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What are Your Views about Families?

What comes to your mind when you hear the word family? Perhaps thoughts of individuals who have influenced and shaped your life, or images of people coming together to celebrate holidays and other significant cultural events; maybe smells of home-cooked food, memories of conversations or arguments you had with loved ones, feelings of love, joy, or even sadness.

Family is central to an individual’s life. Particularly when it comes to young children, families assume critical roles that significantly affect children’s overall well-being and development. As a professional working with young children, it is crucial for you to appreciate and understand children’s families. This lesson will familiarize you with current perspectives on how families are viewed and how they function. This information will provide helpful context in order to better understand your work and interactions with families.

The Meaning of Family

When you think of the word “family,” what does it mean to you? Who makes up your family? What kinds of things do you do together? What role do you play in your family?

Every family is different and it is important to keep an open mind about what and who makes up a family. Each person defines family in his or her own way. For some, family may represent those individuals living in the same home (under one roof). For others, family may be the child’s parents and all of the important adults who help care for the young child, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, or best friends. Family is typically consistent in the preschooler’s life and it can be one of the most important sources of information about the child.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as “a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together." The National Association for the Education of Young Children (2011, p. 3) suggests that “the term family may include those adults, besides parents, with the responsibility of being involved in educating, nurturing, and advocating for the child.” Researchers studying and working with families define family as “two or more people who regard themselves as a family and who carry out the functions that families typically perform. These people may or may not be related by blood or marriage and may or may not usually live together” (Turnbull, Turnbull, Erwin, & Soodak, 2006, p. 7).

What are some things that stand out to you as you read these definitions? You may notice that the first definition is quite specific in terms of how relationships are described, whereas the other two definitions are broader. As a professional working with young children, it is important to acknowledge that your own experiences influence your views about families and working with families. You will encounter individuals who define family differently than you do and who may share values, customs, or codes of behavior that are different from yours. When you encounter differing views, it is important to keep an open mind to better understand how each person’s family may have affected and shaped them into who they are today.

Family structures have become more diverse through shared custody, same-sex couple families, families where members have different immigration statuses, and when a parent has children with multiple partners. While these circumstances do not always bring challenges, research suggests that children whose family structures are complex may be more likely to experience negative consequences, such as less caregiving from a parent. Today, 40 percent of children are born to unmarried parents. Like the concept of ‘family,’ the concept of family well-being is also challenging to define. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that family well-being occurs when all family members are safe, healthy, and have chances for educational advancement and economic mobility. �Թ��� services such as early care and education, housing and food assistance, and physical and mental health care positively contribute to the well-being of families and their children. When families face challenges that cause stress, including poverty and homelessness, their health and wellness can be negatively impacted. Engaging families as active participants in problem-solving and goal-setting can help them identify and use their own strengths to address the challenges they face. When families are healthy, safe, and economically stable, their children's health and well-being can thrive.

As you think about how best to engage with and support the families in your program, consider your role in strengthening families’ protective factors. The good news is that many of the behaviors that correspond to positive family functioning can be “taught and strengthened with education.” (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019, p. 42).

How are Families Viewed Today? Introducing Family-Centered Practice

Families are partners, active participants, and decision makers in their children’s education process because of their impact and effect on child development. As a result, family-centered focus is considered one of the indicators of quality in early childhood education, programs, and services. At the heart of family-centered practice is the belief that families are the most important decision makers in a child’s life. Therefore, professionals must respect, support, and enhance the strengths and unique characteristics of each family (Sandall, Hemmeter, Smith, & McLean, 2005).

Family-centered practice also means that you understand the important and large effect all family members have on each other and on the preschool child. All family members are interconnected, and affect each other and the ways that the family functions. From our family, we learn skills that enable us to engage and learn in school and excel in the workplace.

When considering family-centered practice, you are viewing preschoolers as part of a larger system; you are viewing their family as a whole. You become aware of and sensitive to the interactions and relationships taking place within the family, as well as outside interactions and supports that affect them. To maintain relationships and to work effectively together, you learn, respect and understand characteristics of each family and its support system. You can also consider the characteristics and stressors of families which may negatively affect their involvement. What affects one family member can affect all family members. A family is a system in which no one member can be viewed in isolation.

Throughout the Virtual Laboratory School, we consider family-centered practice as an umbrella term that encompasses the beliefs and actions of people in your program. Consider this graphic:

Making an effort to understand preschoolers and their families can create opportunities for you to better support the children in your care.

Honoring Diversity in Families

Some very important learning occurs during the first few years of life. For example, preschoolers are learning how to interact with peers and adults, how to express their emotions, and how to become more independent. All of these behaviors are influenced by culture. Culture refers to the shared traditions, experiences and history of different groups of people. Cultural differences may include differences in views of family and community, expectations of children, roles of parents and children, and value placed on education.

Culture plays a significant role in the way families raise their children and how you interact with preschool children. Examine your own cultural experiences and consider how these experiences affect your practice and interaction with preschoolers and families. Each individual brings specific values, beliefs and assumptions about child rearing and development to their work. In almost every type of preschool routine you perform, your values about it were shaped by your childhood and training. As you work with preschoolers and families, it is important to recognize your values and beliefs and the ways in which they are communicated. For example, a parent might expect his child to use a pacifier at nap time for self-soothing, and you expect a child to stop using a pacifier during the toddler stage.

Sometimes, you might feel unsure about how to care for a preschooler or how to engage families who have very different experiences and cultures, including those who speak an unfamiliar language or practice unfamiliar religious customs. You can acknowledge these differences and express an interest in the family to build relationships and learn ways to provide support to the preschoolers in your care. For example, you can learn how and when families share meals, which is influenced by culture and affects development. When differences are viewed through the lens of culture, respectful conversations can lead to an agreement in how these practices will be supported in a group early care and learning environment.

Early care and learning settings provide an environment in which adults and children can learn about and honor differences in values, beliefs and perceptions. Learning one’s culture occurs primarily within the family, however, in early care and learning environments preschoolers also learn about other cultures and experience relationships that influence their sense of who they are and who they will become.

To help children develop this sense of who they are and who they will become, you must honor and celebrate the diversity of families. Diversity exists on a variety of dimensions:

• Composition (who is a member of the family)
• Race and ethnicity
• Language
• Socioeconomic status
• Sexual orientation
• Ability or disability
• Educational background
• Values and traditions
• Child-rearing practices
• Religious preferences
• Gender roles and responsibilities

Being a responsive preschool teacher means that you demonstrate sensitivity, consideration, and awareness for the multiple backgrounds, experiences, values, and cultures in which children and families live. Diversity awareness helps us recognize and respect “ways of being” that are not necessarily our own, and makes us more accepting of others. Being a responsive preschool teacher also means that you avoid making assumptions about different groups of people and the ways they act or think. As much as it is important to acknowledge differences between various groups of people, it is also important to recognize differences within-groups. While there may be commonly shared characteristics, values, and attributes among people who come from a particular geographic region or cultural heritage, there is still considerable variability within the same group in terms of values, routines, or ways of doing things.

Working with families whose values and beliefs are different from your own may, at times, make you feel uneasy or uncomfortable. Embracing diversity in your work with children and families does not happen overnight. On the contrary, it can be a long and often messy process in which people from various backgrounds are challenged to face and understand different points of view, accept unfamiliar ways of doing things, and ultimately work together toward a common goal. It is important to understand that this is a two-way process, and that in the same way you may occasionally feel challenged or confused, families may feel the same. Researchers in the field of family and diversity remind us, “the challenge is not so much for service providers to give up their own beliefs, as to cultivate a habit of learning to understand and respect those of others.”

See

Do

There are many ways to show that you value the families of children in your program. Consider the following guidelines that reflect family-centered practice (Johnson, 1990; Turnbull, Turbiville, & Turnbull, 2000). Then think about how you can use these guidelines in your work with children and families.

• Recognize the family as the constant in the child’s life and that they have the largest impact and influence on that child.
• Facilitate collaboration between families and professionals.
• Encourage family-to-family support and networking.
• Honor and respect family diversity in all dimensions (cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, spiritual, socio-economic, or in terms of family members’ sexual orientation). You may do this by:
  • Asking families about their home language and to share key phrases they use at home.
  • Having family information and children’s books in the languages of each family.
  • Inviting the family to visit the setting and sing songs, tell stories, and show books or pictures that demonstrate their culture, and introduce culturally specific food.
  • Observe how a family interacts with their preschooler.
  • Asking families to create a family or neighborhood storybook.
  • Meeting regularly with families to learn about their hopes, dreams and goals for their preschooler.
  • Celebrate a variety of holidays and traditions important to those children in your care.

Completing this Course

For more information on what to expect in this course, the Family Engagement Competency Reflection, and a list of the accompanying Learn, Explore and Apply resources and activities offered throughout the lessons, visit the Preschool Family Engagement Course Guide. 

Please note the References & Resources section at the end of each lesson outlines reference sources and resources to find additional information on the topics covered. As you complete lessons, you are not expected to review all the online references available. However, you are welcome to explore the resources further if you have interest, or at the request of your trainer, coach, or administrator.