Now You’re Talking
Working With Parents
Children spend more time at home than in a setting.
As such, parents are children’s first and most enduring educators and make a crucial difference in children's outcomes.
All families are different. Practitioners have a responsibility to welcome, listen to and work in partnership with families.
Parents and early years settings need to have a strong and respectful partnership. This sets the scene for children to thrive in their early years. This includes:
Regularly listening to parents and giving parents clear information about their children’s progress
Supporting parents to help them understand that the help they provide at home significantly impacts their child's learning.
Knowing and understanding all the children and their families and offering extra help to those most need it.
Encouraging all parents to chat, play and read with their children. (Development Matters)
Parents are their children’s lifelong promoters of development and learning.
Most families come to early childhood settings with many months and years of fine-grained observations of their children and valuable knowledge about the most effective ways to support them.
When practitioners consider how to harness parents’ voices and deep appreciation and understanding of their children, parents’ knowledge of their children can be knitted into the fabric of daily practice. (Birth to 5 Matters)
Further reading