Helping with schoolwork: when do parents feel capable of doing this?

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many parents suddenly had to support their children with schoolwork on a daily basis. This was not always easy. How do you effectively provide instruction and keep your child focused? Researchers of the Institute of Child Development and Education from the University of Amsterdam studied the relationship between parents' sense of self-efficacy in their teaching skills and parent-child conflicts during home schooling. They found that having an organised household and help from school contributed to parents' higher sense of self-efficacy and thereby less conflict with their children. Parents' socio-economic status had little influence on their self-efficacy in teaching. 'During the lockdown, parents were actually similar to novice teachers,' says educationalist and assistant professor Marjolein Zee. 'Like a teacher who is just starting out, parents had to learn to deal with stress and conflicting roles: being a supportive parent versus having to be strict when their child lacks motivation. This can obviously have a significant effect on parents' self-efficacy. A great deal of research has been done on the topic of how novice teachers deal with these challenges. Because of the coronavirus lockdown, we were curious to know what the experience was like for parents who suddenly had to teach their children at home.' 'Little research has been done in this area,' adds Peter de Jong, professor of Orthopedagogics (Educational Psychology). 'In our study, we found a strong correlation between parents' self-efficacy - that is, the feeling that they can effectively support their children with homework - and the amount of conflict they had with their children.' Looking at the parents, the home situation and the school situation