Educational functioning of children of parents with chronic physical illness: A systematic review

Abstract

A systematic review of the literature was performed to answer the question: What are the effects of parental chronic physical illness on children’s educational functioning? Thirteen studies that met the inclusion criteria for the purpose of this review were identified, indicating the paucity of research on the topic. The results found that children and adolescents of chronically ill parents missed more school days than their peers of healthy parents and were at a higher risk for lower academic performance. Parent’s physical impairments due to chronic illness and demands of parental illness impinging on parenting and social and financial resources in the family may indirectly affect children’s educational functioning. Implications for school psychology practice and research are provided.

Parental and child adjustment to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: transformations, struggles and needs

“…Parental empowerment will ultimately have a beneficial impact on children’s psychosocial functioning, because when parents are less distressed so are their children [ 22 , 25 , 30 ]. Considering that children of parents with ALS are already vulnerable in multiple respects [ 5 , 8 ] and that disrupted or compromised parenting due to a parent’s ALS and associated care needs may aggravate the vulnerability of children at present and in later life [ 36 ], it is crucial to support parents with ALS and their co-parents in their parenting role.…”

Parental Illness and Young People’s Education

“…The few published studies on this topic yielded mixed results and are considered inconclusive (see Chen 2016Chen , 2017. For instance, a study using Taiwanese data (Chen 2014) indicated that parental illness had no adverse effect on children's learning and academic performance.…”