Lynne indicated that she had purchased 42 movies for her daughter, plus has a similar collection of movies for herself. Jane has over 100 videotapes displayed neatly on three bookcases. The families also rent popular movies and new releases sometimes repeatedly. The Titanic, a movie that was all the rage at the time, was seen ten times by Lynne's daughter and Andrea explained that her father was "supposed to buy it [for her family] hopefully soon! I have rented it 4 or 5 times!" Jane has already purchased her own copy. Although Natalie allows her children to watch television unsupervised after school and in the evenings with no restrictions, she is not happy with that arrangement and says:

He's gettin' too much into TV. I don't like that. They have cable in the oldest one's room. And cable in the living room. So when they get home, it's usually programs they wanna watch. And then it's supper time and they don't want to tear themselves away from the TV…Then it's like, "oh my, they didn't do homework."

Summary.

The parents in this study have personal resources to support learning, but there are a number of barriers that limit their ability to support literacy skills in their children and establish good health routines. Although they are well-versed with practical skills, they may unintentionally overlook opportunities to facilitate natural learning or to help their children develop specialized skills in an area of interest through enrichment. Overall, the parents have a low level of literacy achievement; some are in the process of upgrading or taking courses, with the primary motivating factor being a desire to be better able to help their children with their schoolwork.

A difficult past has left many of the parents with emotional issues to address. Their restricted financial situation and no reliable transportation prevents them from buying groceries on sale and leads them to often purchase lower cost food that keeps longer, while sacrificing good nutrition. Their entertainment activities are also limited due their financial situation. All of the families have extensive collections of movies, electronic games and television sets. Their ready availability has the potential to impact on not only homework time, but also other more active and healthier types of leisure pursuits that support learning.