Working with parents and building strong relationships is integral when one works in the Early Childhood Care and Educatio

Working with parents and building strong relationships is integral when one works in the Early Childhood Care and Education field, yet it becomes a necessity when there are challenging behaviors that need to be addressed. If a child is exhibiting challenging behaviors the teacher will need to work closely with the parent(s) to ensure that the child’s needs are met in the classroom so that a healthy, effective, nurturing learning environment can be achieved as the challenging behaviors are brought under control.

Teachers need to establish a relationship with parents BEFORE there is a need to discuss anything negative; if the teacher already has an established connection then the parent(s) will be more open to discussion and remaining open-minded, whereas if the first contact a parent has with the teacher is pertaining to a negative situation then most likely he/she will feel attacked and go on the defensive. Teachers must remember that no matter what, it is a parent’s natural instinct to defend their child tooth and nail!

So how does a teacher build a close relationship with the parents of the children that are in his/her classroom? Please visit the following website for some tips:

1. Visit the website above.
2. Review the articles concerning connecting with parents. Although these articles do not necessarily deal with challenging behavior, as stated above, the teacher must form a relationship with parents in order to be able work with them when times are good and when times may be difficult.
3. Write a paragraph (8-10 sentences) putting into your own words stating why you think that building a relationship with the parents that you work with is important.
4. Also, choose 9 sections to review from this website, and create a summary describing each one. You will need to number and label each section with the name of the article. Each of your 9 summaries should be at least 1 paragraph (8-10 sentences) in length. Include in your summaries whether or not you think that the article you reviewed is a good idea for building relationships with parents, would it be easy or difficult to do, or would there be any problems implementing the idea.