What is the role played by Home or the family in providing Education to the child?

The home is a primary agency of education. It is an informal but active agency. Family is also called an original social institution which gave birth to other organizations.

Every individual is born in a family and socialization takes place there at first. It is an important institution for child-rearing.

The child is introduced to the culture of the society in the family itself and fulfils his needs Physical, emotional, psychological and social. He gets his fundamental education through interaction with others in the family. There is an atmosphere of congenial love, affection, sympathy and understanding in the family and this promotes mutual interaction and informal education.

Happy family is the ideal place for the growth of the child’s personality. The child lives there most of the time and imitates as well as emulates most of the qualities of his family members. The harmonious relations in the family — between the parents, among the brothers and sisters, among children and parents create a “rapport” for the development of all round personality. This atmosphere also helps the child for learning and developing health habits.

In the older days the family was the centre of professional education. Parents and brothers were helping the child to learn the basic knowledge and skills required for adopting the traditional vocations. It was the centre of moral education.

Children were learning the ethical principles like truth, nonviolence, good conduct and so on in action or in reality from their superiors. The family was also imparting religious education to the child and organizing different ceremonies which were sources of education.

Now the family has disintegrated and the system of joint family-life has broken down. Due to technological advancement, families are no longer the centres of professional education. The functions of religious or moral education are not properly done by the family. The external environment and mass media are having their powerful impact on children now-a-days. Urbanization has its bad effects on the behaviour of individuals.

In face of all these limitations and difficulties, the role of the family cannot be underestimated. In the small families children are born and brought up and must be influenced by the other members of the family. The spirit of love and affection, sympathy and understanding in the family facilitates educational or learning process or the child. The family must provide the basic tools or elementary knowledge for education.

The good qualities of heart, head and hand are better imbibed through interaction in the family than in anywhere else. Group living begins and flourishes in the family and the child learns different skills of group living for his future life.

Congenial relations and sympathetic understanding among the members of the family are conducive to the development of personality and growth of education Parental attention to the care of children and happy as well as harmonious relations between the parents and children would make the family “a sweet home” which is essential for well- being of the children as well as for good of the society.