.