Parents Playing a More Active Role in Their Kids’ Lives, Report Says
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SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 11/6/2007 2:10:00 PM
For school librarians who wish parents would support—or more strongly support—their children's education, here's good news: newly released U.S. Census data reveal that parents are taking a more active role in the lives of their kids than they did 10 years ago.
The Census report, "A Child's Day: 2004," released on October 31, surveyed the families of 73,000 children and found that 68 percent of three- to five-year-olds had limits placed on their television time, up from 54 percent in 1994.
And it wasn't just the youngest kids who had stepped-up restrictions on TV. Seventy-one percent of children ages 6 to 11 were restricted, versus 60 percent 10 years earlier.
The report concentrates on children 18 and younger and offers 30 tables addressing issues such as children's living arrangements, family characteristics, time spent in child care, academic experience, and extracurricular activities.
Included is a finding close to a librarian's heart: Children one to two had been read to an average of 7.8 times in the week preceding the survey, while children three to five had been read to an average of 6.8 times. About half of all children ages one to five, meanwhile, had had someone read to them seven or more times a week just before the survey.
Parents exerted a positive influence on their children in other ways: 74 percent of children younger than six were praised by their mother or father three or more times a day. The same was true for 54 percent of children six to 11, and 40 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds.
Further, the percentage of children participating in music, dance, computers, religion, or other lessons rose, for six- to 11-year-olds, to 33 percent in 2004, up from 24 percent in 1994.
Among the "positive" declines in the survey was the percentage of children who changed schools. This figure dropped to 26 percent from 30 percent for six- to 11-year-olds, and to 42 percent from 52 percent for 12- to 17-year-olds.
