Your thoughts on family teacher interactions in early childhood?

Question

Your thoughts on family teacher interactions in early childhood?

Answer 1

from my personal experience......it always good to have a family teacher interactions but be sure to only notify parents of the good...it helps them to put more trust in you and then that will get the parents main interest.....

Answer 2

These interactions are extremely important.  The child will feel much more secure if guardians and school staff are talking to each other.  They will also feel as if they can't tell the teacher one thing and tell mom a different thing, because mom and teacher talk to each other.

HeadStarts believe in this so strongly that they do home visitations.  That's one way of building the bridges between school and home.

Another is written documentation - notes or journals or folders that go back and forth between home and daycare every day.  

Conferences are another excellent form of communication.  These should be scheduled at least twice a year - more often if you like.  Conferences are times set aside to discuss the child's progress at length - something that can't be done at drop-off and pick-up times.  

It's always a good idea to include parents in the activities at the daycare - room moms, parents who are members of a parent or governing board, days that the child can have lunch with a parent, Daddy-Daughter nights, Christmas plays, etc.  Make parents feel like an invited, welcome cog in the wheel.

Most directors have found that if you educate parents about these things when the children are enrolling and tell the parents that they are expected to attend the conferences, you get a better turn out.

Answer 3

Be flexible and accommodating with families. I've worked in centres where the staff see the parents as meddlers and inconveniences. They were nasty set-ups and weren't good for child/parent/teacher alike.

Parent contributions can be a wonderful asset if valued by teachers.

Answer 4

through experience ive learned that parents wont listen to you if you dont get them intereted first. ie) dont say timmy hit another child today and missed out at centers. the parents hear im a big mean teacher and put your kid in time out.

say this timmy had a terrific morning he painted a wonderful castle during art time and made a sand castle with his friends outside and blah blah blah then causally work into the conversation that timmy had a rough time during centers and hit a child and had to miss out the rest of the center time but hes going to try harder tomorrow:)