engleski

Child executive functions and school achievement: role of parents’ equal participation in childcare activities

Recently there has been some evidence that the equal sharing of childcare responsibilities among parents positively contributes to child cognitive development. Parent sharing of childcare responsibilities may serve as important mechanism for intergenerational transmission of disparities. In this research we wanted to explore whether the extent to which parents equally share different childcare activities predicts child executive functions and school achievement. Two different types of activities regarding childcare were examined. We differentiated school related responsibilities such as doing homework with child, and activities related to child leisure time such as playing with child. Research was conducted as part of CHILD-WELL study funded by Croatian Science Foundation. Overall, 900 pairs of mothers and fathers, as well as 771 teachers participated in this study. Mothers and father both reported on the extent of sharing different childcare activities. Mothers assessed child executive functions and teachers gave information about child school achievement. Two structural models with covariates were fitted in order to analyze the data. Overall, results showed that greater extent in which parents equally shared responsibilities regarding child leisure time activities positively contributed to child outcomes. These children had lower amount of executive function difficulties and higher school achievement. Although sharing responsibilities in both leisure time and school related activities were positively correlated, parents equal sharing of school related activities didn’t have unique contribution in prediction of child outcomes in this study. Results are in line with other research in this area, and some possible implications of results and theoretical contributions are discussed.

executive functions, school achievement, sharing of childcare responsibilities

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