Essay Sample on Effects of Parental Involvement on Children With Disabilities

During child development, the parents have a significant role in the growth and development of their children. It is their task to monitor every step in the process. It is not always an easy task, and a lot of involvement has to be included. Participation in the process tends to differ from family to family (Drewett, Corbett, & Wright, 1999). In some instances, the father is so much involved in the process of child upbringing. While in some cases, the mother does most of the work. The differences majorly affects the child's development while on the positive side, when the parents have a positive and enjoyable involvement in the tasks that need to be done for the child's development, the results are always good.

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The child will have an excellent parental foundation and, thus, will face a few challenges later in life or during the learning process. On the other hand, when the parents do not get good involvement, or when one parent is given the task to do all the child will be affected and will fail to get a good parental foundation. When it comes to children with disabilities, the case changes and becomes even more complicated (Drewett, Corbett, & Wright, 1999). Therefore, parental involvement positively affects child development.

Parents' involvement in the development of their Children

The specific topic of interest here is trying to analyze the base of the measurable effect on how much the parents are concerned with their children. The impact of involvement is major on children with learning disabilities. It has to go hand in hand with their growth and development. The support parents provide to their children during the development stage can be classified as formal or informal. Informal support is where the parent will request support from external sources. It will include support from people who are not family members or those who are not closely related to the family. Fathers tend to have this form of support, and it will depend on several factors. Informal support is where the parent uses close relatives such as grandparents and siblings, to provide a child. Support. They can also do the task themselves, and mothers are known to value this form of support. The support affects the child's growth in some way, and the final result can be obtained from the way the child developed or the way they are faring on their development.

The mother, in most cases, tends to spend most of the time with the children. The reason behind this can be due to several causes. The first instance being the fact that the father may be the sole breadwinner of the family and thus may always be out fending for the family while the mother remains at home taking care of household chores, which include child support. When the mothers are busy too, the next and most possible source of support they could seek is from the relatives and the child's elder siblings. Whereas when a father was involved, they would find relief from the informal sector. It includes paying someone who can provide the services. Studies show that fathers tend to think that paid support would offer better quality support compared to the other. Or they may be doing so to get the value of their money.

Parents' Support on Children

As stated before, the levels of parents' involvement can be direct in child support or indirect. The direct ones are where they carry out tasks by themselves. They involve doing all the possible tasks they need to do to get their child on the right track, as well as accomplishing all the daily functions involving child support. The indirect one is where they seek assistance from external sources such as house helps. Also, it involves internal sources, which are close and extended family members.

Parents have the task of helping their needy children overcome these disabilities. In so doing, they will learn much better and much faster. They can do this by assisting them in finding the best schools for their special needs and taking them to libraries and contests where they can be challenged to learn better. The assistance will enhance their learning ability, thus getting rid of the problem they have at hand.

Parents also have the task of helping their children to realize their talents. One may be poor in academics or have a challenge in that field but may be talented in other places such as sport. The child could be a good soccer player or a good artist. When parents take this as a task to put their child under different circumstances, they can realize the child's gift and thus will groom them towards it. Life is not all about education, and since the parents are only interested in the child's success, they can help them achieve this.

Children with disabilities will require close attention. They would need someone to check on them and to check on their progress constantly. Unlike normal children without disabilities, their growth rate tends to be slow. The major disadvantage is that they tend to mature slower hat the other group; this thus makes it hard for them, and they take time to achieve the desired growth. Since mothers tend to be more caring and are more likely to spend the first few months with their children compared to their fathers, then the rate and time spent by mothers with the child are more.

The parents' involvement is most crucial in a child's development throughout all their young age. The level of participation, however, declines as the child grows. The needs of the child also matter in a scenario such as this where the child requires special needs or where there is a disability, the parent has to put more effort and involvement. Parental involvement is essential as it helps the child to get the closeness with the parent; it gives them the emotional contact and thus, security. When there is no better support from elsewhere, the parents are majorly responsible for the development of their children.

The limit of parental involvement is not defined, but as stated, the rate of involvement declines as time goes. As the child grows, they tend to explore the world, they meet new friends, relatives and other forms of informal support thus, and they will move away from their parents and become more independent (Nelson, Padilla-Walker, & Nielson, 2015). Therefore, the parents become less involved but will only be monitoring from a distance. It does not mean the limit has been reached since they have to always be there for their children till they come of age. Parental involvement is mandatory in the development of the children. If parents fail to provide the required measures, the child will lack a lot in return. The act will have tremendous effects on later life.

Types of learning disabilities

Children with learning disabilities are those with the problems of neurological-based processing disorder. They include issues that make the child fail to grasp essential learning quickly. They become slow learners, and thus, their reading, writing, or arithmetic solving becomes slowed and impaired. These types of problems include dyscalculia, which affects their ability to grasp basic math and numbers (Wu, Morgan, & Farkas, 2014). They have poor comprehension of the symbols used in math. Dysgraphia, on the other hand, is a disability in children that fail to get the necessary skill in handwriting. They may have inconsistent writing and poor spacing and spelling problems. These are minor disabilities; there are other minor ones that studies are still trying to analyze them thoroughly. The visual-motor deficit is a disorder that affects a child's learning; it is a scenario where one ha a difficulty in understanding what they are seeing. The ability to draw, as well as a copy, is impaired. They cannot transfer the direct information from one part to the other. Thus, they will have to take more time and concentration to get the right information which consequently affects the learning process.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is one of them. The child fails to concentrate, and they shift their focus from one point of concern to another. The disorder make the children fail to focus on essential things that are required of them (Wu, Morgan, & Farkas, 2014). Thus, it does not become a significant challenge but becomes a small hinderance.in their development. This draws more attention from their parents, who would have left them to grow with the rest.

The limit in which parent's involvement is reached is when they have tried their best, and they do not achieve the desired positive result. It forces them to seek assistance from external support. The assistance is common when the child needs constant close supervision, and the parent has to go out to do other chores (Rispoli, Hawley, & Clinton, 2018). Parents face this problem, especially when they have full-time jobs or are working fully at day time. The commitment makes them want to have to seek support to help them take care of the child in their absence. The extent of the support cannot be measured, but the limit can be seen when the parent understands the need to. If the paternity or maternity leave is over, yet they seem not satisfied with the status of their child, the limit is said to be reached. It may also occur when the parent sees that their attention to the child bears not or limited fruits. Thus, they have to seek assistance from specialists.

Total involvement is by far better than no involvement at all. Irrespective of the child's status, whether they have disabilities or not, they need constant support from their parents. The level of support becomes more intense when they have disabilities and may even go to the extent of seeking assistance (Sharabi & Marom-Golan, 2018). This does not mean that the parent will have to leave all the involvement. It means that they will reduce their attention and multitask but must come back later and proceed from where they left.

Positive Impact of parent involvement

The learning of kids differ; some are fast learners some slow, others are explorers while others are observant (Sharabi, & Marom-Golan, 2018). Kids find the fast world and would like to explore and learn a lot of things, and they are interested and ready to take in new information. Studies show that kids tend to learn a lot faster when they are with a group of their age. It gives them a form of challenge that makes them compete for information, also a sense of belonging is brought about. They also have to be in a safe place with people they trust. A kid who had older siblings all the time tends to learn fastest. Children learn by copying and emulating others. Those that stay with older siblings learn a lot faster as they copy and emulate them. Kids also tend to be ready to respond to their problems better than parents or guardians (Rispoli, Hawley, & Clinton, 2018). During child play, they tend to understand what they have been having in the mind to ask. Thus, this makes it easier for children to learn.

A parent can seek assistance from various places. They may seek assistance from professional support. These are institutions such as child daycare where children with similar problems can be brought together for special care by specialists in children (Wilhelmsen, & Sorensen, 2019). The use of daycare institutions happen when the parents go to work or when they are busy. These institutions offer specialized education for children where they enhance and speed up their learning ability. The issue is very advantageous to parents. They get time to work as well as help their needy children get the required educational background. Parents could also seek help from relatives in their absence.