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PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW. USE THE ATTACHED CHAPTER 10 FILE TO COMPLETE THIS ASSIGNMENT.
Diversity and Common Obstacles
Chapter 10 begins, “in today’s United States, there is no typical family; rather, there is a vast diversity of family structures in which children develop and learn” (Wardle, 2013, p. 274).
Our classroom, families, and children are reflective of this statement.
Early care and education programs have a crucial role in supporting all families and “by supporting the family, we support the child” (Wardle, 2013, p. 283).
Reflecting on these quotes from the textbook, choose two common obstacles that families face from the list below and explain how you will work with families to overcome this obstacle.
Common obstacles: THESE ARE THE OBSTACLES TO BE USED
a. Poverty
b. Children with developmental delays
c. Problems with substance abuse by family member
d. Grandparents raising children and generational issues
e. Lack of extended family support
f. Communication difficulties
g. Cultural conflicts between the family and program
h. New immigrant status
For each of the obstacles you have chosen,
1.Complete the following prompt with critical thought and elaboration.
2. Each obstacle should have a minimum of two ways that you will support families who are facing the challenge.
THIS IS THE PROMPT TO USE
Prompt:
As an early childhood educator, in an effort to support families who ________________, I will _____________.
10.1Family Stress and Resiliency
All families must deal with a variety of stresses, including the stress created by raising young children. In examining family stress, it is important to remember that in today’s United States, there is no typical family; rather, there is a vast diversity of family structures in which children develop and learn. Thus, in examining family stress and resiliency, we can look at the family through two different lenses: family structure and family function. Family structure is the relationship of the adults in the family: two parents, single parents, stepparents, extended family, foster parents, and so on. Family functions exist in every family structure; in some, the family works together effectively to care for its members; in others, it does not. While it is important to examine the various family structures that early care and education staff must work with, the key to family health and resiliency is how well the family functions.
Family Structures
As we are all aware, the two-parent, father-and-mother family is no longer the norm in the United States (U.S. Census, 2007). The diversity of family structures in the United States includes a number of different arrangements.
Nuclear family. The nuclear family is made up of a husband and wife and their biological children under age 18. While nuclear families are the established norm, there is also an increasing number of unmarried couples with children living together.
Stepfamily. When children from a former relationship live with a new couple in the home, this is a stepfamily; when the stepparent family includes children born to two or more couples (i.e., the spouses of previous marriages and children of a new couple), this is then called a blended family.
Adoptive family. As many as one-third of couples who cannot have biological children adopt, forming an adoptive family. Most, however, adopt only one or two children, because adoption today is often difficult and expensive (U.S. Census, 2009). For a variety of reasons, most infants and young children are adopted from countries outside of the United States. Adoptive families also include transracially adoptive families, in which the children and parents are of a different race or ethnicity (Wardle & Cruz-Janzen, 2004).
Foster families. These are temporary situations in which children are cared for as they wait to be adopted or to be reunited with their biological or other parents. Foster families themselves come in a variety of structures, including two parents and single-parent families. In many of these families, there are also biological children of one or both parents.
Grandparents. Grandparents take on the primary function of raising their grandchildren due to many reasons, including parents who are dead, incarcerated, on drugs, or extremely sick (Birckmayer, Cohen, Jensen, & Variano, 2005). Sometimes grandparents are temporary foster parents while others have officially adopted their grandchildren. Sometimes a single grandparent becomes the sole caregiver of his or her grandchildren.
Two same-sex parents. Some of these couples have children by one of the parents (and a surrogate); others adopt. The legal status of same-sex families differs from state to state.
Single parents. Single-parent families include mothers who have never been married. Almost 40% of all U.S. births are to unmarried mothers (U.S. Census, 2007), but many of these mothers later marry the child’s father or another male. They also include single mothers who are divorced, separated, or widowed. Although almost 50% of all first marriages in the United States end in divorce, many of these marriages had no children, and some of these mothers remarry. Almost 20% of divorced, separated, or widowed fathers have physical custody of their children, whom they raise alone, without remarrying (U.S. Census, 2009).
Extended family. An extended family is formed when children live with a grandparent or other relative, and one or more biological parents. Certain new immigrant groups are more likely to live in extended families. Further, due to recent economic hardships in the United States, more families live together in extended family groupings. Finally, there is a growing trend of older people staying at home and receiving health care services there, rather than going to senior living arrangements (Cooke, Martin, Yearns, & Damhorst, 2007). Some of these grandparents live with one or more of their children.
Polygamous family. In some countries outside of the United States, men can legally have several wives, forming a polygamous family. Some of these families come to the United States as immigrants.
Each one of these structures comes with a vast amount of diversity. This diversity includes the number of children, ages of children, whether the children are single or multiple births, and biological, adopted, or foster children. It also includes interracial, interethnic, and interreligious families. Some families speak more than one language in the home; some may include a variety of professions and occupations. In some homes, there are children or adults with various disabilities and developmental delays. Also, families live in a variety of communities and living arrangements: rural, urban, low income, suburban, Indian reservations, trailer parks, apartment complexes, homeless shelters or hotels, religious communities, segregated or integrated communities, or military bases (Wardle, 1996).
Family Functions
Family function, unlike family structures, is a universal way of looking at all families and can be applied to any family, regardless of its structure. Family function refers to the way the family works to care for its members (Olson & Gorall, 2003). In general, this care is provided by the significant adults in the family.
The work of Maslow helps us understand the various family functions, beginning with meeting children’s basic needs. Abraham Maslow (1962) studied human needs and developed a theory of the hierarchy of needs. Maslow lived from 1908 to 1970 and, with Carl Rogers, created the humanistic field of psychology. Humanism is a psychological movement of the 1960s suggesting that all people, regardless of educational, cultural, racial, gender, and other differences, have universal human impulses, needs, and a human spirit. It is based on a belief that a universal perspective can exist to describe all humans, and it focuses on the potential for all humans to be good, fulfilled, and positive contributors to the human condition (Maslow, 1962/1999; Rogers, 1961/2004).
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1962), he indicated that basic human needs have to be fulfilled before other, more advanced needs could be met:
Physiological (basic) needs of food, water, warmth, and shelter
Safety
and security: protection from injury and death (physical and psychological)
Love and belonging: having friends, family, and community (often religious belonging)
Respect and esteem: being respected by others and by oneself
Self-actualization: becoming truly oneself; fulfilling one’s unique human potential, while also respecting and acknowledging others (Maslow, 1962/1999)
Maslow believed this hierarchy existed for all people, regardless of human diversity. He felt that these needs must be met from basic to advanced (thus the hierarchy); in fact, a person might jeopardize one level to meet the needs of a lower level. For example, a hungry man might jeopardize his own safety to meet his basic need for food or water.
While Maslow did not address the needs of children or discuss a developmental approach to meeting these needs, his theory makes sense for children and is the basis for several school-related policies, such as free breakfasts and safe schools so that children can feel secure and focus on learning. The USDA food program used by most early care and education programs is another example.
Family functions are divided into five categories: to provide basic necessities, encourage learning, develop self-esteem, nurture peer relationships, and maintain harmony and stability. However, they are not arranged in a hierarchy; young children need all of these functions to be provided, and the extent to which they are not provided will cause stress.
Provide basic necessities
. The first function that all families must provide is to meet their children’s basic needs (see Think About It:
Family Functions: Provide Basic Necessities
).
Encourage learning
. Even very young children need adults at home who encourage all sorts of learning. This includes reading to them on a regular basis; taking them to the library, local museums, parks, and other cultural events; and supporting emergent language development. It also includes teaching children important trades and skills from the family’s culture, such as carpentry, farming, canning, and sewing, and teaching the family’s and culture’s traditions and ceremonies. For children who attend an early care and education program, families should also work closely with the child’s program, making sure the child’s learning needs are met and supporting the program’s efforts on the child’s behalf.
THINK ABOUT IT:
Family Functions: Provide Basic Necessities
All families, regardless of their structure, must provide these basic functions for their young children:
Food
Shelter
Clothing
Medical care
Supervision
Transportation
Adequate sleep
Hygiene
Safety
Love and affection
Develop self-esteem
. As we have discussed throughout this book, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and social competence are critical characteristics of the resilient and successful child. And, as we have also discussed, adults in the home have a profound impact on all three of these critical dispositions.
Nurture peer relationships
. In the previous chapter, we discussed in detail the importance of social competence in children, both with adults and with peers. Adults in the home can help children develop social competence by engaging in a variety of behaviors:
Treating each child in the home as a unique individual, while respecting the rights and needs of each child
Modeling social competence with other adults in the home, neighborhood, and early care and education program
Giving young children in the home opportunities to interact with other young children: at the local playground, early care and education program, dance classes, and so on. This is particularly important when there is only one child in the family, or when the children in the family are many years apart in age
Empowering children to solve their own problems, while also intervening when the child begins to develop negative behavioral cycles (e.g., always dominating other children, or always behaving as a victim)
Ensure harmony and stability. Young children need security and predictability. They need to know that they will be fed, when they will be picked up from day care, who will pick them up at the end of the day, and who will provide discipline in the home. Elsewhere in this book, we have discussed the considerable negative impact of stress on the brain development of young children (Shore, 1997). Conflict, insecurity, and lack of harmony and predictability can have a negative effect on the young child’s emotional state, behaviors, cognitive achievement, and learning (Kostelnik et al., 2009).
Traits of Resilient Families
A resilient family is one that, regardless of structure, fulfills all of its functions in a healthy way, to meet each person’s basic needs. A resilient family is one that can address challenges, solve problems, and maintain a certain level of equilibrium. It is not without conflict or problems, but it is simply able to address them in a healthy way. Some resilient families find that the best approach to meeting everyone’s needs is simply to replicate what the parents learned from their own family and culture regarding being a family and raising children; others find that they must totally reinvent the very idea of the family and how to meet all the basic needs of their family. Most adults in a family balance these two approaches—accepting and using some of the approaches from their own family and culture, and reinventing and changing others to meet their own family’s unique needs and the ever-changing nature of culture and society (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
While families must provide for the basic physical, social, and emotional needs of their children, they also act as central agents in socializing their children to the ever-changing culture and greater society. Thus, adults in the home develop children who will grow into the next generation of adults. To this end, children in resilient homes are empowered to be themselves and to have a positive impact on society and the world (Gonzalez-Mena, 2009). These children develop their own unique identity, fulfilling their own unique potential.
The Circumplex Model of Family Adaptability and Cohesion
The circumplex model is a family systems approach to examining relationships within a family. It focuses on three important family dimensions: family cohesion, family flexibility, and family communication. The model has been validated on a diversity of families, including race and ethnicity, marital status (cohabiting and married), family structure (single parent, stepparents), sexual orientation, and family life cycle (newlyweds and retired couples) (Olson & Gorall, 2003).
Family Cohesion
According to Olson and Gorall (2003), family cohesion is the emotional bond that family members have with one another. Family cohesion flourishes in balance between separateness versus togetherness. There are five levels of family cohesion:
Disengaged/disconnected
Somewhat connected
Connected
Very connected
Enmeshed/overly connected
The three middle levels make for the optimal family functions (somewhat connected, connected, and very connected), while the two extremes (disengaged/disconnected and enmeshed/overly connected) are considered problematic for relationships over time. Another way of saying this is that with a balanced level of cohesion, families can moderate both separateness and togetherness, while those who fall at the extremes—unbalanced—are too separate or too enmeshed. Thus, when cohesion is too high (enmeshed), there is too much consensus and closeness; when disengaged with family members, there is little family commitment.
Family Flexibility
Family flexibility is the amount of change in family leadership, role relationships, and relationship rules. Family flexibility is concerned with how systems balance stability and change. There are five levels of flexibility:
Rigid/inflexible
Somewhat flexible
Flexible
Very flexible
Chaotic/overly flexible
As with family cohesion, the three levels in the center are more conducive to positive family functioning, with the extremes (rigid and chaotic) being the most problematic. Flexibility focuses on change in family leadership, roles, and rules. Families need both stability and change to be functional; the ability to change is one of the characteristics that distinguishes functional families from nonfunctional ones (Olson & Gorall, 2003).
Somewhat flexible relationships tend to have democratic leadership characteristics; flexible relationships have an egalitarian leadership with a democratic approach to decision making. Negotiations are open, shared, and fluid. Unbalanced families exhibit one of the extremes—too much stability (rigid) or too much change (choice). In rigid relationships, one individual is in charge and is very controlling. In a chaotic relationship, decisions are impulsive and not carefully thought out, and roles are unclear and shifting all the time. Thus, extremely high (chaotic) and extremely low (rigid) levels of flexibility tend to be problematic for individuals and families. Relationships with moderate flexibility (the middle three levels) balance change and stability in a positive, functional way.
Family
Communication
The third dimension of the model is family communication. Communication is considered a tool to assist families to alter their levels of cohesion and flexibility to meet family needs (Olson & Gorall, 2003). It involves listening skills, speaking skills, self-disclosure, continuity tracking, respect, and regard. Listening involves empathy and attentive listening; speaking includes speaking for oneself and not for others; self-disclosure concerns sharing feelings about oneself and one’s relationships; tracking involves staying focused on a topic; and respect/regard is attending to the affective (feelings) aspects of communication.
Combining Cohesion, Flexibility, and Communication
It is believed that combining these three dimensions produces specific positive results in families:
Balanced families generally function more adequately than unbalanced families do—both in cohesion and in flexibility. Being balanced means that family systems can operate at extremes for short periods of time, but not for long. Thus, balance enables individuals in a family to be both independent from and connected to the family (cohesion), and maintain some level of stability with openness to change when it is necessary (flexibility). The exception to this balanced view is when the family belongs to a group where norms dictate that all family members function in the same rigid manner. For example, the Hmong ethnic group and Amish and Mormon religious groups may exhibit unbalanced family systems but may be quite functional.
Positive communication skills enable couples and families to change the levels of cohesion and flexibility. This helps families facilitate a balance between these two dimensions; poor communication prevents movement from the unbalanced conditions to the balanced ones.
Couples and families will modify their levels of cohesion or flexibility to deal with stress and changes across the family life cycle. It is assumed that families change and that they will change levels of flexibility and cohesion. For example, in many families over time, wives seek more autonomy from husbands and want more power and equality in their relationships (flexibility).
Independence and Interdependence
Another family systems approach to resilient and functional families is to examine levels of independence and interdependence. Family members should be able to help and support each other without creating codependence. Some of the concepts of this approach are similar to the circumplex model. This idea was discussed earlier, when we explored using the family systems approach to describe family dynamics (Christian, 2007). Components of independence and interdependence are boundaries, self-esteem, communication, protection and connection, and rules.
Boundaries
Boundaries defines a level of togetherness and separateness. Some families value individual decision making, openness to new ideas, and supporting the unique, separate identity of each member, while other families value connections, conformity, togetherness, and unity. Families exist along a continuum of independence-dependence, with each one exhibiting a different set of boundaries (Christian, 2007). The question is how each of these serves the needs of individual family members, especially the children; most need to be somewhere in the middle (see also Chapter 6).
Self-Esteem
As we have continually stressed in this book, self-esteem is critical to all family members, both adults and children. Resilient and functional families build and maintain self-esteem in their members, rather than destroying it. Procedures used to discipline children need to help guide and control without destroying self-esteem, and there are many approaches to discipline that can empower and increase a child’s sense of self-worth. While there is a vast variety of cultural ways to raise and discipline young children, all of the approaches must focus on empowering a child’s self-esteem and development of self-efficacy, either individually or as a critically important part of a group.
Communication
As we discussed in the circumplex model, effective communication is an essential characteristic of resilient and healthy families. Conflicts are addressed in a way that considers the needs of everyone; further, all family members give and receive feedback in a productive manner. Deliberate problem-solving methods are used; also, these families can tolerate a level of ambiguity and confusion when a problem cannot immediately be solved. In some cultures, words are the primary manner to express these feelings and to communicate within the family, while in others cultures, non-verbal forms of communication are used (Hall, 1976). And then, of course, many families of young children use both.
Protection and Connection
Resilient and functional families provide their members with a warm, secure haven away from the big, often threatening world. Family members can retreat to their home to receive support, nurturing, and unconditional acceptance. At the same time, each family member has a series of connections to the outside world, such as the workplace, early care and education program, school, religious institution, or grocery store. One way to understand how well a family functions is to examine the various links and connections members have with the greater society.
The early care and education program provides a wonderful bridge between the family, the community, and the overall society. For new immigrant families, the early care and education program is often how they learn about expectations of the new society, especially as it relates to young children. Information about childhood immunization schedules, car seat laws, and community agencies that serve children and families with developmental delays can be obtained at the program. Additionally, for all families the program is where they learn about educational options, school rules, and the U.S. culture of care and education.
Rules
All families have rules that they follow. These are sets of standards, rules, or traditions that tell family members how to live in relation to each other (Christian, 2006). Rules come from the parents’ culture, how the parents were raised, and a consensus of the adults in the home as to how to raise and educate their children. They cover everything from how money is shared and household costs budgeted, to the allocation of duties, religious practices and expectations, traditional celebrations, and mealtime rituals. Some families may have rules that are not really enforced because they are not that important; others may have important practices that are so ingrained that no one has to talk about them. Different rules are reinforced by different people in the home: A young child may remind everyone that birthdays are traditionally celebrated with cake and ice cream; a grandmother may insist that her favorite greens are planted in the backyard garden every year.
10.2 Resilient Children and
Children Who Struggle
Very young children are extremely sensitive to the impact of the world around them—at home, in the community, in the early care and education program, and from the culture at large. Throughout this book, we have discussed a variety of factors that appear to improve a child’s ability to survive the various challenges of growing up. One such concept is known as resilient children, or resiliency in children.
Initially, research showed that certain children have some kind of built-in ability to withstand abuse and other negative childhood experiences (Masten, 2001). These studies suggested that resilient children have the psychological strength to recover from misfortune and to emerge intact from a history of severe distress (Gonzalez-Mena, 2009). Studies suggested that resilient children have certain common protective factors and personality traits (Luther, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Werner, 1995; Werner & Smith, 1992). It was believed these children had affirmative personalities and the ability to recruit positive responses from the environment that were denied them under normal circumstances.
However, more recent research suggests otherwise—resilience is a result of normal human adaptive processes, children’s responses to the support of positive environments, and significant relationships of families, and the overall ecological environment, including teachers and caregivers (Masten, 2001). Part of this new understanding is the concept we discussed earlier: a goodness-of-fit between human relationships and adaptive systems, and the needs of the child.
Most children who experience abuse do not perpetuate this behavior on their own children (Kaufman & Zigler, 1993), but some do. Many children of mothers who are clinically depressed are able to function adequately in their lives, and there are innumerable people who overcame poverty to be highly successful (Goldstein & Brooks, 2005). Children who withstand negative early experiences seem to be able to take advantage of the family and societal supports to increase their competence and efficacy (Werner, 2005). They have connections to competent and caring adults and are able to develop positive cognitive and self-regulation skills, high self-esteem and self-efficacy, and social competence (ability to use the environment effectively) (Masten, 2001). These are characteristics and dispositions we examined in detail in Chapter 9.
While a child’s individual personality and temperament seem to play a role in resiliency, it is also evident that people who work with very young children—parents, child care providers, teachers, youth leaders—play a critical role in helping young children withstand the stress of poverty, family strife, abuse, and neglect. We need to find ways to reduce the stress many young children experience, while also finding ways to help all children become as resilient as possible.
Developing Resilient Children
There are many ways adults involved in the lives of young children can develop resilience in all children under stress—both in families and in early care and education programs. Many of these ideas have been mentioned throughout this book, but they need to be repeated here as we look at ways to help families mitigate conditions that cause stress and children develop ways to withstand stress.
Support Children and Families
Early care and education programs have a vital role to play in supporting all families, regardless of the families’ struggles. By supporting the family, we support the child. This is where we must return to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1979) and the idea that all services and agencies in the community that support families need to work in concert with each other to meet each family’s unique needs. The early care and education program—whether it is a family child care home, religious program, Head Start or Early Head Start, military program, or school-based preschool—must become a vital and dynamic center for all these services and networks. The early care and education program should try to find ways to help all of their families feel connected, empowered, and able to meet the unique needs of their children.
Teach Children Self-Efficacy
In Chapter 9, we discussed the tremendous power of self-efficacy, which is the beliefs and dispositions of a child to be able to learn and problem solve. Self-efficacy is the deep belief a child has in the child’s ability to affect the world and to learn to function proactively in the world. We need to help children learn how to make and maintain positive human connections with other children and adults. All the approaches we discussed in encouraging self-efficacy apply here: Help children enter and maintain play episodes, help children resolve problems with peers in a positive fashion, support contacts children have with their peers and significant adults, and help children find positive and special words and phrases to use with others. We know that self-efficacy begins in infancy—both at home and in the early care and education program. And as we continue to emphasize, central to developing a sense of self-efficacy in young children is the use of positive approaches to discipline and guidance (Kostelnik et al., 2009).
Teach Problem Solving
Children who know how to problem solve clearly feel a sense of empowerment and efficacy. One of the best ways to teach children how to solve a problem is for adults to model problem solving. Crockenberg (1992) found that when mothers used a discipline technique of telling their 2-year-olds what they wanted them to do while also explaining the reasons behind their requests, it was quite effective. Adults need to let children know their wishes are important but also satisfy the children’s need to know how and why the adults’ requests are important. Throughout this book, we have discussed ways to help young children problem solve, from selecting their own clothes to wear, to helping develop classroom rules and playground procedures. It is important to stress here that teaching young children problem solving is not about taking authority away from adults, either at home or in the early care and education center. It is about facilitating the development of a child’s problem-solving skills within existing conditions and situations.
Give Children Responsibilities
Children need opportunities to care for others who are more vulnerable than they are. This can be younger children in the center or classroom and younger children in the home. One of the reasons to have mixed-age classrooms, especially at a time of smaller families, is that this enables children to develop a sense of nurturing and responsibility toward younger members of the class (Katz, 1998). Children can also learn responsibility by caring for animals and plants, both within a program and at home. By having a variety of responsibilities on their shoulders, children develop a sense of importance and trust.
Provide Positive Role Models
Probably the most powerful way for young children to learn is through modeling by adults they trust and respect. These role models are in the home and early care and education center, and they exhibit the behaviors discussed in this section:
Show ways to access needed support and resources.
Demonstrate prosocial behaviors.
Demonstrate a variety of ways to make positive connections with other children and with important adults.
Take on important responsibilities freely and purposefully.
Use a variety of problem-solving approaches throughout the day.
Show positive dispositions about the world and the value of life and life’s experiences.
Show a disposition to find the positive and good in what they do, and in whom they work and play with.
Central to the role of the model is the environment in which the role model functions. A parent who is supported, empowered, and acknowledged will be a much better role model than one who is constantly under stress. Also, teachers and caregivers who are empowered by a positive climate in the early care and education program are much more able to be positive role models to the children and parents they serve.
Be Super-Sensitive to the Child Who Struggles
Children who struggle at home or in the early care and education program need warm, responsive, understanding, and very patient adults who can provide them with the important human attachments they desperately need. Unfortunately, children who struggle often make it extremely difficult for adults to like and care for them (Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). These children might have a developmental delay that is difficult or frustrating for adults to deal with, the child may have learned adaptive behaviors that are extremely destructive, or the child may be very emotionally and behaviorally immature due to a life of constant stress and confusion. Teachers and caregivers need to make a deliberate, concerted effort not to label these children as troublemakers, problems, or children with specific disabilities; rather, they must understand that these children need special attention, patience, and love.
Children Who Struggle
Just as we need to provide opportunities for all children to develop resiliency, so too must we intervene when children receive abuse at home. In previous chapters, we have discussed a range of things early care and education staff can do to work with children who struggle behaviorally, emotionally, cognitively, or developmentally. These suggestions include providing an environment specifically tailored to address the child’s specific challenge, using therapists and other experts to assist staff, and referring children to Child Find for possible services for developmental delays. Other approaches involve working with families on parenting skills, helping families access community resources, and working closely with therapists in the home. However, sometimes even these approaches do not work, and children experience abuse.
When this occurs, staff members of early care and education programs have a responsibility to report suspected child abuse (see Spotlight:
Mandated Reporting of Suspicions of Abuse
). Abuse of children under 18 years of age is termed child maltreatment. It is the outcome of an unhealthy environment, usually in the home. There are four forms of child maltreatment: neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse (Thompson & Wyatt, 1999). Neglect includes instances in which caregivers (parents or others who care for the children) fail to provide food, clothing, shelter, health care, affection, or adult supervision. Physical abuse occurs when caregivers intentionally engage in physical harm to children; punishments that cause bruises or injuries are also considered physical abuse. Sexual abuse involves acts in which adults seek sexual gratification from children through acts such as genital contact and pornographic photography. Finally, emotional abuse occurs when children are constantly ignored, put down, rejected, or subjected to substance abuse (including alcohol and criminal activities) (Thompson & Wyatt, 1999).
SPOTLIGHT:
Some Signs of Maltreatment in Children, Age 2–10 Years Old
Repeated injuries, especially broken bones
Violent and sexual themes dominating fantasy play
Slow physical growth, especially accompanied by a lack of appetite
Ongoing physical complaints, such as genital pain and stomachaches
Slow overall physical and cognitive development
Hostility toward other children; bullying of smaller children
Hypervigilance—cringing, startling easily, impulsive behaviors
Frequent absences from the early care and education program or school; many changes of address and of caregivers
(Scannapieco & Connell-Carrick, 2005)
There are many reasons that adults abuse children, including their own. Adults who maltreat children often suffer from serious psychological problems, such as low self-esteem and aggressive and impulsive behaviors (Thompson & Wyatt, 1999). Some adults have serious substance abuse problems, and many have poor social behaviors and inadequate parenting skills. Poverty, domestic violence, and other environmental stressors are additional risk factors (Fergusson, Boden, & Horwood, 2008). Lastly, some of these parents have overly high expectations of their children, and they use harsh physical punishment when expectations are not met (English, 1998). These expectations may be the result of parenting style (Baumrind, 1967) or simply not understanding appropriate child development stages and behaviors. Children who are most likely to be abused are very young children (infants and toddlers), children with various developmental disabilities, and other challenging children (English, 1998; Thompson & Wyatt, 1999).
Some children are exposed to more than one form of abuse. Children can suffer long-term consequences from abuse, including brain retardation, stunted physical growth, poor emotional and social development, behavioral problems, and poor school achievement (Fergusson et al., 2008; Finkelhor & Hashima, 2001). When children are exposed to more forms of abuse, they often experience higher levels of stress and negative consequences (Fergusson et al., 2008).
Almost 20% of child abuse victims are placed into foster care (U.S. HHS, 2004). Children who are removed from their homes and placed in foster care do not always receive the services they need. Teachers and other caregivers in the early care and education programs should provide comfort, security, nurturance, patience, and love for these children. These children need lots of opportunities to play, engage in art and music activities, read books about children in foster care, and talk about their unique situation. A parent whose child has been taken will be extremely upset, and may blame the program for the child’s removal; new foster parents will experience adjustment stress and anxiety, and foster parents in general have unique challenges and experiences.
SPOTLIGHT:
Mandated Reporting of Suspicions of Abuse
Professionals who work with children and families are required by law to report their suspicion of abuse to authorities (U.S. HHS, 2008). These professionals include health care providers, teachers, child care providers, social workers, and police officers. Failure to report carries a legal penalty, but states provide immunity from civil liability (Crosson-Tower, 2003). The identity of the reporter is kept anonymous.
When a report is received by a child protection agency, it is forwarded for further investigation by the local agency (U.S. HHS, 2008). About 24% of these reports are substantiated, and as a result children can be removed from the home. However, a balance between child protection and family preservation is a central concern of child protection agencies (Roberts, 2002).
Early care and education teachers, administrators, and providers need to understand that the law requires reporting the suspicion of abuse; it is up to the local authority to substantiate it. Further, with the ever-more cultural diversity of families we serve, providers and teachers need to be careful not to simply report cultural differences in raising children, but rather suspicions of abuse and neglect as defined by the law (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008). Periodic training of staff by child protective services helps reduce potential problems. Parents must also be advised of the law requiring staff to report suspicion of abuse, and parents from cultures that approve of physical punishment must be told that their approach may conflict with the law.
10.3 Six Family Scenarios
In this section, we provide six different family scenarios. In each family, there is at least one child under the age of 5 years old. This child—and possibly other young children in the family— attends an early care and education program. These six scenarios provide a glimpse of the wonderful diversity of families served by early care and education programs and an example of the diversity of early care and education programs that serve these families (Neugebauer, 2008). All young families experience various forms of stress, and these six families are no exception. Each family profiled here is attempting to provide for the unique needs of their children as best they know how.
As we look at each family, it is important to remember that a family’s structure—one parent, two parents, extended family, teen parents, grandparents, and so on—does not directly indicate whether the family is successful or under stress. What does indicate a family’s resilience and level of stress is the way the family achieves its basic family functions—how the family is meeting the basic needs of their children as they develop and learn. We present these families not as a way to show a model or ideal family, or to provide problems that we will then solve, but rather to help the reader examine a variety of families and their relationships with the early care and education program. After each scenario, a brief discussion is provided regarding ways the early care and education program and family can work together to address some of the challenges.
Aasiya’s Family
Aasiya is the daughter of a new immigrant family from Somalia. She is 3 years old and attends a local community child care center. One of the reasons her parents selected the program is because several of the teachers are also Somali and thus understand the family’s language, religion, and customs. Aasiya’s mother works part time in the center, while also caring for the family’s baby. Her father drives a cab for a local company.
Aasiya’s family is Muslim, and they practice Islam. They follow the rules of their faith very strictly, including fasting, prayer, the clothes the women and girls wear, and their food choices. The child care program understands the requirements of their religion and customs and tries hard to accommodate the family and other Somali families. They also understand the different expectations for boys and girls in the Somali culture and the importance of very clear gender roles for the mother, father, grandmother, and female teachers.
However, there is conflict in the center between the Somali families and staff and the American families and staff. The American families want their children to focus on literacy skills and activities that will prepare them for successful entry into the local public school kindergarten program. The American staff members also believe that the Somali children should focus on getting ready for entry into the public schools, and because they are not American and do not know English very well, the staff members believe learning English is very important. These American teachers and caregivers are upset that the Somali staff talk to the children in the Somali language and that they miss days from the program for fasting and other religious activities.
What the Program and Family Can Do
Aasiya’s mother and grandmother decide to talk to the director of the program (a non-Muslim) about this conflict. They feel the American staff members are not sensitive to their cultural wishes and that some of the Somali staff members feel intimidated because they lack Western education. The director has decided to invite a leader from the local Somali community to provide training to the staff about the Somali culture and Islam religion and about the critical importance of both of these aspects of life for Somali families. He will also assure the American staff (and parents who choose to attend) that the Somali community is committed to becoming good Americans, but that they are also deeply committed to maintaining important aspects of their cultures, especially how they raise their children. Aasiya’s mother and grandmother, at the request of the director, will also talk about the child-rearing customs and values that they practice at home.
Additionally, a representative from the local public school district will meet with all the families in the program to discuss kindergarten entry requirements, school expectations, and programs within the public school designed to support new immigrant families, including those from Somalia. The head of the district’s multicultural programs will also attend and discuss the various efforts being made by the district to work closely with families and children who have recently come to the United States. At the end of the session, a program to allow potential kindergarten students and their families, including Aasiya’s mother, grandmother, aunt, and father, to visit the school will be described, and schedules will be set up for future visits.
The child care center has also scheduled regular parent picnics after school so parents can socialize together with other parents from the program, share cultural foods, and enjoy each other’s company, to reduce friction between the two groups.
Maia’s Family
Maia is 4 years old. She attends a French international school, where she is learning French. The school provides before-and-after care, so her parents can work full time.
Maia’s mother is African American, and her father is white. Her mother is a teacher at a local public school, while her father works for the city. Maia has a 1-year-old baby brother who is cared for by her grandparents and who attends a family child care home part time. Maia enjoys the school’s early childhood program, called école maternelle. She loves art and learning the French language. Her parents enjoy the school picnics and other social activities, because the school attracts French-speaking families from Hong Kong, Canada, Madagascar, and France who live and work in the city, as well as local American families who want their children to learn French. The school is staffed by teachers from France and the United States. Its curriculum meets the requirements of the French government and the local school district.
However, Maia’s family has had to address confusion on the part of the teachers, other children, and parents about Maia’s identity. Some children ask Maia, “What are you anyway? Your mother is black and your father is white?” The French teachers are not familiar with African-American history and culture, and when Maia told her American music teacher that she is biracial, the teacher replied, “No, you are black, because your mother is black.” Also, when the school required the family to fill out forms to collect data on their children for the local school district and the state, the principal expected Maia’s parents to select the black racial box for Maia’s identity. The parents choose two or more races and then filled in Black and White.
What the Program and Family Can Do
Maia’s mother provided training to all the staff about multiracial people in the United States and about how the multicultural movement has provided interracial families with the opportunity to raise their children as truly multiracial (Root, 1996). She provided the school library with a list of books about interracial families, and both of Maia’s parents met with the American teacher to inform her that they were raising Maia and her brother as biracial—both black and white. Maia’s parents have also worked with Maia to give her words and phrases that she can use with other children and adults who are confused by her appearance and the fact that she has a white father and black mother.
Maia and her parents know that Maia’s racial identity will be an issue throughout her school life, at least if they stay in the United States. But they feel it is their responsibility to educate teachers and others about the growing number of interracial families and multiracial children in early care and education programs and schools. They have also told the school that they wish for Maia’s official identity on school forms to be “two or more races.”
Ephram’s Family
Ephram lives with his two parents and grandmother, along with an older sister. He is 2 years old. The family recently emigrated from Eastern Russia. They live in the Jewish part of town, and Ephram attends the Jewish Community Center’s early childhood program. His sister, who is 8 years old, attends a local Jewish elementary school. Ephram’s family is struggling with being new in this country. They do not know the language, customs, foods, how to move around the city, and how to access local services. Ephram’s mother teaches in the early childhood program; his father is taking English lessons at the Jewish Community Center and working with a counselor at the center to find employment. Not only must Ephram’s parents care for their two young children, but they also must provide for the needs of their elderly mother, who is very lonely and who has some critical medical issues that need to be addressed.
Finances are a big worry for this family. The Jewish community in the city sponsored their immigration from Russia, but they are struggling to make ends meet. Both the school and early childhood center require tuition.
What the Program and Family Can Do
Luckily, the Jewish early childhood program is part of a larger, active Jewish Community Center. The center includes a variety of services for seniors, and a food bank and other programs for families in need. Through some of these programs, Ephram’s grandmother is beginning to make some friends and has become involved in traditional cultural activities and traditions familiar to her from her native Russia. The parents are also quickly learning about American customs and discovering how to access important resources for their mother and children, beyond the Jewish community. Ephram’s mother has also discovered that the parent board of the Jewish early childhood program is very helpful to the family. Some of its members are teachers, others work with social services in the city, and several members are psychologists whose practice includes working with seniors.
Jesus’ Family
Jesus is the 3-year-old son of single mother Amy. When Jesus was born, Amy was a teen mother finishing her high school diploma. Luckily, the high school Amy attended had a program for infants of teen parents run by the local community college. Now, Amy attends that same community college, and is studying to become a nurse.
Jesus spends half of the day at a Head Start program that he just started. The other half of the day he attends the campus early childhood program at the community college where Amy studies. Jesus’ father was deported back to Mexico, and Jesus’ grandparents on his father’s side still live in Mexico.
Since he was born, Jesus has struggled to meet developmental benchmarks. When he was in the Early Head Start program, the program had him tested, and he is now diagnosed with ADHD and possibly Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism). Now, Child Find wants Amy to move him to the public school’s special education preschool program to receive services for his ADHD and Asperger’s. But Amy has had a positive experience working with Head Start; Jesus likes the program and his peers, and Amy enjoys the fact that she can visit her son between classes at the community college. Amy believes that Head Start can provide the direct services that Jesus needs, but Child Find believes the district can do a better job of providing these services in its preschool.
Amy also wants Jesus to develop knowledge and pride in his Hispanic heritage. Because he has no contact with his father and father’s family, Amy is trying to find other solutions to expose him to his culture and language.
What the Program and Family Can Do
The Head Start Jesus attends serves many Hispanic families, allowing Jesus the opportunity to learn about his culture from peers and other families. The program has also begun to institute a bilingual language program, so Jesus is learning Spanish. Amy has asked the campus early childhood program to provide more multicultural programs, materials, and activities, and teachers at the program are attending a multicultural class provided by the community college.
Addressing Jesus’ developmental delays is proving to be more difficult. The local district still wants him to move into the special education program. However, Amy is working closely with the disability manager of Jesus’ Head Start to provide the services he needs in the program; the manager and director of the campus child care program are also working together to determine ways the campus program can meet Jesus’ needs. The director of the program believes that it is important for her staff to learn how to work with children with developmental delays.
Ester’s Family
Ken and Ellen are grandparents raising two of their grandchildren, Michael and Ester. Michael is 8 years old and attends the neighborhood elementary school. Ester, his sister, is 2, and she attends the employee child care program where Ken works. Initially, the program would not accept Ester, because Ken is not her biological father. But after they worked with the HR department of the company, Ester was accepted.
Ken and Ellen are looking after their grandchildren because their son is in jail for selling drugs, and the children’s mother has been declared by the courts to be unfit to raise two young children, due to a severe drug problem. The court assigned Ken and Ellen to raise the two children. Ken works at a good company, and Ellen is a retired schoolteacher. Ken and Ellen had planned by this time in their lives to retire and to travel. Although they had planned to visit Europe and explore towns and villages from which their families originated, Ken now must continue to work for an income and to be able to have free child care for Ester. Ellen does not have the energy to care for Ester full time at home.
Neither Ken nor Ellen ever imagined this situation. They are not sure what the future holds, as both of them are getting older and both have challenging health issues. Their daughter-in-law, the children’s mother, is still in the picture, but she has not been able to overcome her drug addiction. Her visits are extremely disruptive for the children. The children have also struggled to understand this situation, and Michael especially has had trouble with Ken. Michael was very close to his father, and they would play sports together. Ken is not able to be as physically active. Ken and Ellen have worked with a counselor to try to address some of Michael’s issues, including his struggles at school. They think they might also include Ester when she is a little older.
Ken and Ellen also find it difficult to get involved in parent activities at the employee child care program and at their grandson’s school. All the other parents talk about their emerging careers and discuss the latest parenting and technology fads. They feel very out of place and think the caregivers and teachers in both settings are rather uncomfortable with them.
What the Program and Family Can Do
The center has decided to create a grandparent group (there are several grandparents actively involved with their children). While the other grandparents are not the sole providers for their children, they do have some of the same issues and interests as Ken and Ellen do. So far, this group has invited a person from the city to come to the center and talk about city services for grandparents; they are also developing a list of children’s books with positive scenarios of grandparents, which they will give to the teachers. Future activities may include a fundraiser to purchase books, a training session for staff about ways to include grandparents in the curriculum and activities, and visits to the local community college to talk to early childhood classes about ways to include grandparents in programs. Ken and Ellen have also begun the process of getting special education services for their grandson in the local public school.
Sarah’s Family
Sarah attends a program run by the Lutheran church her family attends on Sundays. Sarah, age 3, attends the program every morning. In the afternoon, she is cared for at home by her father, who also cares for her 1-year-old brother. He is a stay-at-home father. Sarah’s mother is a pediatrician at the local university training hospital. The Lutheran early childhood program describes Sarah’s family as high maintenance. Her mother is always telling the staff what to do, not only with Sarah but also with all of the children. She is particularly focused on healthy nutrition, hygiene, and health issues. Because she is also very involved with the church, she often complains about the early childhood program to the church hierarchy. Needless to say, this causes tension in the program, and the staff members need to be very careful not to take out their frustrations on Sarah and her father.
Sarah’s father also struggles with being a stay-at-home father. He loves his children and enjoys seeing them grow and develop, and he is taking a child development class in the evenings at the local community college to understand the development of young children. But he often sees his old buddies with high-status careers and feels very uncomfortable when they all get together to discuss their lives, interests, and challenges. He also believes the female director and her staff do not treat him seriously, always waiting for his wife to communicate issues of concern about Sarah.
What the Program and Family Can Do
There are two general issues that need to be addressed: (1) Sarah’s mother’s interference in program activities, and (2) her father’s feeling of inadequacy. The former issue needs to be addressed by the head of the early childhood program and the church meeting together with Sarah’s mother to establish boundaries between the program, church, and families. Possibly Sarah’s mother could become officially involved by joining the parent board that oversees the early childhood program, thus clarifying her role.
Sarah’s father might want to work with his community college early childhood department to develop a training program about fathers in early care and education programs. He could then present the training module to Sarah’s program. Additionally, he could work with one of Sarah’s teachers to find children’s books that provide positive stories about stay-at-home fathers caring for their children. Finally, he might explore a hobby or vocation that he can pursue with his male buddies when he is not caring for his children.
Common Issues for All Families
All six families discussed in these scenarios are earnestly trying to meet the basic needs of their children. Further, the programs are working with (or will work with) these families to provide for the needs of their children. To this end, the families provide varying degrees of the following attributes of resilient families:
Commitment
Attachment to each other
Individual independence and group independence
Ability to give and receive nurturing
Ability to get needs met
Coping skills
Methods to build self-esteem in their children
Effective communication
Ability to pass on culture, goals, and values (Gonzalez-Mena, 2009)
However, each family experiences many of the typical stressors of families with young children, including poverty, children with developmental delays, problems with substance abuse, grandparents raising children, lack of extended family support, communication difficulties, new immigrant status, and cultural conflicts between the family and program. In the next section, we describe some additional ways early care and education programs can address some of these issues.
10.4 How Early Care and Education Programs Address Family Stress
In Chapter 1, we discussed at length ways early care and education programs can help families meet some of the basic family functions we have discussed in this chapter. According to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, families and early care and education programs must work together to maximize the growth and learning of the child (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
In this section, we will look at specific ways the early care and education program can support families and thus reduce family stress. Specifically, early care and education programs need to find ways to help young families address the family functions described at the beginning of this chapter (see Helping Children Develop:
The Five Family Functions
). Programs can help families with all of the functional areas, from providing the necessities their children need (e.g., nutrition, parenting skills, and access to community resources) to encouraging learning (e.g., ideas for reading to children at home and using low-cost community resources such as libraries and free days at the museum). Food banks, community gardens, low-cost emergency care, health clinics, additional child care services, mental health counseling (for either the children or adults in the family), and services for children with possible developmental delays can all be found through contacts at the early care and education program.
HELPING CHILDREN DEVELOP:
The Five Family Functions
These are the functions all families provide for their children:
Provide basic necessities
Encourage learning
Develop self-esteem
Nurture peer relationships
Maintain harmony and stability
Targeted Programs
Certain early care and education programs are designed to address the specific needs of targeted children and families. These include programs such as Head Start, which serves low-income 3- to 5-year-olds and focuses on preparing children for school success; the Hope Center in Denver, Colorado, which caters to African-American gifted preschoolers; and the Renaissance Center in Lakewood, Colorado, which is designed for young children in homeless families (Wardle, 2009). There are also many home-based models, in which teachers and other providers work directly with children and parents in the home. The Portage model is one such approach (Shearer & Shearer, 2005); the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) is another. Both of these programs target parents with limited skills and confidence in their ability to prepare their children for successful school entry. Often these parents lack success in formal education, are poor, and may have limited English proficiency (HIPPY USA, 2012). Head Start also provides a home-based model.
Many states provide free preschool programs for low-income children, and some provide programs for children with specific developmental delays, such as learning disabilities, ADHD, blindness, and autism. However, the federal government does not allow for children with disabilities to be segregated, instead requiring them to be mainstreamed in programs with students without developmental delays (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). Other early care and education programs teach English to non-English-speaking children or a foreign language to English-speaking children.
Direct Services
Many early care and education programs provide direct services to their families. The kinds of direct services that are provided depend on the early care and education program and the families they serve. Sometimes these are simply ongoing offerings, such as parenting classes, English-language classes, and how to contact agencies that help families access food banks and other community services. Other offerings are created, ad hoc, when enough families express an interest and require a service or activity. Classes on including men in the lives of children, cultural diversity, growing your own food, budgeting, developing low-cost nutritional meals, and job training are all examples of these kinds of direct services provided by early care and education programs.
Accessing Services within a Network
Many early care and education programs are part of a broader network of programs and agencies. An early care and education program within a large Jewish community center will be able to connect parents to services that meet specific family needs. Many Head Start programs are a part of much larger service networks. For example, in many cities, Catholic Charities runs Head Start programs as well as a vast array of other programs that struggling families can use. And early childhood programs run by local school districts will have direct access to services for children with developmental delays, parents who need to earn a GED, and adults who do not speak English.
Resource Referral
Staff in early care and education programs become experts regarding community agencies that serve families in a variety of capacities, from drug counseling, family therapy, job placement and training to medical referrals for children with severe medical issues, food banks, and relief for high heat bills. These early care and education staff members are wonderful resources for families to use to meet the unique needs of their children, parents, and extended family members.
Many community agencies that serve families with young children make it a point to disseminate information at local early care and education centers. The state’s department of health will provide information about immunization schedules, current health risks, and general health concerns. Mental health associations will let families know about their services; training and employment agencies provide information to parents and other family members, and drug counseling organizations provide information, contacts, and referrals. Early care and education programs that serve unique populations, such as new immigrant families, families who have recently adopted children from other countries, children with developmental delays, or homeless families, will be targeted by community agencies that serve these populations.
Transition to K-12 Schools
All children and families that use an early care and education program will later use a local school—a public school, religious program, or private school. Sometimes the transition is seamless: from Catholic preschool to the local Catholic elementary school, or from the district preschool program to the local K-12 school. But often the transition is difficult, especially for families under particular kinds of stress. Parents of a child diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger’s syndrome will need to work diligently to make sure their child can smoothly transition from the early childhood program to the local public school. Early care and education programs must work together to make these transitions as stress-free as possible. One way that early care and education programs reduce family stress is for all of the programs, including local schools and their Child Find agencies, to work together for the good of young children and their families.
Advocacy
Even if an early care and education program is not immediately able to meet the needs of a family, or to refer the family to other community agencies, they become advocates for families. In this capacity, staff know how to seek out information, are tenacious in advocating for families, and have their own professional networks that they can often use to find solutions to specific problems presented by families they serve. Sometimes, other families in the center know of needed services or are involved in providing such services and, at other times, college connections and state-funded training programs can be used to collect important information.
Additionally, early care and education programs and parents can work together to change legislation, advocate for needed family-friendly services, and educate groups that service young children and their families.
10.5 Quality Efforts Designed to Make Sure Programs Support Families
We have just discussed a variety of ways that early care and education programs support families and attempt to reduce some of the stress families experience in meeting the needs of their young children. There are also formal instruments that have been expressly designed to assist programs to improve the quality of their services for children and families. These instruments evaluate many quality indicators of a program, from health and safety requirements, curricula, and classroom materials, to specific services designed to maximize partnerships with the families they serve. As we have seen in our discussions of family functions, quality indicators such as treating parents as partners and communicating with parents clearly address issues important to families. Everything that the early care and education program does has a direct impact on the family’s sense of security, faith in the program, and belief that the program has the best intentions to meet the needs of their children in everything they do. These quality indicators assist programs in meeting this important goal (Sanders & Howes, 2013).
Several different instruments are used to evaluate the quality of early care and education programs. They include environment rating scales, program accreditation, and program-specific evaluations (e.g., the Head Start Program
Performance Standards
). Individual programs use these instruments to improve the overall quality of their programs (Sanders & Howes, 2013). All of these quality improvement instruments require program-wide activities in which everyone in the program must be involved
(NAEYC, 2012)
. And some assessments, such as the Head Start’s self-evaluation, also require direct parent involvement (U.S. HHS, 1999). Thus it is critical that all staff in any program, be it a Head Start program, public preschool program, private program, or not-for-profit center, understand the purpose of program assessments, become familiar with specific instruments, and appreciate the need to work closely with parents when the evaluation occurs. These quality improvement systems are now being used by states and funding sources to determine program quality, as a ladder toward improvement (Sanders & Howes, 2013); therefore all teachers and caregivers need to become familiar with various evaluation and assessment approaches.
Environment Rating Scales
Thelma Harms, Richard Clifford, and Debbie Cryer have developed and validated a series of environment rating scales, published through the Frank Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The various rating scales are the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS, rev. ed.; Harms & Clifford, 1989), Infant/Toddlers Environment Rating Scale (ITERS; Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1990), School-Age Care Environment Rating Scale (SACERS; Harms, Clifford, & White, 1996), and Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS, rev. ed.; Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005).
The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale, published in 1980 and revised in 1998 (ECERS-Revised), is designed for children 2½ to 5 years old. The subscales for the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale are the following:
Space and Furnishings
Personal Care Routines
Language-Reasoning
Activities
Interaction
Program Structure
Parents and Staff
Each of these subscales is then broken down into additional items (see Table 10.1). For each of these items, a seven-point scale is created, which goes from inadequate (1), through minimal (3), to good (5), and then excellent (7). Thus, every item can be scored from 1 to 7 (a zero score is used when there is a lack of evidence to demonstrate that an item is addressed). Then the score for each of the subscales is totaled. For example, Space and Furnishings has a maximum of 56 points (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005).
Scoring of the ECERS-R is conducted by observing a classroom or group of children at one time for a block of at least 3 hours, using scoring sheets provided by the instrument. Averages of item scores are determined by summing the score for each item of the subscale and then dividing by the number of item scores. The scoring sheet also allows the observer to record details about each item, such as the number of child-size chairs, and to provide a tally of diversity materials by race, gender, culture, age, and disability. The observer is encouraged to write notes on the score sheet. All the subscales are scored the exact same way.
Table 10.1: Overview of the subscales and items of the ECERS-R
|
Space and Furnishings 1. Indoor space 2. Furniture for routine care, play, and learning 3. Furnishings for relaxation and comfort 4. Room arrangement for play 5. Space for privacy 6. Child-related display 7. Space for gross motor play 8. Gross motor equipment Personal Care Routines 9. Greeting/departing 10. Meals/snacks 11. Nap/rest 12. Toileting/diapering 13. Health practices 14. Safety practices Language-Reasoning 15. Books and pictures 16. Encourage children to communicate 17. Using language to develop reasoning skills 18. Informal use of language Activities 19. Fine motor 20. Art 21. Music/movement 22. Blocks |
23. Sand/water 24. Dramatic play 25. Nature/science 26. Math/number 27. Use of TV, video, or computers 28. Promoting acceptance of diversity Interaction 29. Supervision of gross motor activities 30. General supervision of children (other than gross motor) 31. Discipline 32. Staff-child interactions 33. Interactions among children Program Structure 34. Schedule 35. Free play 36. Group time 37. Provisions for children with disabilities Parents and Staff 38. Provisions for parents 39. Provisions for personal needs of staff 40. Provisions for professional needs of staff 41. Staff interaction and cooperation 42. Supervision and evaluation of staff 43. Opportunities for professional growth |
Program Accreditation
Program accreditation is a voluntary process used by early care and education programs to improve quality. Pre-developed quality indicators, based on early care and education best practices, are used both to assist the individual program in implementing a variety of processes to improve and to provide parents, funders, and other community members a standardized indication of a program’s quality (Sanders & Howes, 2013). Because all staff members in any early care and education program have the most direct impact on the quality of the program, and because quality improvements last only if they are fully embraced by all staff, it is critical that anyone involved in working with young children understands the importance of accreditation procedures. Further, program accreditation is becoming a high stakes method that states and other funding sources use to improve program quality and fund program improvement (Sanders & Howes, 2013). Accreditation procedures include those developed for family child care homes, Montessori programs, and various religious programs. Here we will examine the accreditation process used by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). This will provide students with a prototype of quality assessment systems that they will likely encounter.
Each of the accreditation protocols focuses on indicators of quality, and these indicators isolate specific processes, such as child-adult interactions and staff-parent interactions, rather than addressing the kinds of outcomes and standards public schools measure through high stakes assessments. There is an obvious overlap between the environment rating scales discussed in the previous section and program accreditation, with the environment rating scales matching some accreditation components. But program accreditation is generally broader than the environment rating scales, including other indicators of quality, such as curriculum and child-adult ratios.
Standards of Accreditation
The NAEYC accreditation booklet (used by those conducting the accreditation of a program) states that “the criteria listed in this book represent the current consensus of the early childhood profession regarding the definition of a high quality program for young children” (NAEYC, 2005, p. ix). Many of the quality indicators are universally accepted health and safety rules, some of which are required by each state’s early childhood licensing body, including standards for supervision, storage of records, and sterilization of toys and other materials.
Other standards, such as child-staff ratios and standards of curriculum and teaching interactions, differ from program to program and are based on an organization’s specific philosophical orientation. The philosophical basis of the NAEYC accreditation standards are developmentally appropriate practice (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Research suggests that the process of accreditation increases program quality; accredited programs provide high-quality care and education to young children and families; and teachers and caregivers in accredited programs are more knowledgeable about child development and best practices than are those in programs that are not accredited (Sanders & Howes, 2013).
As we briefly explore the various components of these accreditation processes, it is critical to remember that the heart of any quality early care and education program is the staff. Not only do the teachers and caregivers create and maintain the environment, implement the curriculum, plan learning experiences, individualize instruction, and manage the classroom, but they are also responsible for the critically important growth and development of children’s self-regulation and social and emotional development (McClelland, Acock, & Morrison, 2006; Hyson, 2008). Further, teachers and caregivers are responsible for creating a warm and rich partnership with families (NAEYC, 2005). However, as we have discussed throughout this book, early childhood teachers and caregivers are often poorly paid, with few benefits (Neugebauer, 2008).
NAEYC Accreditation Indicators
The accreditation indicators used for the NAEYC accreditation process were originally developed in 1985 and have undergone several revisions since (see Spotlight:
The Categories Addressed by NAEYC Accreditation
).
SPOTLIGHT:
The Categories Addressed by NAEYC Accreditation
Interactions among staff and children
Curriculum
Staff-parent interactions
Administration
Staffing
Physical environment
Health and safety
Nutrition and safety
Evaluation
(NAEYC, 2012)
Under each of these headings are indicators that determine how well a standard is met. For example, under the category interactions among staff and children, item A-1, is,
Staff interact frequently with children. Staff express respect for and affection toward children by smiling, touching, holding, and speaking to children at their eye level throughout the day, particularly at arrival and departure, and when diapering or feeding very young children. Staff actively seek meaningful conversations with children. (NAEYC, 2005, p. 15)
Three gradations, not met, partially met, and fully met, are used by the evaluator to assess each item.
Accreditation Procedure
The NAEYC accreditation process has three levels:
Self-study. An individual early care and education program uses the accreditation materials to evaluate its own program. The team works on making changes to items not met in the program. The results of this self-assessment are then sent to the Commission of Accreditation in Washington, D.C.
Validation. An evaluator or team of evaluators (depending on the size of the program) visits the program and conducts its own assessment, comparing their observations with the program’s own self-assessment.
Commission decision. The Commission of Accreditation, empowered by NAEYC, examines both documents and then makes a determination based on the findings (NAEYC, 2012). This decision is then communicated to the program.
Program-Specific Evaluations
Head Start and Early Head Start, the U.S. Department of Defense early care and education programs, and some national religious early childhood programs all have developed their own comprehensive national approaches to evaluate their programs. One advantage of this approach is that sponsoring organizations can tailor quality evaluations to match the program’s values and philosophy and highlight unique aspects of their early care and education approach. The federal Head Start and Early Head Start programs use a process called the
PRISM Evaluation System
, which is conducted on all local programs every three years.
Performance Standards
Head Start performance standards outline overall program standards to be met in each component area of the local program (U.S. HHS, 1999). These component areas include family partnerships, community partnerships, nutrition, health and safety, mental health, and education and early childhood development. The performance standards in each component area enable this vast, comprehensive federal early childhood program to provide flexibility to meet local needs, while also maintaining quality control. For example, under the education and child development component, programs are expected to use a well-developed curriculum that meets the unique needs of the children and families in the community served by the program. One program may have a significant number of Spanish-speaking families that requires a bilingual curriculum (and English classes for parents); another program may need to work closely with the immigrant Hmong community, exploring ways to include Hmong culture, traditions, art, and language into the curriculum. A third program might include a very strong nutrition component to attack a growing problem of diabetes and obesity in the community (Wardle, 2009).
PRISM Evaluation System
The Head Start evaluation has two parts: a self-evaluation conducted by parents and community members, and a federal onsite team that corroborates the self-assessment while providing a more authoritative review and documentation. Today, all local Head Start programs use what is called the PRISM process (Program Review Instrument for Systems Monitoring of Head Start and Early Head Start) (U.S. HHS, 2002). This includes a combination of methods to determine each program’s compliance with each of the performance standards. For example, under community partnerships, the number and nature of these partnerships must be shown and efforts made by the local program to increase these partnerships documented. Results of the PRISM are used to improve the local program and to satisfy accountability to the federal government.
Families and Program Quality
All the systems described—environment rating scales, program accreditation, and program-specific quality systems—have a specific family component. This component examines how well the early care and education program works directly in partnerships with families to meet the education and development needs of children, and to support parents and other family members in their sincere efforts to raise healthy, well-educated children. Evaluation programs require parents to be involved in the quality improvement process in a number of ways:
Communication. The program must continually inform parents of the ways the program is evaluated, what the evaluation means regarding program quality, and how parents can be involved in the process.
Direct involvement. Many program evaluation processes, such as the Head Start PRISM, directly use parents in the self-evaluation process. This is an invaluable activity, because it enables parents to have direct input into the quality of their children’s program and also increases their knowledge about how the program works.
Opportunity to effect change. A central purpose of all program evaluation is to improve program quality (Sanders & Howes, 2013). Further, all programs can benefit by improving their ability to work collaboratively and respectfully with the families of the children they serve. The program evaluation—whether a rating scale, accreditation process, or program-specific activity—is a great place for parents to have direct input into the quality of their children’s programs.
Wardle, F. (2013).
Collaboration with families and communities
[Electronic version]. Retrieved from
https://content.ashford.edu/
