Numerous studies show a positive effect of parental involvement in their children’s learning achievements, regardless of their level of education (Horvat, Zupancic, & Vidmar, 2010; Trusty, 1999). However, such a direct effect of behavioural involvement is proven only by studies that include young children (Hill, Castellino, Lansford, Nowlin, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 2004). With older children and adolescents many indirect factors play an important role, for example factors related to the parental involvement in the child's education as well as the child’s learning achievements. Studies reveal the following important indirect factors: parents’ beliefs about the upbringing, about the importance of education and the child’s development (El Nokali, Bachman, & Votruba-Drzal, 2010), the child’s behavioural problems (El Nokali etc., 2010; Hill etc., 2004), the child's involvement in extracurricular activities (Lagacé-Seguin & Case, 2010), the child's perception of his own competence and understanding the factors that affect his achievements (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994), authoritative parenting styles (Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992) and other.

With the child’s age, the manners of parental involvement change, with older children and adolescents the proportion of behavioural involvement reduces. This means that parents have less contact with teachers, the parents of peers, the child's classmates, other employees at school, and are less involved in activities organized by the school (Cugmas, Kepe-Globevnik, Pogorevc Merčnik, & Štamberger, 2010). However, the share of personal involvement increases, which means that the parents talk more with the child or adolescent about school and communicate in different ways that they are interested in his education (Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994). Changes in manners of parental involvement in the child's education regarding the child's age are mainly due to the child’s or adolescent’s growing need for autonomy (Allen, McElhaney, Land, Kuperminc, Moore, O'Beirne-Kelly, & Kilmer, 2003) and the inability of parents to actually help a child because the complexity of schooling increases with the child's age (Hill etc., 2004, Kikas, Peets, & Niilo, 2011).

The problem of the study was to examine the relationship between the parental involvement in the studies of students from the first to the fourth year of various Slovenian faculties and the relations of these students with their parents. Relations with parents included open communication between students and their parents, the trust between them and the alienation of students from their parents. These relations reflect the quality of attachment to parents, which may be secure or anxious. We are talking about secure attachment when the communication is open, there is trust and there is no alienation from parents.

It was assumed that the more the participants’ relations with parents are good, the greater is the parental involvement in their education. In other words, the better the communication between students and their parents, the higher the trust between them and the more they are emotionally close, the better the parental involvement in their child's studies. We have considered the positive and negative aspects of parental involvement in their child's studies.

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