INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL COMMUNICATION ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IJEBU ODE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Academic Performance of students is of utmost importance to parents, educators, concerned Nigerians and the government. This, of course, is because of the huge impact education has on the national and economic development of the country. Education is an investment as well as an instrument that can be used to achieve rapid scientific, social, political, technological, cultural and economic development in the country. Regrettably, however, the consensus of opinion all over the country is that Academic Performance of students in Nigeria is poor. Achievement is a measure of quality and quantity of success one has in the mastery of knowledge, skills or understanding. Achievement could also involve accomplishing whatever task or goal one sets for himself or herself. It is the attainment of a standard of excellence (Abdulkareem & Olanike, 2021). The poor Academic Performance of students has been seen as being a result of many factors. Some researchers have attributed students’ poor achievement to parental factors. Family stress and financial problems are the major parental factors blamed by many researchers for the emotional development and poor Academic Performance of the students. According to Khalid, Qadir, Chan and Schwannauer (2018), students who had problems in school were often preoccupied with concerns outside the school setting. They further stressed that many lived in socially and economically disadvantaged home situations which significantly impede their emotional, social and economic growth and development. Poverty denies the students the opportunity of possessing such school materials as books that encourage high Academic Performance. The students’ lack of the necessary time to read effectively, good food that enhance good mental development, proper dressing to boost their ego like other students are due to family stress which could be aggravated by poverty (Abdulkareem & Olanike, 2021). At this point, one wonders whether there are some other particular parental factors that could influence these adolescents’ evaluation of themselves as well as their Academic achievement. Could the styles of communication adopted by the parents be blamed for the level of self-esteem of these adolescents who are more or less striving to identify with their environment. Academic performance is among the several components of academic success. Many factors, including socioeconomic status, students’ temperament and motivation, peer, and parental support influence academic achievement. This study aims to investigate the determinants of academic achievement with emphasis on the role of parents’ communication styles in adolescent students in Nigeria. This paper therefore highlights concepts of adolescents, concept of academic achievement, concepts of parents’ communication styles as well as counselling implications (Abdulkareem & Olanike, 2021). Education is the process of developing or training an individual to cope with the challenges of living. According to Pinquart (2016), the introduction of this system of education led to the type of education that is planned and provided for classroom situation by trained teachers. It is however the family that builds the personality traits, social competence as well as psychological, emotional, physical and educational development of children. One of the primary foundation that serves as the basis for this development is the type of parents’ communication style these parents adopts. Parents through their communication styles create a formidable basis towards the development and achievement of every aspect of the child's life. Low academic achievement tends to create many negative consequences for the children. Children with low academic performances may become more vulnerable to problems such as stress, hopelessness, delinquencies and substance abuse. The influence of parents’ communication styles is particularly in focus when assessing determinants of academic success in adolescent children. The influence may be of significance from infancy through adulthood and can be appreciated across a range of ethnicities (Weis, Trommsdorff& Muñoz, 2016; Checa & Abundis-Gutierrez, 2017, Zhang, Hu, Ren, Huo & Wang, 2019). Home-based involvement includes communication between parents and children about school, establishing a learning environment at home (e.g. making educational material like books and newspapers accessible), exposing children to educationally stimulating activities and experiences (e.g. museums, libraries, etc.), and monitoring and supporting homework (Schmid & Garrels, 2021). A parent is one who gives birth, nurtures or raises a child. Consequently, a parent is a man or woman who takes on all the parental responsibilities towards a child. This could also be a stepmother, an adoptive father, or a child’s relative. On the other hand parenting refers to raising children from infancy to adulthood, in an environment of nurturance (Virasiri, Yunibhand, Chaiwawat, 2011). Parenting is the rearing of children and in particular the care, guidance and love given by a parent to a child. Accordingly, parenting is the single largest variable implicated in children’s education, substance misuse, truancy, school disruption, under-achievement in class and juvenile crime. As a result, parents have an important role to play in the upbringing and modelling of their children’s behaviour as children stay at home with the parents much longer than at school and also due to the fact that children have more in-family interaction than schooling (Oranga, Matere & Nyakundi, 2023). The authoritative parenting style has been most frequently associated with better academic performance among adolescent students, while purely restrictive and negligent styles have shown to have a negative influence on academic performance (Zhang et al., 2019). Parenting styles have also been linked to academic performance indirectly through regulation of emotion, self-expression and self-esteem (Checa, Abundis-Gutierrez, Pérez-Dueñas & Fernández-Parra, 2019). Parental involvement in school has long been heralded as an important and positive variable on children’s academic and socioemotional development. From an ecological framework, reciprocal positive interactions between these two key socializing spheres – families and schools – contribute positively to a child’s socioemotional and cognitive development. Empirical findings have demonstrated a positive association between parental involvement in education and academic achievement (Tárraga et al., 2017), improving children’s self-esteem and their academic performance as well as school retention and attendance (Ross, 2016). Parental involvement helps build suitable school environments for children to thrive in and also helps cultivate good relations between teachers and parents. Consequently, the components and types of parental involvement in education include: volunteering at school, guiding home-based learning, constant communication with the school, participating in school decision-making processes, provision of learning resources, creation of safe home environments for children (environments that encourage learning at home) and modelling/encouraging good behavior (Oranga, Matere & Nyakundi, 2023). Parents are one of the most significant factors in the development of the children. This is due to the authority and skill they have to shape and develop their children into motivated, inspired and lenient people with their explicit involvement in the process of learning activities. Contrarily, parents without involvement in their children’s education process are merely considered to demotivate and demoralize their children through negligence (Naite, 2021). This, in turn, has a negative effect on their achievements. Parental involvement comprised parental attitudes, actions, style, events that happen inside or outside the school environment to support children's academic or behavioral success in their presently enrolled school Parents' active involvement in their children's education has a positive and noteworthy impact on children’s lives, including their development, behaviour, motivation and academic performance (Naite, 2021).