Parental involvement plays an important role in shaping students’ academic achievement, emotional well-being, and spiritual development, especially within faith-based educational contexts. This study explored how Catholic senior high school students experience and perceive parental involvement in relation to their academic and spiritual resilience. Using a qualitative descriptive approach within an interpretive paradigm, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with six Grade 12 students from two Catholic educational institutions in Manila, Philippines. Thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke’s framework was used to analyze the narratives. Findings revealed that students experience parental involvement as a multidimensional process characterized by academic guidance and parental sacrifice, emotional reassurance, shared faith practices, and sustained communication. These forms of support strengthened students’ capacity to cope with academic pressure and personal challenges by providing motivation, emotional stability, and spiritual meaningmaking. However, several factors were identified as hindrances to effective parental involvement, including parental time constraints, communication gaps, physical distance due to work or migration, generational differences, and emotional pressure associated with parental expectations. Based on these findings, guidance service interventions are proposed to strengthen family engagement through parent formation programs, communication workshops, family-oriented activities, and counseling initiatives. The study shows that parental involvement in Catholic school contexts supports not only students’ academic perseverance but also their spiritual resilience, thus offering a more holistic understanding of how family engagement can be strengthened through school-based guidance and pastoral programs. The study highlights the importance of strengthening school-family partnerships in fostering academic perseverance and spiritual resilience among students.

Keywords: parental involvement, academic resilience, spiritual resilience, Catholic education, family-school partnership, student coping, qualitative research