assignment

  

Family Partnerships

 PLEASE READ ALL AND FOLLOW EVERYTHING

 Chapter 1(SEE ATTACHED FILE) focuses on the family-centered approach to early childhood education, highlighting the importance of the partnership between the family, the early childhood program, and the community to maximize a child’s development and learning.

For this assignment, you will create a one- to two-page fact sheet (not including title and reference pages) you can provide to the families in your program that explains the values and challenges of a family-centered approach.
 

The content on your fact sheet should:

a. Summarize the components of a family-centered approach.

b. Describe five benefits of a family-centered approach.

c. Describe two potential obstacles to overcome in a family-centered approach.

d. Recommend two strategies to overcome obstacles and enlist the support of parents.

In addition to the required content, please be creative with your fact sheet. Keep in mind that this is a resource to be used in the classroom, so make it parent friendly and engaging. You may wish to add visuals and pictures. Be sure to also use at least one scholarly source in addition to the text to support the ideas, and cite all references in APA format 

1.1Why a Family-Centered Approach

Traditionally, schools throughout the world have been institutions in which teachers, social workers, and educational specialists are considered the sole source of knowledge, information, and expertise, and parents are expected to support and implement the advice of these experts. Until recently, in contrast with schools, early childhood care and education programs followed a parent-oriented approach in which parents assumed a more active role. Families got together to care for each other’s children; sometimes the older women in a community cared for the young children, and mothers rotated care in mother’s-day-out programs. One example of high-quality family-oriented child care in the United States can be found in the Kaiser Shipyards during WWII, where mothers worked in factories building ships. These programs provided family medical care and even meals for mothers to take home after their shift in the factory (Hurwitz, 1998). However, over the years, many early childhood programs became more like schools, expecting parents to listen passively to their advice and to help implement their programs (Keyser, 2006).

The development of a family-centered early care and education approach can be traced to the federal early childhood program Head Start. Formed in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start was developed as a comprehensive program for low-income families with preschool-age children, with a focus on parent involvement and community collaboration (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2012). The architects of Head Start recognized the need to work in an equal partnership with families of low-income children (Greenberg, 1969). To this end, the program was designed with very specific roles and responsibilities for parents. Program Performance Standards outline overall standards to be met in each component area. These are critical quality indicators used to ensure the program meets the unique needs of the communities and families the program serves. Component areas that must meet these performance standards include specific requirements for parent activities, such as opportunities for parents to follow a career path to become teachers in the local program. Additionally, all local Head Start programs have a governing body, known as a policy council, which must include parents. This body has direct responsibilities in a variety of areas, including approval of hiring and firing of all staff, budget and program component approval, and overall program evaluation (HHS, 2012).

The design of local Head Start programs led more and more early childhood programs to consider a shared approach to power and control. Other early childhood models (such as Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and local community-based programs) practice different degrees of the family-centered approach, depending on their unique philosophy, history, and ownership. With a family-centered approach, children, families, and professionals gain:

Enriched communication

Shared power and decision making

Supportive relationships

A network of mutual support

Consistent behavioral expectations for the child

Cultural continuity between the home and the program

The increased diversity of families served by early childhood programs also requires an approach that is collaborative and open. Families from around the world, and from diverse cultural, linguistic, racial, and ethnic groups within the United States, attend many of these programs. They bring different views regarding discipline, child-rearing approaches, food, gender identity, play, educational expectations, and so on. A family-centered approach enables programs to learn from parents about the various ways they raise their children, and it helps the program share different ideas with families. Furthermore, through collaboration, continuity of care can be provided between the program and the family. Children are more secure, have more positive identities, and are less confused when there is consistency between what is expected and taught at home, and what is expected and taught in the early care and education program (Gonzalez-Mena, 2008). As we will discuss throughout the book, providing continuity of care between the home and the program is particularly challenging when cultural differences are the greatest (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2010). (For more on this, see Spotlight:

Family-Early Childhood Program-Community Partnerships

.)

SPOTLIGHT:

Family-Early Childhood Program-Community Partnerships

Joyce Epstein, professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships, has developed a framework of six types of involvement to guide the development of parent partnerships in family-centered early childhood programs (2009). This framework is further discussed in Chapter 6. The six types of involvement are:

Parenting. Offer families assistance with parenting and child-rearing skills, in understanding child development, and in setting home conditions that support children as students. Early childhood directors and managers should also assist teachers and caregivers in understanding families.

Communicating. Keep families up-to-date on early childhood programs and individual students’ progress through effective program-to-home and home-to-school communications.

Volunteering. Support children and early childhood programs, improve outreach, training, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and improve family attendance at events at the program and in other accessible community locations.

Learning and Development at Home. Offer suggestions and techniques to involve families in parenting and learning activities with their children at home and in the community.

Decision Making. Include families as participants in program decisions, governance, parent advisory groups, and advocacy through policy councils, governing boards, committees, and other parent organizations.

Collaborating with the Community. Coordinate resources and services for families, children, and the early childhood program with businesses, agencies, and other groups. Also provide services to the community. For example, children might entertain senior citizens, plant flowers to beautify a park, or donate vegetables from their garden to a homeless shelter.

In achieving child development and learning outcomes, children do better whenever teachers, families, and the community all work together.

1.2 Contexts and Stages

Many theories have been advanced over the years to explain children’s learning, development, emotional growth, and social interactions. Two theories are used throughout this book to help us understand the importance of examining the critical relationships between the child, family, community, and early care and education program. Theoretical frameworks help us “see the big picture” and provide us with a conceptual framework that guides our understanding of growth and development. Rather than simply describing individual behaviors and milestones—such as a child learning to talk, or a child’s fear of monsters—theories place growth, development, and learning within a much larger perspective. Theoretical frameworks then help us study this plan or framework while keeping our focus on the big picture: the relationship of the family, community, and early childhood program to the growth, development, and learning of the child.

Both the Bronfenbrenner ecological systems theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory are comprehensive and widely applied (McAdams & Pals, 2006). Bronfenbrenner (1979) describes the various overlapping and interacting environments that affect a child’s growth and development, including the family, community, and early childhood program. It also describes the relationship between these contexts and how they need to align to meet the needs of the child most effectively.

Erikson’s (1963, 1980) psychosocial theory is a stage theory, beginning at birth. It describes each stage and the major psychosocial tasks to be achieved at each stage. The theory is used as one of the frameworks of this book because it focuses on the child’s interactions with significant adults and the surrounding culture and describes the processes needed for young children to develop a social and psychological foundation for a secure sense of self. This in turn provides the child with the foundation to learn, grow, and succeed in school.

A variety of other well-known developmental, behavioral, and learning theories are embedded at various points in this book. These include the first two stages of Piaget’s developmental theory, Vygotsky’s theory describing the influence of language and social interaction on learning, and the application of Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning on discipline methods and behavior. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Gardner’s eight intelligences, and various other theoretical perspectives on culture and learning are studied as well. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory provide the overall framework for the text. Let’s look at each of these theoretical frameworks in greater detail.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner was one of the architects of Head Start, and he deeply understood the power of various contextual influences on the development and education of young children. An immigrant to the United States from Russia, Bronfenbrenner developed a theoretical system in which the child is placed in the center, surrounded by concentric rings. He called this an ecological systems theory or bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1995; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998).

As humans develop, they must continually adapt to change on both a personal and a social level. Human ecology involves the biological, social, psychological, and cultural contexts in which a developing child interacts and grows over time. Children are socialized and supported by their families, schools, and communities. These agents nurture children’s development as they progress toward adulthood. However, the relationship between the child and these contexts is reciprocal and dynamic—the child affects the contexts as much as they affect the child, and these reciprocal, dynamic relationships become more complex over time (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). The concentric rings in the model display the critical ecological contexts in which the child grows, develops, and learns. These contexts, from the family and early childhood program, to the media and the nation in which the child lives, have a profound impact on the child’s development.

The level of impact that each of these contexts has on the child depends on what Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994) call proximal processes. Proximal processes are the interactions between the child and the environment, by which the child’s potential (determined through genetics) is actualized through various effective psychological functions. The bioecological model suggests that if these proximal processes are weak, the child’s potential will remain relatively unrealized, while they will become more actualized when these proximal processes increase. According to Bronfenbrenner and Ceci, factors that determine the effectiveness of the proximal process are, “the proximal processes, their stability over time, the environmental contexts in which they take place, the characteristics of the person’s involvement, and the nature of the developmental outcomes under consideration” (1994, p. 569). Central to this concept is the view that a child’s potential is a result of the child’s genetic inheritance interacting with environmental experiences to determine developmental outcomes, because genetics do not automatically produce finished traits. And central to this interaction is the influence of the child on the environment and on the nature of the experience and the strength of the proximal process. We call this two-way interaction a bidirectional interaction.

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1995; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) theory breaks these contextual influences into four overall structures, or systems, all of which are surrounded by an overriding fifth structure or concept, the chronosystem: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem (see Figure 1.1).

A brief description is provided for each of these structures. Throughout the rest of the text, this model is used to help us analyze and understand the critical interrelationships between the child, family, community, and early childhood program, and how each of these factors not only affect each other, but also must ultimately work together to maximize the full potential of the child (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998).

Microsystem

The activities and relationships a child has with significant others in small settings, such as the family, early childhood program, peer group, and the child’s immediate community, make up what is called the microsystem. The microsystem includes all of the critical components analyzed in this text—the child, family, community, and early childhood program. These components have a direct impact on the child, as the child does on them. For example, all of the elements of a family, including parents, other siblings, and extended family members, affect the child. If a child has a father who takes his child to a local train museum, visits miniature train displays, and as he gets older takes him on a ride on an historic steam train, chances are that the child will learn to love trains and certainly will know more about trains than most other young children will. (See Personal Stories: Developing Self-Esteem for another example.)

Mesosystem

The linkages and interrelationships between two or more of the microsystems, such as the family and early childhood program, early childhood program and community, or the family and the child’s peers, are called the mesosystem. The stronger, more supportive, and more frequent these linkages, the greater their positive impact on the growth and development of the child. Good early childhood-family relationships are an example of this concept, as are good relationships between the child’s immediate family and extended family. For example, if an immigrant child from Somalia attends a child care center where some of the teachers are also Somali, a close relationship between his culture, religion, and language can provide the child with a sense of comfort and security.

In fact, the mesosystem’s structure of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is at the heart of a family-centered early childhood program. It recognizes that, while the family is central to the development and learning of the child, and a quality early childhood program is essential for preparing the child for a successful school experience, the linkages between the family and early childhood program enhance and affect both of these important outcomes.

Exosystem

Contexts that a child does not have direct, physical contact with, but that nonetheless have a profound impact on the child, are known as the exosystem. Exosystems include the parents’ work environments; city and community governing boards; local school district boards of education; disability councils; community health care centers; Women, Infants and Children (WIC) offices; Indian centers; and federal/state governing boards of various agencies, such as child care licensing offices and early childhood certification programs. The impact of the exosystem on the child is dependent upon the way the exosystem directly influences each of the microsystems (i.e., early childhood programs, family, and community). For example, if the community in which a family lives (exosystem) decides to sponsor a local Head Start program (microsystem), this will have a positive result on the family’s 4-year-old child, along with the whole family. A city- or school-sponsored preschool for low-income children would have a similar effect, as would quality employee child care where one of the parents works and affordable health insurance for the family.

A powerful component of the exosystem is the media. The media (and particularly television) surrounds most young children. Not only do young children see sex and violence beyond their developmental age, but they are also exposed to commercials to buy unhealthy food and items they do not need. The media is a very strong influence on young children, affecting their cognitive, linguistic, and social development (Elkind, 2007; Wright et al., 2001). While parents can control what their children watch on TV, many do not; further, many young children have TVs in their own rooms. The actual content of TV programs, including children’s programs, is out of the parents’ control. On average, young American children spend 3 to 5 hours a day watching TV, often with little parental monitoring. And young children from low socioeconomic backgrounds spend even more time watching TV than do children from better-educated and higher-income families (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005; Roberts & Froeh, 2004).

Macrosystem

A society and the subcultures within that society—the values, belief systems, lifestyles, and patterns of social interaction and family styles—are called the macrosystem. Examples in the United States include the overall U.S. culture and U.S. national identity, racial and ethnic group, religious affiliation, geographic location—rural, urban, or suburban—and low, middle-, or upper-income socioeconomic status. These are the overall contexts that affect a person’s worldview and perspective. For example, a child who grows up in São Paulo, Brazil, a huge city in a country that is deeply embedded geographically, economically, religiously, and culturally within South America, has a very different experience than a young child raised in New York City does. The influences of these factors are transmitted unconsciously, and they affect personal space, time, interpersonal relationships, how we raise children, and our expectations of our children (Hall, 1976, 1983). All aspects of a child’s life and social experiences are affected one way or another by the macrosystem.

Many of these macrosystems’ cultural patterns affect communication. Differences in communication can result in conflict between people from different cultural, national, religious, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. This, in turn, can become a deterrent to collaboration between parents, teachers, and program administrators, particularly in a program run primarily by a white, middle-class staff that serves parents who are low income and/or non-white (Neugebauer, 2008). Finally, because the early childhood field is an overwhelmingly female culture (97% of teachers and caregivers are women), fathers and men in extended families often struggle to work collaboratively with their children’s early childhood programs (Wardle, 2007).

Chronosystem

A change in the individual child due to the passage of time (i.e., development) and changes in all of the other structures also due to the passage of time is called the chronosystem. An example of the chronosystem is the tremendous influence of brain development on the language acquisition and emotional regulation of the individual child (Schiller, 2010). Many developmental changes have a profound impact on a child’s growth and learning, such as toilet training, learning to speak, and being able to walk. For example, once a child has learned to talk, the child’s interest in labeling objects, reading simple words, and asking many questions greatly expands. Reciprocally, all of these developmental changes affect the various contexts in which children live and develop. For example, safety concerns become much more critical once a child has learned to walk because the child can now find the electrical outlets, walk to the entrance of the steps, and discover the sharp knives in the dishwasher. An example of change due to the passage of time is the fact that while parents’ primary concern about their child’s welfare a century ago might have been death due to a childhood illness, modern-day concerns about the child’s safety are more likely to relate to accidents, such as drowning or car accidents.

Significant historical events are another example of the chronosystem, and they can have both positive and negative influences on the lives of young children. The creation of Head Start in 1965 had a positive impact on thousands of low-income children throughout the United States. Many believe the federal law No Child Left Behind, directly affecting K-12 education, had a negative impact on young children as inappropriate academic outcomes were pushed down into the early childhood curriculum (Kagan, Carroll, Comer, & Scott-Little, 2006).

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory will be used to frame many of our discussions as we examine and analyze the interrelatedness of the critical contexts that affect the care and development of children, infants to age 5 years old.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

The second framework is a lifespan theory of eight stages that was developed by Erik Erikson (1963, 1980), a psychologist who grew up in Europe and then worked in the United States after World War II. The first three stages cover the ages of infancy to 6 years old. Erikson’s stages describe the tasks children—and later adults—should achieve at a certain age and the behaviors and emotions they will experience if these tasks are not achieved: He called this a psychosocial theory. According to Erikson, a child will achieve each of the required milestones if the child lives and grows in a supportive, responsive, caring environment. Throughout this text, we will discuss how to maximize the opportunities for children to progress through each of Erikson’s stages successfully. One way to address both the social and physical environment needed to achieve each stage is to focus on the collaboration and partnership between the family and early care and education program—to create and foster a consistent, supportive environment.

Erikson grew up between the two great wars in northern Europe. He became a disciple of Freud and later was analyzed by Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud. In 1933, Erikson came to the United States and taught at several prominent universities. He developed an eight-stage lifespan theory of psychosocial development: trust versus mistrust (age birth to 1 year old), autonomy versus shame and doubt (2 to 3 years old), initiative versus guilt (3 to 5 or 6 years old), industry versus inferiority (6 to 10 years old), identity versus role confusion (10 to 20 years old), intimacy versus isolation (early adulthood), generativity versus stagnation (middle adulthood), and integrity versus despair (late adulthood) (Erikson, 1963, 1980).

For each stage, he described what he called a developmental crisis. For example, the first stage is trust versus mistrust. Trust is what the infant should develop; mistrust is the result of not achieving the goal (Erikson, 1963, 1980). The third stage, initiative versus guilt, is characterized by the child undertaking and planning challenging activities and being very much on the move (Erikson, 1963). However, children at this age must also learn to control their impulses and consider the wishes and feelings of others. For each stage, the secret is to balance support of the child’s natural intuition with the need for the child to learn how to behave in a responsible manner. According to Erikson, over-regulation and too much adult control at this stage would result in guilt. Erikson believed that resolution of these stages would eventually lead to a healthy adult; lack of resolution would cause problems later in life. While he presented each stage as dramatic polar opposites, he believed that resolution of each stage fell somewhere in between these opposites.

In Erikson’s theory (1963), resolution of each stage is dependent upon the interactions between the individual (in our case, the child) and the social environment of the family, community, culture, and early childhood program. But this resolution is not as simple as it originally appears, because there is often tension between what a child needs and wants, and the social responses to those needs and wants. For example, the crisis to be met at the age 1- to 3-year-old stage is autonomy, or a sense of independent self, yet we are all aware that it is impossible (and unethical) to give a 2-year-old full autonomy.

While Erikson’s theory describes the progress of children through each of these psychosocial stages as they are affected by their social environment, later research has added another interesting element to our understanding of this progress. In 1977, Thomas and Chess conducted an experiment that showed that many very young children already exhibit one of three distinct personality types. The study also showed that a young child’s personality has a profound impact on the child’s social environment. This two-way interaction, from adult to child, and child to adult, is the same bidirectional force we discussed earlier in describing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. For example, a child who is in Erikson’s second stage (autonomy versus shame/doubt) is continually trying to achieve his independence, which often causes safety issues and can frustrate a parent or caregiver. In turn, the parent or caregiver may overly restrict or punish the child.

Trust Versus Mistrust (Birth to 1 Year Old)

Infants need to know their basic needs will be met. When hungry, they need to know they will be fed. When they need intellectual stimulation, they need to know it will be provided, and when they need to be nurtured and soothed, they need to know this too will be provided. The notion of picking up a crying baby comes from this concept. A child cries to communicate a need, whether it is hunger, boredom, or wanting attention, and thus from an Erikson point of view, the parent or caregiver should try to meet the infant’s need. Erikson believed that when a child’s basic needs are met, the child will develop an overall trust in the world around him or her. Trust is the generalized feeling the infant develops about the world being a secure place (Erikson, 1963). In this huge world filled with billions of people, each infant is important, significant, and unique (Erikson, 1963, 1980). Conversely, a child whose basic needs are not met responsively and appropriately learns mistrust—the world really does not care, and to other people the child is unimportant and insignificant.

A lasting emotional relationship that begins to develop in infancy and serves to tie the infant to one or more people in the child’s life is called attachment. Attachment, as later described by Bowlby (1969, 1973) and Ainsworth (1973), while not strictly a part of Erikson’s theory, develops during Erikson’s first stage and can be seen as a component of trust. A newborn infant begins to develop a “strong emotional bond with a caring adult who is part of the child’s everyday life—the child attachment figure. It is usually an affectionate or loving bond; the attachment of a child to his mother comes immediately to mind” (Honig, 2002, p. 2). It is a two-way process—adults attach to the infant, and the infant attaches to adults. Infants and children develop this attachment through a “dance” between them and their parents—a sensitive, responsive give-and-take of facial expressions, emotions, and physical touch.

Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt (1 to 3 Years Old)

Erikson described autonomy versus shame and doubt as the second stage of development. Youngsters develop autonomy around the age of 2. In fact, children at this stage (sometimes referred to as “the terrible twos”) are well known for demonstrating, sometimes in no uncertain terms, that they now can do things independently of their mother or caregiver. They love to push the limits and find out what they can do independently. The predominant use of the words “no” and “mine” at this age is not really the child being oppositional, but is rather a positive affirmation of the child’s newfound independence.

But, as anyone who has raised a toddler or worked with this age group knows, it is unsafe to let a toddler have autonomy. They fall down a lot (due to a large head and poor brain development), wash their hands in water that is too hot, try to grab pots off the stove, and otherwise create havoc. What to do? If parents or providers do not allow for autonomy, children will develop a sense of shame and doubt—because their inner desire is to express this newfound autonomy, but their social world continues to deny this desire. The key to avoiding the development of shame and doubt is to provide continual supervision and diligent care of toddlers, while at the same time providing them choices, activities, and a deep sense of independence. Giving toddlers acceptable choices (the toys to play with or food to eat) and allowing as much independence as possible can achieve this. Caregivers and parents working with children at this age should not get upset with little things, such as when a child puts a sweater on backwards or puts his/her shoes on the wrong feet. Praise the child for this independent accomplishment while also gently guiding the child to correct mistakes and to learn socially appropriate behaviors and interactions. It takes work and patience on the part of the adult, but these will provide the child with the foundation to move on to the next stage (Erikson, 1963).

Initiative Versus Guilt (3 to 6 Years Old)

This stage is an extension of the autonomy stage, as the child becomes increasingly independent. Erikson called this stage initiative versus guilt. Children at this age initiate, or experiment with and try out, all sorts of new things, including new language—both vocabulary and grammar. Some even love to invent their own words. This is one of the reasons teaching a second language is best begun at this age.

Because children 3 to 6 years old lack experience and have not developed emotional regulation, their desire for initiative often leads to disaster. They love to jump into water puddles, pull the dog’s tail, and approach complete strangers. The social response they receive to this natural disposition will determine whether children maintain their sense of initiative or feel guilty. If a child repeatedly is made to feel bad about his or her mistakes, that child will develop a sense of guilt that becomes part of his or her approach to life. Six-year-olds raised in tolerant and accepting environments are more likely to complete this stage successfully than are children raised in stricter and less-accepting settings. But again, a balance between the child’s desire for initiative and the need for safety and order needs to be found.

1.3 Threads That Run Throughout the Book

Throughout this book, we discuss ways the early childhood program, community, and family can work collaboratively to enhance the probability that children will achieve the first three of Erikson’s eight stages. We discuss how successful families meet the needs of their children, and how quality early childhood programs can both support children’s development and help families understand their children’s unique psychosocial needs. Finally, we explore the community resources available to support children as they progress through each of these stages.

The 10 chapters in this book cover a range of topics related to family-centered early care and education. While Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and the first three stages of Erikson’s psychosocial theory frame the discussions in this book, other essential concepts are embedded throughout the text. These concepts include collaboration, diversity, exceptional children, developmental issues, gender differences, and communication. Along with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and Erikson’s psychosocial theory, these concepts provide the overall focus for this book.

Collaboration

In Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the mesosystem consists of links between the various microsystems that directly affect the child. This could be the family and community, family and early care and education program, and so on. The impact of the mesosystem on the child depends on the number and quality of these connections; the more there are and the better their quality, the more positive an impact they will have on the child’s growth and development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1995). Thus, the more collaboration there is between the family and the early care and education program, the better it is for the child. Family-centered early care and education programs center on reciprocal collaboration between the program and family. We will discuss a variety of ways programs and families can work together, as well as directly address barriers to collaboration.

True collaboration requires respect on the part of both the program and the families it serves. It also requires the ability to resolve conflicts, along with a sincere desire to strive continually for ways to improve the development and learning of each child. Collaboration takes on added complexity when families have unique stressors, such as a child with a developmental delay, a parent who is in jail, or issues such as drugs and domestic violence.

Diversity

Throughout the book, we explore the rich diversity of the families that use early childhood programs. This diversity includes religious beliefs, national origin, families who speak a language other than English, race and ethnic diversity, family structures, and culture. Examining diversity fits conveniently within Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical perspective. Families, communities, peers, early care and education programs, school groups, and other components of a child’s microsystem reflect a vast diversity of race, ethnicity, culture, language, and religion. Neighborhoods often reflect a certain racial or ethnic group; many early childhood programs mirror the culture of their community or sponsoring agency, especially if they are a religious program or supported by a larger organization, such as a local Jewish community center. It is important to discuss the different ways the first three stages of Erikson’s psychosocial theory can be achieved and to examine the complexities of cultural patterns and behaviors involved in children’s experiences during each of these stages (Raeff, 2010). As a result of family diversity, early childhood programs are challenged to work effectively and supportively with all of their families, which requires training, carefully developed program policies, and the understanding and acceptance of differences. This is particularly challenging when the program staff are different from the families they serve (HHS, 2010). (See Spotlight:

Four Areas of Culture

for a more detailed discussion of this topic.)

We also explore how children’s complex racial, ethnic, cultural, and national identities can be nurtured and supported within the early care and education setting, as well as ways the individual family’s customs, traditions, and values can be acknowledged.

Exceptional Children

Exceptional children add an additional array of issues and challenges to a family and early care and education program. These children may have one or more developmental delays, or they may be gifted. Some exceptional children are both gifted and also have one or more disabilities, and these children are referred to as twice exceptional children (Allen & Cowdery, 2005). To meet the needs of their exceptional children adequately, the family must access a variety of community agencies and programs. These programs fit into Bronfenbrenner’s microsystem (community); the relationship of support and advice that each family must achieve falls within the discussion of links between various components of the microsystem. We explore a variety of ways programs can work collaboratively with families to meet the needs of these children, as well as ways various community agencies can support both families and programs in their efforts to serve exceptional children.

SPOTLIGHT:
Four Areas of Culture

According to Bradley & Kibera (2007), four areas should be examined to help staff address cultural differences in families and to work effectively with these families and their children.

Values and beliefs. How is family defined? What roles do adults and children play? How does the family make sense of a child’s behavioral difficulties? How does the family’s culture inform their view of appropriate and inappropriate ways of dealing with problem behaviors and guiding children? What is of most importance to the family?

Historical and social influences. What strengths and stressors does the family identify? What barriers do they experience?

Communication

. What is the family’s primary language? What support is required to enable communication? How are needs and wants expressed? How is unhappiness, dissatisfaction, or distress experienced and expressed?

Attitude toward seeking help. How does the family seek help and from whom? How do members view professionals, and how do professionals treat them?

Throughout the country, networks of parents and advocates support each other in meeting the specific needs of exceptional children. These groups provide advice, expertise, and support to parents, while also helping them access resources in the community. Often parents need help in finding early childhood programs that can serve their children in an inclusive setting. Transportation, medical, and other supports are also often needed.

Using Erikson’s stages also helps in understanding children with disabilities and in learning how families and programs can meet their unique needs. Although government programs have been established to identify children with various developmental delays and to provide intervention to address a child’s disability, it is critical that the child also be encouraged and supported to achieve each task described in Erikson’s first three stages, regardless of the child’s disability. For example, an infant in Erikson’s second stage of development, autonomy versus shame or doubt, still needs to achieve autonomy, even though the child has a disability that requires constant adult attention and careful surveillance.

Developmental Issues

During the first five years of life, a child experiences many major developmental milestones and begins a lifelong process in other critical areas. These milestones include becoming toilet trained, learning to walk, learning to speak, and for many children, entering some kind of children’s program. Many of these milestones are specific tasks that build toward the child achieving each of Erikson’s stages. For example, learning to walk enables the child to develop a level of autonomy from adults. During this stage, children also begin to develop emotional regulation and learn a variety of important social, physical, and cognitive skills (Gillespie & Seibel, 2006). A tremendous amount of brain development also occurs at this time; in fact, many believe the first five years are a critical time for brain development (Schiller, 2010). We will explore how programs support families as their children progress through these stages, community resources that are available to help parents in these critically important tasks, and how parents and programs know whether their children are developing on schedule, or whether intervention is needed.

Gender Differences

A growing body of research suggests some biological differences between the genders may influence behavior (Whiting & Edwards, 1988). Furthermore, these differences are evident at birth and show major behavioral indicators during the first five years of life. Added to these biological differences are the various ways cultures and communities reinforce certain gender differences, and the fact that early childhood programs in the United States are female cultures (Neugebauer, 2008). Thus, from a Bronfenbrenner perspective, it is important that we examine the various ways the microsystem relates to boys and girls, and how families, programs, communities, the media, and peers treat children differently based on their gender. It is also instructive to examine the various ways each of the other structures affect gender development. For example, the media (exosystem), the child’s culture (macrosystem), and historical time (chronosystem) all directly influence gender identity and gender expectations. From an Eriksonian perspective, we need to examine how parents, teachers, and caregivers respond to boys and girls, and whether boys and girls are given equal opportunity to achieve Erikson’s first three stages. And, because most teachers and caregivers in early care and education programs are women, it is important to see what impact, if any, this has on the development and learning of young boys and girls. Throughout the book, we will examine the development of gender identity in young children, explore issues of gender equity, and describe ways programs, families, and communities can support healthy gender development and equality. We will also explore ways men from the community can be involved in local programs to provide needed modeling and interaction for young boys and girls in our programs.

SPOTLIGHT:

Are Boys More Difficult than Girls?

When I first became a Head Start director, I was confronted with a peculiar situation: The teachers at my program were arguing over the children who were to be assigned to their classes and wanted as few boys as possible. While this was obviously a program issue that I, the director, needed to address, it also reflected a reality present in many programs: Boys, in general, are seen as more difficult than girls. Consider the following:

Boys are nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). Some studies have found that ADHD is up to 10 times more common in boys than girls, but this is most likely because boys are referred for assessment more often because of their disruptive behavior.

Four times as many boys as girls have autism.

Boys are much more likely to engage in rough-and-tumble play.

Girls generally start to talk before boys and then continue to surpass boys in verbal and linguistic ability.

Because boys’ overall brain growth and development is slower than that of girls, they have trouble with emotional regulation (self-control), which is controlled by the cerebral cortex.

As a Head Start director, I noticed that the teachers spent the majority of their time involved in literacy and tabletop activities, art, and dramatic play (all of which girls typically excel at). Teachers spent much less time in the block area. I almost never saw a teacher playing on the floor with children. I also saw very few science activities. On the playground, teachers sat and talked to children, but they rarely became actively involved in playing games, gardening, playing with children to see who could throw the ball the farthest, or engaging in other active, physical activities. And my newly purchased woodwork benches were used as teacher’s desks and aquarium stands!

Our classroom culture tends to be more conducive to the success of girls than that of boys. To make early childhood programs more effective for all children, we need to discover the ways boys and girls are different, understand that these differences are okay, and find ways to involve children in activities in which they can succeed. Here are some specific suggestions for involving young boys:

Capitalize on what boys are good at. Boys should be given regular opportunities for hands-on math and science—including mechanical—activities; they need a lot of physical games and outdoor gross-motor play, art, woodwork, and dance. They also need plenty of opportunities for constructive play.

Make sure the curriculum is designed to meet the needs of boys. Boys need plenty of activity, frequent changes in activities, movement, and hands-on learning opportunities. Activities in which boys typically struggle, such as literacy, rote memory, focused attention, and self-control, should be punctuated with active, whole-body activities.

Never punish boys by withholding what they are good at or what they need. I once observed a teacher punish a boy who was being disruptive in the classroom by preventing him from going outside to play with the other children. This child obviously needed outdoor play (and was probably very good at it).

Find ways to include men in the classroom. This can be achieved by hiring male teachers, encouraging fathers to volunteer, and inviting participation from men and boys in various service organizations. Men (and women) who are interested in participating should be encouraged to engage in activities boys enjoy, such as woodwork, outdoor play, messy science experiments, gardening, and building in the block area.

Make sure the classroom is boy-friendly. You can have a permanent woodwork area and add props to the dramatic play area such as hardhats, fire hoses, police and fire uniforms, tools, old (clean) car wheels, briefcases, workbenches, and carpentry belts.

Train staff on the unique needs of boys and how to facilitate activities that boys typically enjoy and are good at. When I complained to my staff that they were not using the workbenches I bought, they told me they did not know how to use them. Our next training day was spent making things on the workbenches.

Wardle, F. (2004). How Children Learn. Children and Families, pp. 60–61.

Communication

A central component of the mesosystem is communication—the forms and nature of communication between the various components of the microsystem. And this is particularly true of family-early care and education linkages. The key to family-centered program collaboration is communication. But effective communication is not easy. It requires two-way communication that enables families to learn from the knowledge and expertise of program staff, and for program staff to learn from their families (Keyser, 2006). This two-way communication can be developed by using traditional approaches—daily check-ins, child information forms, home visits, parent conferences, parent meetings, newsletters, phone calls, e-mails, bulletin boards, journals that go home with parents, and anecdotal notes about children’s behavior and progress. Some programs now use websites to inform their parents and the community about various aspects of the program.

Several challenges to two-way communication are addressed throughout the book. Shared power and decision making, language barriers, and cultural conflicts are among the barriers addressed. According to Hall (1976, 1983), people from different macrosystems (cultures, ethnicities) tend to communicate differently. Clearly, when there is a cultural mismatch between a family and teacher, director, or caregiver, confusion can occur (see Think About It: Two-Way Communication).

Research

Evidence-based approaches to caring for and educating young children have become central to the field of early care and education (Schiller, 2010). This means that research results—for example, the brain-based research already discussed—are becoming the prime source for defining best practices in working with children aged 0 to 5 years old. Throughout the book, research results will be presented and discussed, and their applicability to successful families and family-centered early childhood programs will be analyzed. We will also discuss the limitations of this perspective, particularly in instances where it fails to take into account cross-cultural differences, and where there is a lack of available research in some critically important areas.

1.4 Use of Community Resources

Because the microsystem includes the immediate settings that have the most significant impact on the child, and because the mesosystem involves the linkages between each of these entities, it follows that the more information each of these entities has about the others, the more and higher the quality of these connections. Specifically, the more information the family has about agencies in the community that support their efforts to raise their children, the better able the family is to provide for their children. Reciprocally, the more information the early childhood programs have about the communities in which the families live, the better they will be able to serve them.

It is also important for early care and education programs to know about each family’s macrosystem—their religion, culture, socioeconomic level, use of technology, and so on. In this way, the program can provide cultural continuity for each family.

For these reasons, the availability and use of a variety of community resources is discussed throughout the text. Some of these resources provide general information that applies to most families or early care and education programs, while others are specific and specialized, such as resources to support a family that has a child with Down syndrome.

Families exist within communities, as do early care and education programs. Communities have a vast array of resources to support both families and programs (Koralek, 2007). Some of these are geographical: parks, greenbelts, outdoor museums, and farms and trails that families and programs can access. Others are physical: libraries, recreational centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, concert halls, galleries, and children’s museums. And then there is the range of agencies, from health care centers, to WIC offices, disability councils, food banks, churches, recreation centers, employment and training centers, and cultural centers. Use of these community agencies depends on family and program needs. For example, a family with a child who has a developmental delay will work closely with the local disability council, Child Find, hospitals and health care centers, and local advocacy groups. A program needing in-service training for teachers and caregivers will use a community college or early childhood training agency. For instance, when a local early childhood program in Colorado needed to train program staff about the unique needs of Hmong families that had recently moved into the community, an expert from the state department of education who had experience with this population was consulted, and leaders of a Hmong church in the community provided expert advice (Wardle, 2003).

Program-Specific Resources

Historically, programs serving young children and their families have developed strong, effective relationships within their own specific communities. Faith-based programs are often strongly embedded within the services, outreach programs, and social networks of their religious organizations. Public school-based preschools use the supports and resources of the public schools in which they exist. Campus early childhood programs benefit from the support and expertise of early childhood professors, psychologists, special education teachers, and student interns. City-sponsored programs also receive citywide agency support and referrals.

Many programs use the human resources that parents provide the program. For example, the early childhood program at the Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center in Denver, Colorado uses parents as classroom volunteers and as experts who present parent workshops on issues including medical advice, legal advice, and parenting skills. They also run a parent education committee that plans a variety of enrichment programs.

Systematic Use of Community Resources

Head Start has been at the forefront of going beyond these immediate program-specific approaches of community support to systematically determining the needs of families, conducting needs assessments of available community resources, and then developing official partnerships (with written contracts) between the program and these agencies (HSS, 2010). While many early childhood programs do not take such a formal approach to the use of the community, lessons can be learned from the almost 50 years of local Head Start programs working aggressively to use community resources to meet the diverse needs of their families and children. Some ideas that have grown out of this history include the following:

Conduct periodic assessments of family needs. As program enrollment changes, so too do family needs. For example, do parents need English as a second language classes? Do they need translation into their home language? What language is this? Do they need basic parenting skills or GED preparation classes? Do they need support groups for children who are gifted? The key is to remember that families have diverse needs, and that these needs continue to change as the demographics of enrollment and communities change.

Continually collect information. Collect information about the kinds of resources provided in your community. Where are the food banks? Who are the Child Find contacts? Where is the closest library, and does it offer a preschool story time? What about parks, greenbelts, or hiking trails? Does the local community college place early childhood students in programs? What about foster grandparent programs? Will the Indian center provide support for Native American families?

Use parents in your program to discover community resources. Some parents work for agencies that serve families (e.g., unemployment offices, school districts, health councils and clinics, and community colleges). Use these parents to help you know and understand community resources.

Become advocates for your families. This is one of the critical roles of a family-centered care and education program. This means programs must continually explore how available community resources can be made accessible to their families. Sometimes this involves changes in hours (e.g., for transition activities to the local kindergarten); other times it involves providing information in languages other than English or helping agencies become more user-friendly for the kinds of parents in a given program. Additionally, programs need to help parents be advocates for their family’s own needs when accessing community resources. This may involve working with parents who come from cultures where advocacy is discouraged, or parents who feel out of place in the culture of some of the agencies (HHS, 2010). It may involve communication (e.g., finding someone to translate for the parent), or simply providing information to parents about the resources that are available (Bradley & Kibera, 2007).

Help parents develop support groups. Parents have different needs depending on their children and the challenges their children bring to the early childhood experience. Parent support groups have proven to be an excellent way for parents to find out about and access resources targeted to their children’s specific needs, as well as to enable parents to provide emotional and social support in their efforts to meet these needs. Parents support groups have been used very effectively by parents of children with a variety of developmental delays (Kaczmarek, 2007). Usually, these groups focus on a specific developmental delay (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, speech impairments, or blindness). However, parent support groups are also effective for challenges with language (non-English speakers), adoptive and foster children, new immigrant families, and multiracial and multiethnic children (Wardle & Cruz-Janzen, 2004).

For parent support groups, the role of the program is to help parents who have similar challenges and concerns find each other and connect. The program can help them develop the group (e.g., physically meeting after the school day at the program, or creating a virtual group where they can do most of their work online) and provide them with information about available resources and how to access them.

Communicate. Communication is the key to programs being able to help families access and use community resources. Central to effective communication is letting parents know about the resources that are available in the community. One way to do this is to invite representatives of community agencies to visit the center when parents are present (perhaps for parent meetings or social events). Another is to place posters, fliers, and other information about agencies throughout the center (on parent bulletin boards, in general information areas, and in parent libraries). Finally, a program with a website should provide a section with links to community resources, using whatever structure makes most sense. All of this information must be updated frequently, either by a staff person responsible for community collaboration, or by a parent volunteer.

Throughout this book, we continue to address ways family-centered early childhood programs can use community resources to improve the quality of the program, to support families in their sincere attempts to support the development and learning of their children, and to provide ways to help families and programs collaborate.