Topic 1.4 - How can you share your ideas with parents?
The fourth topic in this module considers how to share relationship-based practice and philosophy with parents so that they feel included and invited to give the same support to their children at home. It is not the educator’s role to tell parents how to parent, but you do have an important role in sharing your practice. In relationship-based practice this includes highlighting the children’s social and emotional communications as meaningful to respond to, and showing how meeting children’s emotional needs is important work for you and gives the children a secure foundation for their learning.
How do you find the words to make the process of relationship support part of your everyday conversations with parents?
Before commencing readings 1.8 and 1.9 and viewing video clip 5 again, write down how you might make children’s emotional and social communications part of what you talk about everyday with parents.
For example, what might you say to parents who are focused on you giving their child a good academic start for school? How will you talk with them about the value you place on giving their child emotional support? What might you say to these parents when you see their child begin to use you as a secure base? How might you share your delight about this and talk about how their child’s newly found trust in you is making a difference to how s/he explores and learns and joins in with peers? How might you talk about supporting their child to be more empathic, without sounding judgmental or running the risk of the parent feeling criticised?
In Topics 1-3, the Circle of Security and Marte Meo approaches have informed you about what to look for to support children’s emotional and social development and to help them build close relationships with you and their peers. In this topic, 1.4, we will look at how you can share what you are looking for with parents - through conversation and through use of photos and video clips.
This topic also links to the underlying themes of the national Early Years Learning Framework: Belonging, Being and Becoming (DEEWR, XXXXXXXXXXYou will get to practise framing the conversations you might have with parents around these three terms. For example, you can think of helping the child get to know you as the first step in 'belonging'. It can be what you and the parents talk about together with their child when they first come to the children’s service.
Reading 1.9 includes a case study where you see an example of how the parent and educator talk together to reassure the child that they understand how he needs to feel safe with his teacher in order to make a good start in his preschool day.
Similarly, we will look at how you can use observations of the child (guided by both the Marte Meo and Circle of Security frameworks) to support parents around the notion of 'being with' – to be there in the moment with their child, and to be with their child emotionally to help him/her organise his/her feelings. For example, as part of supporting parents to 'be with' their children you will learn how to follow a child’s initiatives and use
idging language to build a connection with parents, a
idge from them to you (M. Aarts, personal communication, XXXXXXXXXXIt could be something as simple as this: you might notice that a child is ca
ying a bag of parsley as he comes through the gate with his mother. You might greet him by saying to him “I see you have
ought parsley” (thereby noticing and naming his initiative), then look up to his mother and say, “from your mummy’s garden”. In this way, you are making a
idge from mother to you. The mother feels included and invited to be with you. In using these words you are also inviting her to be in the moment with her child so she feels that her support is more predictable.
Observation five shows a simple moment of a child
inging flowers to his teacher and of her guiding him to put the flowers into a vase for their morning tea table. We will look at the sharing and learning potential in this simple clip. This includes using pictures to show the developmental support you are giving the child in this moment, to help him in 'becoming' ready for school and ‘becoming’ more playful with his peers. We will look at how you can use the video pictures to give very concrete information, to show support that fits into normal daily life and that helps the parent to find their own strengths and consider that “I, too can support my child like this at home” (from invitation program for parents cu
ently being developed within KU James Cahill Preschool in consultation with Maria Aarts, Marte Meo, 2009).
Reading 1.8
Dolby, R., Hughes, E., & Friezer, B. (2014). Playspaces: Educators, parents and toddlers. In L. Ha
ison & J. Sumsion (Eds.), Lived spaces of infant-toddler education and care: Exploring diverse perspectives on theory, research and practice (pp XXXXXXXXXXNew York: Springer.
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10.1007/ XXXXXXXXXX0_7
Reading 1.9
Dolby, R., Ebert, C., & Watson, S XXXXXXXXXXChildcare: A ‘holding environment’ supporting infants and their parents with mental illness and emotional difficulties. In A. Sved Williams & V. Cowling (Eds.), Infants of parents with a mental illness (chap. 19, pp XXXXXXXXXXBowen Hills, Qld: Australian Academic Press.
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1. Having completed Readings 1.8 and 1.9 and after revisiting observation 5 again:
Write down how you would talk with a parent about what both of you could do to support their child with the transition from home to childcare, i.e. find your own words to explain your role as a secure base/safe haven.