One of the central principles of raising kids in America is that parents should be actively involved in their children’s education: meeting with teachers, volunteering atschoolhelping with homework, and doing a hundred other things that few workingparents have time for. These obligations are so baked into American values that fewparents stop to ask whether they’re worth the effort. 　　 Until this January, few researchers did, either. In the largest-ever study of howparental involvement affects academic achievement, Keith Robinson and Angel L.Harris, two sociology professors at Duke, found that mostly it doesn’t. The researcherscombed through nearly three decades’ worth of surveys of American parents and tracked63 different measures of parental participation in kids’ academic lives, from helpingthem with homework, to talking with them about college plans. In an attempt to show whether the kids of more-involved parents improved over time, the researchers indexedthese measures to children’s academic performance, including test scores in reading and math. 　　What they found surprised them. Most measurable forms of parental involvement seem to yield few academic dividends for kids, or even to backfire(适得其反) -regardless of a parent’s race, class, or level of education. 　　Do you review your daughter’s homework every night Robinson and Harris’s data show that this won’t help her score higher on standardized tests. Once kids enter middle school, parental help with homework can actually bring test scores down, an effect Robinson says could be caused by the fact that many parents may have forgotten, or never truly understood, the material their children learn in school. 　　While Robinson and Harris largely disproved that assumption, they did find ahandful of habits that make a difference, such as reading aloud to young kids (fewerthan half of whom are read to daily) and talking with agers about college plans. Butthese interventions don’t take place at school or in the presence of teachers, wherepolicymakers have the most influence - they take place at home. Comment 1: 　　Basically the choice is whether one wants to let kids to be kids. Persistent parentalinvolvement and constantly communicating to the kids on what the parents wantconsciously or unconsciously would help the kids grow up or think like the parentssooner than otherwise. 　　Comment 2: 　　It also depends on the kid. Emotional and social maturityhave a lot to do withsuccess in college and in life. Some kids may have the brains and are bored by highschool, but that doesn’t mean they are ready for college or the work place. 　　Comment 3: 　　The article doesn’t clearly define "helping," but I understood it as actually assistingchildren in the exercises (e.g. helping them to solve a math problem) and/or reviewingtheir work for accuracy rather than simply sure they’ve completed their work. Ithink the latter is more helpful than the former. I would also certainly hope that no studywould discourage parents from monitoring their children’s performance! Comment1 suggests that