How Parents Affect Child's Academic Performance: Parents' Unrealistic High Expectations Harm Children's School Grades, Study Says

Many parents have high expectations for their children's academic performance. However, a new study says that parents' high expectations that are unrealistic might actually harm their children's school grades and academic performance.

The American Psychological Association published the research, led by Kou Murayama of the University of Reading and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which involves an extensive study of more than 3,000 students from Bavaria, Germany over the course of five years. To reinforce the results, another study was made involving 12,000 students in the U.S. over the course of two years.

The research involved the study of each child's math achievement, parental aspiration or the grades their parents want them to have, and parental expectation or the grades that parents believe their child can actually achieve. The researchers found out that children's school grades worsen when the parental aspiration is greater than the parental expectation. On the other hand, high parental aspirations that do not exceed parent expectation are beneficial for children's academic performances.

"Our research revealed both positive and negative aspects of parents' aspiration for their children's academic performance. Although parental aspiration can help improve children's academic performance, excessive parental aspiration can be poisonous," said Kou Murayama.

Yahoo Parenting shared some of the common ways parents harm their child's academic performance. Setting the bar way too high, not being clear about expectations, projecting own aspirations to children and defining children's success through school grades only are all harmful to a child's school performance.

Setting realistic goals, having a clear and open communication with children, not forcing kids to do things they do not like, and having measurable but flexible expectations can help children grow and perform better. "Unrealistically high aspiration may hinder academic performance. Simply raising aspiration cannot be an effective solution to improve success in education," Murayama said.