Barcelona Mum

Partying Parents, brighter kids - The Times 15th March 2008

Parents about to embark on a weekend of partying with their friends need no longer feel guilty that their children are missing out. Research has found that regardless of class, wealth or status, the children of parents with healthy social lives outperform other children at school. Experts have always known that children with good social skills do better academically than those who lack them. But this study set out to establish whether the same was true if their parents were outgoing. Academics examined the social lives of 3,000 parents, finding out whether or not they were in sports clubs, voluntary or church groups, residents’ associations or other groups. They also looked at how often the parents attended social gatherings and, crucially, how many friends they had. This data was then compared with the scores on standard literacy, numeracy and verbal tests on their children at the age of 5. The results show that children of sociable parents were between one and four percentage points ahead of classmates whose parents led more solitary lives.

The research, conducted by Professor Sarah Brown and Karl Taylor, of the University of Sheffield, will be presented next week at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference. Dr Taylor said that the findings were interesting because they took into account the parents’ educational backgrounds and class, known to be crucial to determining educational achievement. Regardless of background, social activity appeared to be important.

“It could be that the social activities mean there is a network for discussing child development that benefits the children, or that it helps instil values such as a good work ethic,” Dr Taylor said. “It’s also possible that the children of parents who socialise a lot are more sociable themselves. We know that children having good social skills has a positive effect on educational outcomes. We have tested the children at age 5, but it is likely that the early measures are indicative of achieving higher educational grades later in life.”

Other academics suggest that there are more factors at work. Bethan Marshall, senior lecturer in education at King’s College London, said that previous research had found that how parents speak to their offspring has a dramatic impact on how the children perform at school.

Although that research compared children of different social backgrounds rather than controlling for it, it found that cheerful, upbeat parents talked to their children more, and in a more affirmative way, which appeared to help them do well at school.

“This research is slightly different, but I think it could be the case that more sociable parents simply talk more, are talking to their children more and talking in a positive way,” she said. “When you think of something like vocabulary, if you are talking more positively, asking questions and so on you use more words than if you are simply saying ‘be quiet’. That improves a child’s vocabulary.”

She said that the social networks built up by parents were also invaluable for families. “If you know a lot of people, you are usually able to track down that key person to help you with a problem,” Dr Marshall said.

The researchers were even able to identify which sort of social activity was most beneficial. Children whose parents belonged to sports clubs scored higher in reading, maths and vocabulary, while those whose parents did voluntary work scored better in maths and reading only. Children whose parents were involved in school committees scored higher in reading and vocabulary