Natalie recognizes her limits in offering support. Her journal entries divulge that homework time in her home is stressful, "He loses patience. I lose patience. So I say–VERY stressful." As a single mother raising two young sons, she discloses that she did not like school and dropped out in grade 9. She says she regretted that decision, but looking back now she can justify it. She speaks at length about the difficulties her son is having with his schoolwork, while equating her situation with her son's. She recognizes that she had some learning difficulties, "I would go learn fractions during math class, and the next day I would go back and be like a blank." She attributes her problems in learning to a short attention span like that which the teachers believe her son is evidencing.

All of the parents interviewed value education and want to ensure that their children get a better education than they had. They realize how important it is to make their children complete their homework and the parents support them at home as best they can. As Natalie explains "Their education is very important because I don't have mine and I can see today you need that and if you don't have that – And grade 12 is nothing. Grade 12 today is like having grade 6."

Reading practices.
The women in the study also see a role to practise reading with their children. Discussion about their children practising reading brought out a great deal about the parents' beliefs in supporting their children's learning. When it comes to reading with her daughter, Jane generally feels more confident of her abilities than with the math. Jane talks about "reading the words, like reading the story and stuff and after like focus on like the picture for what's really happening and that." She says her daughter "don't get frustrated, but she'll come over and sound the word out or she'll say, 'Mom what's this?' And if she reads a sentence, I'll be watching her. And she's reading and she says the word wrong, I correct her. Like I usually will correct her." Jane proceeds to describe how she helps her children in the reading process by sometimes covering the pictures: