Saudi Parents' Perceptions of the Kind of Help they Offer to their Primary School Kids

Parents in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia usually help their kids in early school years especially in English language. This help varies according to the parents' level of education, the degree of difficulty of the curriculum and the type of school their kids join. Sometimes they give the right kind of help that matches the teachers' strategies and objectives and most of the time their help is in the wrong direction. This study aims at investigating the Saudi parents’ perceptions of the kind of help they offer to their primary school kids in order to decide which help is constructive and which is misleading. To this end, the researcher designed a 29-item questionnaire divided into three categories under three subtitles and distributed it to one hundred parents. The results of the study showed that the majority of parents agreed that a healthy constructive parents-teachers relationship is very important for a successful kid at school. It also showed that the parents' help whether direct through helping the kid in homework, assignments or projects or indirect through saving a motivating environment or involving him in cocurricular activities is vital for a fruitful academic life for kids. The study recommended that certain kinds of help such as direct translation to L1or the exaggerated help that sometimes reaches to doing assignments on behalf of kids should be avoinded.