School engagement has been shown to protect students from dropping out of education, depression and school burnout. The aim of this Finnish study was to explore the association between child-parent relationships and how much 99,686 children aged 9-11 years liked school. The data were based on the 2019 School Health Promotion Study, conducted by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. This asked children whether they liked school or not and about their child-parent relationships. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine the data separately for boys and girls and the results are presented as odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). According to the results, girls showed more school engagement than boys (81.9% versus 74.0%), and it was more common in children who felt that their parents communicated with them in a supportive way. This association was slightly stronger for girls than boys (OR 2.46 95% CI 2.33-2.59 versus OR 2.10 95% CI 2.02-2.20). It is important that child-parent relationships and communication are considered during school health examinations, so that children who have lower support at home can be identified.
Keywords: children; parent-child relations; school engagement; students.