The lived experiences of parents in supporting their children in distance education

Abstract

The global pandemic brought by COVID-19 rapidly shifted the educational system into distance learning where face-to-face teaching in schools has been suspended, affecting all students across the globe. Students have been abruptly transitioned to distance learning where modules are provided to them by the school and are given time to complete the lessons. As such, parents are also greatly affected by this change and are faced with challenges in supporting their children in this new learning set-up, a deviation from the traditional face-to-face classroom instruction. This qualitative research utilized Collaizi’s descriptive method based on a phenomenological study to explore and understand the parent participants’ experiences through semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling was utilized and 12 parent-participants who have at least one student enrolled in basic education between Grade 3 and Grade 6 and are currently in distance education are asked to participate in the study. Results show that parents fully support their children financially for the latter’s internet access and other needs, they are more lenient with their children to keep their student's mental health intact and are supportive of whatever outcome. Moreover, parents seek support from their family members to help them balance work and parental duties and they believe in the effectiveness of strong parent-teacher collaboration to fully support their children's education in distance learning. The findings of this study may aid other researchers in continuing this research and developing a program to assist parents in managing their time and providing more support to their children.