16.3: Working with Families

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Identify effective strategies for building positive, collaborative relationships with families to support children's development and learning in early childhood settings.
• Understand the role of communication and cultural sensitivity in fostering strong partnerships with families from diverse backgrounds.

While most early childhood professionals choose to go into this field because they want to work with children, it is important to understand that those children come with families. Those families are the child’s first teachers and play a crucial role throughout that child’s life. In the early years, there will be much interaction between the child’s home and school environments and the important people in each.

In the chapter on Theories, you may have noticed that the majority of the theories presented focused on the individual child and their development from “within”. Constructing knowledge; meeting basic needs; and developing a sense of trust. These are all very important. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological model took a different approach and looks at developmental influences outside of the child, and how they impact who the child becomes. One very important system is the child’s family. Children develop within the context of their families and the community that supports those families. As early childhood professionals, we build meaningful partnerships with the families of the children in our programs to ensure that their families are respected and valued in our program (Stephens et.al, 2021).

Connecting with Families by Building Relationships: Valuing who families are and what they bring

You might ask the question “Why should I connect with families? What’s in it for me?” There are many benefits of positive, healthy connections with families. These include (but are not limited to) increased parent satisfaction with the early learning school services, increased positive behaviors of the children, improved child health, academic and social skills. Positive relationships with families will free your time to focus more on teaching children. Because you have more contact that is positive with parents you will learn more about the child’s needs and their home environment. You can use this information to enhance strategies to better meet the child’s needs. Finally, when parents are involved and have a positive relationship with you as the child’s teacher, they will tend to see you in a more positive way, and this improves your own morale, and motivation to be the best teacher for this child.

Families come to us in our programs with abundant knowledge that should be valued. Luis Moll refers to this as “funds of knowledge” (Moll, 2005.) The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge.

Each family brings something different to the classroom, and understanding that families contribute in different ways helps us to be respectful and responsive in our work with families. Not all families want to attend parent/teacher conferences, and not all families are able to engage in nightly learning activities with children. Having early childhood professionals who understand this allows families to contribute in a way that values the knowledge they bring.

Parent knowledge may look like a parent sharing knowledge and insight about their child with the teacher. It might look like a parent using their skills at home to support the child and family. It might also be a parent who builds strong attitudes in their child about school and learning. It might be a parent who wants to share how to weave, or paint, or plant a vegetable garden. We need to respect and value this unique knowledge parents bring in order to holistically know and understand the child and build a reciprocal partnership with the family (Neimer & Kirchofer, 2024).

Children bring with them the funds of knowledge from their homes and communities that can be used for concept and skill development. There are 10 categories of funds of knowledge (Gonzalez, 2005) that teachers should consider in developing classroom practices. With this information, teachers would be less likely to underestimate or constrain what children are learning. Using the funds of knowledge, teachers can focus on supporting students to find meaning connected to their home lives and background which can be represented in the activities and materials provided in the classroom.

The 10 Categories of Funds of Knowledge

1. Home Language
2. Family Values and Traditions
3. Caregiving
4. Friends and Family
5. Family Outings
6. Household Chores
7. Educational Activities
8. Favorite TV Shows
9. Family Occupations
10. Scientific Knowledge

(Gonzalez, 2005)

We know from reading this section that early education professionals have strengths and expectations, and families have strengths and expectations. What if they do not match? It is essential that we work to build bridges to work cooperatively so that children are safe and healthy and can learn optimally. Working together with the family lends to the goal of creating a safe, rich, and supportive environment for learning.

Strengths-based relationships

Think about the following three strategies to build and strengthen your connection for optimal strengths-based relationships:

1. Your partnership should be based on reciprocity. Each of us, school, family, and community, have overlapping responsibilities for the child’s learning. Each person involved in the partnership needs the help of the others to build a reciprocal relationship that is supported by both formal and informal attitudes and actions. All parties working together with overlapping responsibilities make it more likely that the child will thrive.
2. Effective partnerships are developed within a democratic process. We must recognize the diversity within our classroom (different races, cultures, interests, and abilities) of participants, and we need to prepare ourselves to resolve conflicts using a respectful and positive approach that includes open conversation and compromise, and sometimes benefits from mediation and negotiation to reach shared goals.
3. Opportunities for partnership should be plentiful and varied. A mix of possibilities might include options such:
   • Having parents come to school to share interests.
   • Inviting parents to come to see what children are doing regularly.
   • Offering opportunities to volunteer in the classroom.
   • Providing information and resources for family support.
   • Creating a “place at the table” for decision-making.
   • Attending parenting education events with topics chosen by the parents.
   • Finding courses in enhancing communication skills (especially for English Language Learners).
   • Providing strategies and tools that support children to learn at home and in the community.

Remember, to do these things, you will need to know about the families you work with. It is important to ask families if and how they want to be involved. Ask them what a meaningful experience would look like for them and when it might be the best time for them to be involved.

Do not make assumptions about how a family could help you but identify their strengths and offer appropriate opportunities. For example, just because you need a bulletin board completed does not mean a parent would find the volunteer opportunity of cutting out a border meaningful. At the same time, donning gloves and providing cleaning tools to clean an empty room may not be respectful, or inclusive, to a parent who wants to volunteer in the classroom to spend more time with their own child. An inventory of actions and activities that families could choose from would be one way to approach the list of what needs to be accomplished.

A robust interview, orientation to the program, questionnaires, and surveys about the family will help you to gather information. Remember that not all families may feel comfortable with reading and writing in English, so be sure to arrange for translators or to relate verbally, based on individual family needs. Invite families to engage with the program through newsletters, flyers, or an actual invitation from the children in the classroom. Be creative! Engage the children in the process as appropriate and remember the cultural considerations your families identify while you are building your partnerships and focus on creating positive, strengths-based relationships. You will all benefit, but in the end, it is about the benefit for the children.

Building a sense of community goes beyond a simple partnership with families. In an early childhood environment, we are connected by a common interest in quality education and services for young children. This is our community of learners. To enhance the educational experience of the young children we serve, we work to make each child and family feel valued, and connected, and that they belong (Neimer & Kirchofer, 2024).

"Preschool girl" by Lori Heron on Unsplash is licensed under CC by 1.0

Reflection

Where to start?

Prioritize the suggestions from the list above and identify your pathway for engaging families in your program or classroom. Add your own ideas.

Engaging Families in Meaningful Ways

Take another look at the definitions for family involvement and family engagement, and notice how they are the same and how they are different:

• Family involvement is parent participation in educational systems and learning activities that foster a child’s well-being. It involves conscious and intentional attempts to provide information to families and to encourage them to participate in their child’s learning. This strategy simply involves families in education in some way. The “unintended consequence” of this approach can be that parents are seen basically as helpers who follow the teacher’s directions. They are not seen as valuable partners in their child’s education.
• Family engagement is a more holistic and intentional approach in which the responsibility for supporting the child’s learning falls on the parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, friends, and the community; all play a critical function in continuing and reciprocal engagement. Family engagement involves the teacher building relationships with families, learning from the families how they would prefer to be involved in their child’s learning, and working with families to understand and plan how they choose to be engaged. This would include desired times and methods for sharing information about the child’s experiences. Family engagement offers a broad variety of approaches and activities that can be offered at home, in the community, or in the classroom or program.

In the pursuit of quality in our work we strive for intentional family engagement. While doing this work it is important to consider family-sensitive environments. The concept of family sensitive implies that the teachers, providers, and other early learning professionals will exhibit positive and respectful attitudes towards families. Knowledge about each individual family, their strengths, the experiences in their lives, and the values and beliefs that influence their decisions, along with responsive practices with families are the foundation for supporting and building positive parent and child outcomes. Included within this context is a specific focus supporting families by acting as a resource to empower them to promote their child(ren)’s healthy development. These relationships with families also focus on reciprocal information sharing and empowerment of families by building mutual respect.

Appreciating what families bring to the program is a significant construct of family engagement. Because families are the experts about their child, each parent/family has specific expertise to contribute. Parents know how a child interacts with others, how the child responds to new people and situations. Parents know what a child is interested in and likes to play with. Parents also know about and can share how a child expresses his or her wants and needs. Families also bring to the program their individual pride in raising their children along with an understanding of the challenges that are inherent in the job of parenting. Parents come into a program with their own specific needs for support and information. An important element of our relationship building process with families is to identify and to build upon the strengths of the individuals involved. This will demonstrate respect, show appreciation, and value contributions of the family in support of the child (Neimer & Kirchofer, 2024).

"Stick Figure Drawing" by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash is CC BY 2.0

References

Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Ecological systems theory (1992). In U. Bronfenbrenner (Ed.), Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development (pp. 106–173). Sage Publications Ltd.

González, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (Eds). (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households.

NAEYC. 2020. Developmentally Appropriate Practices Position Statement. https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/position-statements/dap-statement_0.pdf

NAEYC. n.d. Principles of Effective Family Engagement. Washington, DC: NAEYC. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/topics/family-engagement/principles

Neimer, A. and Kirchofer, J. (2024). Families today. In Julian et.al (1.1 Eds.). (2024). Introduction to early childhood education. Libretexts.

Stephens, C., Peterson, G., Eyrich, S., & Paris, J. (2021). Introduction to principles and practices of teaching young children. Libretexts.