Staying in step: Supporting rel ationships with families

Good relationships between parents and teachers support the dances between teachers and children and between parents and their children. Infants and toddlers must rely on the important adults in their lives to communicate well with one another and develop a trusting, informative relationship. This allows the children to experience a sense of continuity from home to child care and from child care to home. In a program that emphasizes relationships, the teacher-parent relationship is one of partnership. Parents are viewed as partners rather than as customers or clients. Even when the program emphasizes teaching parents about parenting, the spirit remains one of respect and partnership. The partnership centers on the child and relies on mutual respect, information sharing, inclusiveness, and a sense of community. It requires that the purposes and principles of the overall relationship-oriented program be communicated clearly to parents so they understand the importance of relationships (with both parents and teachers) to infants and understand the many steps that the program takes to provide their children with these safe and secure relationships. However, the partnership also requires that the program understand the parents' cultural and personal values. The teacher and parent should mutually engage in the very human task of sharing deeply felt views and daily Information in a spirit of supporting the well-being of the child they both care about so much.