A Parenting Skills Programme to Enhance School Readiness of Grade R Learners in South Africa: A Social Work Perspective

Parenting plays a determining role in the development of school readiness. Socio-economic adversity often has a detrimental effect on the quality of parenting, which in turn has a negative impact on the school readiness of children. Intervention research was done to develop and implement a parenting skills programme for parents of Grade R learners in two resource-poor communities in South Africa. The findings indicate that parents can improve in the important areas of parenting, namely, the quality of the parent–child relationship, parent–child interaction, and creating a home-learning environment that could enhance the school readiness of their Grade R children. Social workers are in the ideal position to implement such a parenting skills programme. It will be part of their preventive work to limit later psychosocial problems in clients linked to lack of schooling, behavioural problems and unemployment.