A human being is a social animal and to survive in this society we have to communicate and interact with individuals. It s not the individual who impacts our learning process but it the relationship with them, the places where we met, and the things that they did; and that’s how cognition occurs (May 2013). According to Te Whariki, the New Zealand early childhood curriculum which is based on sociocultural and ecological development reveals the importance of families in children’s lives ( Clarkin – Phillips, 2012). So, there is a need for collaborative partnerships between teachers, families, and children in order to promote children’s learning and development. This essay would describe the critical analysis of the significance and effects of collaborative partnerships between parents, teachers, and children. On the basis of these two principles: strengthening the relationships with parents and effective communication are designed which would promote family resilience and support positive outcomes for the children.
To commence, the collaborative partnership among teachers, children, and their families has great importance in the early childhood context. The significant importance of collaborative partnership is that the teachers could promote children’s cognitive growth by having a full understanding of the children. No one could give exact information about the children than their families (May 2013). It is acknowledged that the child’s brain grows at its fastest rate between birth and six years. So, the children learn various concepts, skills, and relationships whilst in their family (May 2013). Munn and Schaffer (as cited in May 2013 p. 57) stated that the home environment can be “highly adaptive to children’s cognitive functioning” as parents are very sensitive towards their children’s abilities, interests, and preferences and are able to support their children’s emerging understandings. So, after having conversations with parents, teachers could get vital information about the children which would help not only develop good relationships with family but also maximize the opportunities for the best care, education, and successful learning of the children (May 2013). The second importance of collaborative partnership is to strengthen responsive and reciprocal relationships between teachers, children, and families (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). Teachers develop a valuable relationship with children which is an important support for their family as it not only benefits to children’s learning but also provides reassurance to the parents about the development of their children (Duncan, 2006). According to the curriculum principle of Family and community, much emphasis is given to the well-being of a child’s family and community they belong to because a child’s learning and development are interdependent with the well-being of the adults who are responsible for them (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). For this, teachers negotiate and facilitate family contacts with other government and non-government supportive agencies like Plunket Line, Benefits Rights Service, Budget Advice, Parents As First Teachers, etcetera. These opportunities would foster positive outcomes for families which impacts positively on children (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). The third significant value of collaborative partnership in the early childhood context is to build trustworthy relationships and connections between early childhood centers and home environments of diverse cultures and languages. Due to this collaborative partnership, Immigrants families could also participate in the “community of practice” (Wenger as cited in Guo, 2012), in which all community members participate in order to achieve a common goal with shared endeavors. Families provide funds of knowledge to the teachers which would help the teachers to respond appropriately to cultural and language diversity (Guo, 2012). Immigrant parents are empowered to value the importance of funds of knowledge in early childhood centers for making significant and effective changes to their children’s learning towards biculturalism. Parents would participate and share their values, beliefs, knowledge, and practices with teachers which would make trust and make a strong connection between them (Guo, 2012).
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Moving further, the collaborative partnership has both positive and negative effects on children’s learning and development. Firstly, due to collaborative partnership strong connections between micro and mesosystem are established according to Bronfenbrenner (as cited in Clarkin-Philips, 2012). He suggested that if there are strong connections between Microsystems there would be greater positive development. If the child’s home and early childhood center have strong links, the better the child would be able to grow. Moreover, when these Microsystems (an immediate environment in which the child lives such as home and kindergarten) work together form a mesosystem ( that is a parent- teachers conferences) would also help ensure the child’s overall growth and development. It is because a child’s development is hugely affected by intimate relationships (May 2013). Parents’ contributions are also valued and appreciated. Parents feel confident and comfortable when they talk with teachers about their children. Moreover, it is also significant in building relationships among teachers and parents especially when parents come from diverse communities. For instance, the appointment of a Samoan teacher provides affordance to parents who belong to the Samoan community. Parents could talk with the bilingual teacher without any fear of being misinterpreted or misunderstood (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). Secondly, with the collaborative partnership, the aspirations of parents are realized at kindergarten. When parents come to the centers and share information when they chat at kindergarten about themselves. Teachers come to know about their abilities and strengths. In this way, opportunities for education and employment are provided to them (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). For instance, if any parent with a chef background could get a part-time job at a kindergarten to make lunches for children. Another example is if the head teacher recognizes any parent’s ability to have ICT skills and could offer the parent part-time employment as a kindergarten administrator. So, attention is given to the teachers to ensure families attending the kindergarten are empowered and supported in realizing the parent’s aspirations (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). Thirdly, with this collaborative partnership, teachers could make trustworthy relationships with parents and assist particularly those parents with children with additional needs. They could provide integrated services to children and their families through various government and non-government supportive agencies. Due to collaborative partnerships, parents could discuss various issues about their children and personal life. The supportive agencies provide information, advice, and strategies to parents that help them to function better (Duncan, 2006). Moreover, the Parent Support and Development project is built that combines parent education and support and early childhood education instead only of parent-focused or child-focused. Its main objective is to improve the health, education, and social outcomes of vulnerable children through effective parenting, participation, and engagement of children and their families in early childhood education and the development of trustworthy connections between child’s learning at home and the early childhood education environment (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). There are some negative effects of collaborative partnerships. First, sometimes support providers do not provide parents with sensitive and appropriate support which could damage the relationships between teachers and parents (Duncan, 2006). Second, the partnership could be challenging because of the narrow view of the childcare professional. It is when he thinks his work is only concerned about the children and not families. This could have negative impacts on the relationship between teachers and parents (Stonehouse, 2011).
In this paragraph, based on the analysis, the first principle is the authentic relationships with the families which could promote the positive outcome of the children’s learning and build family resilience which means the capacity to struggle well against adversity and challenges (Wlash, 2008). Teachers should encourage and support families especially who are dealing with complicated and complex lives (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). Parents face inner struggles in being able to ask for help as it seems like an admission of failure (Sanders & Munford, 2010). The positive relationship between teachers and young child’s families is an important source of support for families in general as well as during times of anxiety and need (Sciaraffa, Zeanah & Zeanah, 2018). Teachers could make authentic, trustworthy, and committed relationships with parents (Sanders & Munford, 2010). Parents feel confident and comfortable when they are welcomed into early childhood education programs. They feel that their inputs are valued in the child’s daily activities and their learning process. Parents could share their life experiences and could talk about issues related to their children without any fear of misjudgment. Teachers also do visits to their homes to get funds for knowledge about their children. Family resilience is an important tool for helping teachers to think more positively about the role of families in their child’s schooling. School-wide preventive programs provide opportunities for parents, teachers, and children to interact with one another. Much emphasis is given to the family’s involvement in children- planning, decision-making, problem-solving, and learning (Amatea, Smith & Villares, 2006). These preventive programs educate parents about how to discuss difficult topics such as sexual activities, drugs, and alcohol use with their children. They are also provided the opportunity to share their views, hopes, and desires with their children. In school, student-led conferences are organized so that children could share their school progress and their future goals with their parents. As every child must be facilitated to express his/ her view and they must be listened to (Te one, 2011). To enhance the positive learning environment of children, it is recognized that it is the right of every child to the standard physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development (O’ Brein & Salonen, 2011). The first example in the context of authentic relationships is from my own experience. In the school where I taught in India, most children came from poor families and their parents were illiterate. They did not come to school to know about their children’s performance because they already have their own bad school experiences. Moreover, they also experienced other stresses in their life due to poverty (Amatea, Smith & Villares, 2006). So, they did not participate in the school activities of their children. Our school head teacher with the support of other staff organised parent-teacher meetings in which parents are invited. So, this initiative was to strengthen families’ understanding of their children’s learning at school and make connections with children’s lives were developed by the teachers (Clarkin-Philips, 2012). Further, the second example that supports the principle of authentic relationships is in all early childhood centers in New Zealand are working on collaborative partnerships with parents because families are important people in the children’s lives. Parents are welcomed and feel a sense of belonging in child care. Teachers in the centers have informal communication with the parents and tell them the good news about their children (Stonehouse, 2011). It is possible by making trustworthy relationships with teachers which is significant for promoting family resilience (Wlash, 2008). So, the above principle could lead to promoting positive learning of children by giving the strength to the families and children to face the difficult challenges of life by collaborating with teachers.
In this paragraph, the second principle is effective communication on the basis of which the best positive outcome of children’s learning and family resilience could be built. Teachers should encourage the parents to communicate in a respectful and cooperative manner ( Amatea, Smith & Villares, 2006). Teachers could inculcate the value of the ‘Can do spirit’ by assisting the families to lead a life with a positive attitude. Teachers should encourage the families to share their stories of adversity openly in order to know more about the families. Through this two-way communication, there would be an exchange of knowledge, values, and beliefs. The collaborative partnership relies on reciprocal exchanges in which information is shared and help given in both directions that is from and to parents (May, 2013). It would help to build trust between teachers and parents. These conversations could reveal that parents are important and capable facilitators for the success of their children (Amatae, Smith & Villares, 2006). Some workshops are organized by the centers to educate parents who often worry about the risks involved in the first-hand experiences that their children would meet. Moreover, they are not confident enough to voice their concerns. But by communicating with teachers parents find opportunities to ask questions about the risks and teachers guide them on how to manage risks to promote cognitive growth and creativity (May 2013). Teachers could make a supportive environment for families so that parents could feel a sense of belonging and could connect their lives with the childcare community. Teachers could initiate informal communication with parents by using a variety of ways like text messages, emails etcetera. Teachers could share good news not only about the big events but the little things as well about their children with families (Stonehouse, 2011). The first example to illustrate this principle is in New Zealand early learning centers, in order to facilitate the communication between teachers and parents, children’s portfolios (a documented record of their learning at learning centers) are used. This contained a ‘whanau voice page’ which is intended for families to make comments about their child in response to their learning stories. Teachers send these portfolios to the children’s homes in order to give information to the parents about children’s learning, progress, and achievement. Teachers strengthen the connections between home and early learning centers through these portfolios. Parents also give responses about their children’s learning process. So, these informal comments and conversations about children encourage the positive learning of the children. The teachers also share their own profiles with the families when they come to the centers. As this is an indication of responsive reciprocal relationships between home and early learning centers (Clarkin-Phillips, 2012). The second example related to this principle is in New Zealand, ECE centers, directly and indirectly, support the development of resilience in individuals and families (Duncan, 2006). Parents could talk about their fears, hopes, and desires with the teachers and their children. As teachers show genuine interest in the lives of children and their families which enables families to ‘open up’ about personal life issues. There are many families who are parenting alone, have children with special needs, or facing financial adversity etcetera. Teachers could provide support to families through various supportive agencies and could act as mediators between agencies and families. These agencies provide strategies to parents that help them to function better which is only possible because of the effective association provided by teachers (Duncan, 2006). So, effective communication between teachers and parents could lead to making trustworthy and strong relationships which is crucial to promote successful learning of children and building family resilience.
To sum up, a collaborative partnership between teachers and parents is very crucial to promote children’s learning and development as well as to provide assistance to those families who bounce back in their life after facing various life challenges. It is believed that family is the cornerstone of a child’s education, care, and overall well-being. It is noted that the relationship with parents has evolved from ‘working with parents’ to ‘partnership with parents’ and now to ‘collaboration with parents’ (Duncan, 2006). It is because no one could better understand their child than their parents. They know about their particular interests and activities which could help the teachers in their children’s academic performance. It is possible if parents share their knowledge, values, beliefs, and culture with the teachers. When teachers build effective collaboration with children and their families build up a positive environment for the successful learning of the children and promote family resilience. As it is asserted that when teachers, children, and families view one another as partners in education, then a caring community is formed around the children (Amatea, Smith & Villares, 2006). It has a good impact on the overall well-being, growth, and development of children.
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