Children’s educational outcomes and overall well-being are significantly influenced by the complex and multifaceted issue of how parental mental illness influences children’s education. This subject has considerable consequences on the academic results of children. According to the article by Maybery et al. “Prevalence of parental mental health in Australian family” published in Psychiatric Bulletin (2009), the article by Farahati et al. “The effect of parents’ psychiatric disorders on children’s high school dropout” published in Economics of Education Review (2003) and the article by Ola et al. “Depressive symptoms among children whose parents have serious mental illness: association with children’s threat-related beliefs about mental illness” published in the South African Journal of Psychiatry (2015), research has consistently demonstrated that mental illness among parents can have a negative impact on their children’s academic performance.
The presence and severity of parental mental illness may reduce the likelihood of parents attaining an education, which in turn may bias results toward zero when adjusting for education as an intervening variable, such as defined by Ranning et al., 2017) in “Academic Performance”. of primary education in adolescent offspring of parents with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – a national register-based study” published in Psychological Medicine (2017). This study was conducted in the United States.
Furthermore, according to the definition provided by Fakhrunnisak and Patria in their article titled “The positive effects of parental education level on children’s mental health in Indonesia: result of a longitudinal survey” published on BMC Public Health (2022) , Parental education level has been linked to children’s mental health, with higher parental education level having positive effects on children’s mental health.
The research conducted by Man et al., published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2021) under the title “The influence of discrepancies between parents’ educational aspirations and children’s educational expectations on children’s depressive symptoms left-behind children in rural China: the mediating role of self-efficacy”, reported that gaps between parents’ educational aspirations and children’s educational expectations impact children’s mental health, especially in families with left-behind children.
As explained by Bee et al. in their article entitled “Defining quality of life in children of parents with severe mental illness: a preliminary stakeholder-driven model” published on Plos One (2013). This highlights the urgent need to improve the lives of these children.
Additionally, according to Pierce’s article “Prevention of Childhood Adversities and Children’s Common Mental Disorders and School Grades” published on Jama Network Open (2023), it was found that children raised in an environment where their parents suffer from mental disorders Mental Children with the condition have significantly lower academic achievement and higher rates of anxiety or depression than children who are not exposed to these adversities.
However, the influence of parental mental health on children’s educational attainment is a complex and varied phenomenon. Other factors, such as family living conditions and the transmission of mental illnesses from one generation to the next, moderate the impact of parental mental health on children’s educational attainment. These results are defined in different publications such as Evans & Field in “Predictors of mathematical attainment trajectories across the Primary-to-Seconary Education Transition: Parent Factors and the Home Environment” published on Royal Society Open Science (2020), Xu & Luo in “The Effect of Adult Children’s Educational Attainment on Their Parents’ Cognitive Health: An Intergenerational Support Perspective” on Frontiers in Public Health (2022); or Shen & Hannum in “Relevant Risk:
Not only that, but according to the description by Naughton et al. in their article titled “A Child’s Perspective on the Bidirectional Impacts of Mental Illness in Families,” “it’s like a cold, it passes from one of us to the other.” According to a study published in Clinical Nursing Studies (2018), the impact of mental illness on families extends beyond the immediate contact between parent and child. The study also found that the effects of mental illness on families can be detected in both directions.
In conclusion, it is of the utmost importance that policy makers, educators and professionals working in the field of mental health take into consideration the complex relationship that exists between parents’ mental illness and the educational pathways followed by their children. to design effective interventions and support systems for families affected by this problem.
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed above are those of the author.
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