Article Notice – How Did Parents Balance It All? Work-From-Home Parents’ Engagement in Academic and Support Roles During Remote Learning

An article that scrolled across my electronic desk over the past few days.

How Did Parents Balance It All? Work-From-Home Parents’ Engagement in Academic and Support Roles During Remote Learning

• September 2021

• Kiran Budhrani
• Florence Martin
• Oliver Malabanan
• Jose Lloyd D. Espiritu

Abstract – This study reports the transitional lived experiences of work-from-home parents, uncovering their roles and activities while balancing duties of working, parenting, and assisting children with remote learning. Using a phenomenological approach, a three-step coding process was applied to organize a macro-micro view of parent engagement emerging from ten semi-structured interviews with parents from the Philippines. Parents demonstrated a positive mindset amidst balancing five academic roles including organizing learning, facilitating learning, monitoring learning, motivating learning, nurturing learning, and a sixth role in supporting learning. The role of “supporting learning” was deemed most important and central to the success of other roles. Parents assumed a primary instructor role as teachers were less prepared and performed activities distinctive to student needs. Parents served as digital classroom managers who organized schedules, assisted with assignments/projects,and participated in online chat groups. Parents repurposed living spaces and furniture for makeshift study and work areas. Parents helped children develop an online learning mindset but faced challenges motivating children to focus and finding the right mix of screentime. Parents valued children’s well-being, bonding time, socialization, and life skills. This research is a novel contribution of work-from-home parent experiences and adds to the literature on remote/online education during COVID-19.