How Does Family Life Affect Grades in High School Students?

Daily Routines

• Families with two working parents or a working single parent and several children in school can require some impressive morning juggling of schedules. Getting everyone ready and out the door smoothly can set the tone for the entire day. Lost shoes, lost socks, missing homework or missed breakfast have the potential to give a bad start to your teen's school day. A grumpy morning might mean loss of attention to early morning classes, which could lead to lower grades for your student.

Major Life Events

• Major life events, such as divorce, death, job changes or moving, will certainly effect your teen emotionally. Divorce can leave him wondering if he's next or if it is his fault, grieving over a family member takes a mental toll, parental job changes can affect the amount of spending money available for extracurricular activities or even for basic school supplies, and moving means adjusting to a new school and making new friends. It can also mean going from a comfortable curriculum to one for which your student is not prepared. Some teens can take these things in stride, but for others it will have a direct impact on grades.

Family Economic Strata

• If you, as a parent, take academic progress seriously, your teen is more likely to take it seriously. A study by Cecilia Elena Rouse for Future of Children indicates that when it comes to education, successful parents tend to have successful children. Children of successful parents seem to be less likely to drop out of school and are more likely to make good grades in school. This is partly because successful parents know how to provide routines and emotional support that will enable their children to succeed in school. Successful parents also have funds available for those little extras, such as added school supplies, that can mean a lot to academic success.

Family Health Habits

• Families that practice a healthy lifestyle are more likely to have successful teens. Families with a steady routine that includes healthy meals and time for homework and does not overload teens with responsibilities promote better educational progress. Bad habits, such as drinking to excess and drug use, will directly affect teenage children, as well as others in the household. Rouse's study found that home health habits affect natural and adopted children equally, showing that nurture has a strong influence on student grades.

Parental Support

• Regardless of economic strata or social status, one of the most important factors in educational success for teens is family involvement. Karen Bogenschneider of the University of Wisconsin advises that consistent parent involvement is key to student success. Parent involvement can range from simply making a consistent time for your teen to do school work and providing needed materials to attending school functions. Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, author of "Better Together: Restoring the American Community" stated that if given the choice between between a 10 percent increase in school budgets and a 10 percent increase in parental involvement, he would choose parental involvement.