A Broadened View of Barriers to Parent Involvement in Early Childhood Interventions

Parent involvement is an essential ingredient of early childhood interventions, particularly for low-income children who can lack many of the school readiness skills that their more advantaged peers bring to formal schooling. Despite the availability of strategies to boost parent engagement, participation and follow-through with program recommendations are often low and erratic. Barriers to parent involvement occur at multiple levels: child (e.g., behavioral problems), parent (e.g., beliefs and values, emotional health), parent-teacher (e.g., different goals), societal (e.g., cultural differences), and structural (e.g. transportation, child care for older children). We extend these existing conceptualizations of barriers by also considering cognitive decision-making barriers. The context in which parents make decisions to engage in early childhood interventions may be highly influenced by the cognitive resources—such as attention and self-control—available to them. Scarcity of these cognitive resources is particularly salient for low-income parents, who are busy juggling economic resources to meet their day-to-day needs, and thus have less attention and energy to engage in parenting.

We examined both conventional ideas of barriers and cognitive barriers using a mixed-methods design. We collected quantitative data from parent (n = 131) and teacher (n = 23) surveys, as well as qualitative data from focus groups with parents (n = 42). All participants were enrolled in an innovative play-based curriculum, Getting Ready for School (GRS), currently being piloted in 13 ethnically diverse Head Start classrooms in New York City. GRS supports children’s math, literacy, and self-regulation skills through parallel activities at school and home. Because GRS incorporates learning activities at home, parent engagement is essential to program success. Analyses showed that, although most parents were aware of the GRS program and wanted to participate, less than 50% attended GRS orientations and only 29% engaged in GRS activities as assigned. This was a result both of conventional barriers (e.g., poor parent-teacher communication, lack of child interest, timing of workshops), as well as cognitive barriers: parents had difficulty carving out the time needed to engage in GRS activities, were confused about the rewards of program participation, and did not understand the relationship between classroom and home-based activities. However, teachers and parents respected and trusted each other, presenting potential ways to scaffold communication and delivery to enhance parent involvement in GRS activities.

Findings are discussed with respect to identifying barriers and enhancing the design of early childhood interventions in ways that maximize parent involvement.