Working with parents and carers - An essay critically analyses the role of parents, carers and communities in children\'s and young people\'s lives. PDF

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In this essay I will demonstrate an understanding of the role of parents, carers and the community in children’s and young people’s lives and establish the importance of working together to create positive outcomes for children. I will show how parenting skills and their roles as educators can have ...

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Learning Objective One: In this essay I will demonstrate an understanding of the role of parents, carers and the community in children’s and young people’s lives and establish the importance of working together to create positive outcomes for children. I will show how parenting skills and their roles as educators can have a great impact on the relationship with schools and will demonstrate the influence of legislation in both parents and children’s lives. Both parents and early years’ practitioners have a paramount part in children’s lives which influences their childhood development and their well-being in later life. Therefore, it is crucial that parents and early years’ practitioners work together closely and agree on learning goals for their children and set the same boundaries and expectations in the setting and at home. The parent and child relationship and attachment is critical for the child’s development later on as this attachment provides a platform for the child’s emotional and social well-being. Pianta emphasises connections between the parent and child relationship and emotional development, motivation and self-esteem. He underlines that if a child has a strong attachment to their parent they will be more likely to do better at school. For that reason, when early years’ practitioners work with families they must ensure they support the attachment between a child and their parent (Ward, 2009). Parental engagement is what parents do to help their child thrive in school and life and has a significant impact on their child’s learning and development. Parental engagement is central for a child’s accomplishments in education because when parents are engaged the child is more likely to achieve their learning goals and should have increased motivation. Within parental engagement there are two forms, proactive and reactive. Proactive engagement is when parents are fully invested in their child’s education and want to be involved in all aspects of their child’s school life, such as their behaviour in the classroom and this type of engagement is,

‘often performed in collaboration with school staff and support the school’s perception of the child’.

(Mattison, 2000, P. 111)

The parents will want to support their child in activities on a regular basis and like to support their child so they can maintain their child’s academic performance. On the other hand, reactive engagement is when parents are not usually engaged in their child’s education and will not go into the school unless they have to, such as, to a parents evening as they feel they may get into trouble if they do not go. Finders and Lewis (1994) argue that for many reactive parents it is their own school experience that influences their own relationship with their child’s school. They suggest that often teachers do not realise

that the parents own experiences have a lasting effect on how they feel about education and this prevents them from participating fully in their own child’s education. Therefore, parents who have had a bad experience of school do not feel confident in school settings and feel like there are barriers stopping them from being involved in their own child’s learning and development. Schools can help to increase reactive parental engagement by inviting parents in for classes, such as phonics lessons and behaviour management. Some schools have a meet and greet at the school gate where teaching assistants go out to meet the parents and discuss any concerns they may have because many parents feel that the TAs are more receptive than teachers ‘due to shared values, similar cultural backgrounds and familiarity with the local community’ (Richards and Armstrong, 2010, P. 125). School settings benefit from proactive parental engagement because when parents are engaged the teachers feel supported and valued by the parents and this therefore can ensure that children get higher achievements. When parents are engaged with schools this shows that the school has a good reputation in the community which can increase the interest and involvement of the surrounding community. Bronfenbrenner stated that children are impacted by what happens around them and said that all children have their own microsystem. He believed that everyone who is involved within each child’s microsystem needs to work together in a team and have positive interactions so that the child can grow and develop individually (Oswalt, 2015). Bronfenbrenner believed that teachers and parents should work together and communicate towards shared goals so the child can therefore rely on their own system for support and feel more confident to achieve their goals. Parents should communicate with teachers to find out what their child has done at school and should let teachers know of any issues that are going on at home that could impact their child’s performance at school. Consequently, this communication will help to enhance the impact of parental involvement on the child’s system. However, this system does not always work and some people believe it may only work in an ideal world where everyone communicates to benefit the child’s education which we often do not live in. For instance, if a teacher encourages a child to do more reading at home, the child’s parents may not allow them or help them to do more reading which generates difficulties for their system and can cause complication to their overall development. Parents have a paramount part in their roles as educators as their role starts before birth when they attend antenatal classes. A child’s life starts with their family and for some children the wider community therefore the home and community is recognised as a principle learning environment in the children’s lives (EYFS, 2007). Similarly, many people believe that children being at home with their parents is better than nursery or schools because it can make a big difference to children’s learning achievements. Learning at home with parents can be vital to children achieving learning goals and can help children overcome the influence of other issues (Harris and Goodall, 2007). As well, it is believed that all parents can enhance their child’s development and learning whilst in the home and in the wider community, this can be done through attending mother and toddler groups and tiny tots dance clubs. However, when parents work full time they sometimes have no other

choice but to take their child to a nursery and in some cases this is proved just to be as good as being at home. One reason that implies this is, whilst at nursery a child will have a key person who will form a relationship and a secure attachment to that child and their family. These secure attachments have been proven to be critical for a child’s emotional and cognitive development (Johnson, 2014). Nevertheless, this being said still many parents do not believe the key person system works well for them because they do not understand the concept or have had a bad experience in the past. However, parents need to remember that these kind of barriers have a solution and it is in the best interest to ensure that the key person system works well for both them and their child. Parents need to have good relationships with early years’ practitioners and must be able work together ‘to provide optimum opportunities for children to learn and develop’ (Whalley, 2007, P. 66). Parent and early years’ practitioners can either work on their own and support the children or they can work together to benefit the children and provide positive outcomes rather than negative ones. Equally for many children the community is a significant part of their lives especially when the role of their parents is not adequate enough and of those who may be disadvantaged. The Sure Start government programme was put into place as a support service that delivers a variety of programmes for parents and children which help to promote children’s wellbeing and their social, emotional and intellectual development. The Sure Start centres work in combined teams and complement the work of other local services and try to promote innovative working so other practitioners can work together to give advice to families on where to go and ‘who to speak to, if they have more specialised needs or difficulties’ (Nidirect Government Services, No Date). The Sure Start centres have a big impact on families because they offer more than just family support, there is also access to health services and practitioners, including midwives and health visitors and partnerships with the local authorities and voluntary organisations. Within the Sure Start centres parents are able to get home based support and feel like the centres are not a threatening place and feel there is lots of support for their children within the centres because of the early learning services, including lots of group activities for them. The support that is given is to ensure that children can thrive both at school and at home. Sure Start helps to encourage parents to get involved in the group activities with their child because parents have a key role in encouraging and helping their child to succeed in their learning and development. John Bourn (2006) states that families that use the Sure Start centres are very happy with the service they get and have said that they feel like they get the support and advice needed that they would not get through other services. Similarly, they have said that they feel more confident and they enjoy the interaction they have with other parents and like the fact that their children get to interact with other children whilst at the centre. However, even though the Sure Start centres help and support deprived families’ lots of the centres have been shut down because the children’s minister Sarah Teather has said that there is not enough money available to maintain the existing children’s centres. Nevertheless, without these centres many families who are disadvantaged will not mix with other people and therefore their children will not get social interaction. It has been reported that Ms Teather stated that even though she understands the local authorities are facing

difficult decisions and that there are lots of areas that have not made decisions yet, people need to remember what is important and that this decision will have a lasting impact on children’s lives. She continued to state that there needs to be early years support for children in the community and that the local authorities have a,

‘legal duty to provide sufficient children's centre provision to meet local need and must consult before closing or changing children's centres’

(Richardson, 2011)

Conversely, having said that there are still centres being shut down. Without these centres many parents and their children are not getting the support they need and their children are not able to go somewhere where they can grow and develop and become socialised. Therefore, many parents who were helped by these centres are now going to decline and go back to where they started and in many cases are not being the best parents. By not going to these centres the parents may not be interacting or playing with their children like they did while they went to the group sessions because it gave them encouragement and for many parents it becomes a highlight in their week and gives them somewhere to go and it is a place where they get to communicate with people who are in the same position as themselves (Abrams, 2011). Similarly, in the community there are outreach groups for children to be part of such as, art and craft groups. Children can be part of the groups outside of school and this enables children and families who might not be otherwise reached be part of the community and it helps to build positive relationships between families and different groups of people. Parents can participate in the groups and help their children to become active participants in the community which will help to enhance the children’s development. The outreach groups enable children to have other opportunities to explore different materials and objects in different contexts and environments, this therefore, helps to enhance their cognitive development. The Early Years Foundation Stage states that children need to be guided when making sense of,

‘their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment’.

(Department of education, 2014, P. 8).

Consequently, outreach groups are therefore important so children can grow and be encouraged to be take risks when learning to enhance their development while having interactions with other children so they can make new friends. In conclusion, having analysed the role of parents, carers and the community in children’s lives it is important to understand the impact of the community and the significant influence that people have to enhance the children development so they have best chances in life and in their overall achievement. Therefore, when there are strong links between each person’s role in the children’s lives the more effective the outcomes are.

Reference List: Abrams, F. (2011) Sure Start: Are children really benefiting?. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14079117. [Accessed: 20th October 2016]. Early Years Foundation Stage. (2007) Effective Practice: Parents as Partners. [Online] Available at: http://www.keap.org.uk/documents/eyfs_eff_prac_parent_partner.pdf. [Accessed: 14th October 2016]. Department for Education. (2014) Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation stage. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335504/EY FS_framework_from_1_September_2014__with_clarification_note.pdf. [Accessed: 21st October 2016]. Finders, M., and Lewis, C. (1994) Why Some Parents Don’t Come to School. [Online] Available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/may94/vol51/num08/Why-Some-Parents-Don't-Come-to-School.aspx. [Accessed: 13th October 2016]. Harris, A., and Goodall, J. (2007) Engaging parents in raising achievement: do parents know they matter? [Online] Available at: www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/DCSFRW004.pdf. [Accessed: 14th October 2016]. Johnson, J. (2014) Becoming an Early Years Teacher: From Birth to Five Years. Berkshire: Open University Press. Bourn, J. (2006) Sure Start Children’s Centres. London: National Audit Press Office. Nidirect Government Services. (No Date) Sure Start Services. [Online] Available at: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/sure-start-services. [Accessed 20th October 2016]. Oswalt, A. (2015) Urie Bronfenbrenner and Child Development. [Online] Available at: https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/urie-bronfenbrenner-and-child-development/. [Accessed: 13th October 2016]. Richards, G., and Armstrong, F. (2010) Teaching and Learning in Diverse and Inclusive Classrooms: Key Issues for New Teachers. Oxon: Routledge. Richardson, H. (2011) Closure threat to '250 children's centres'. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12301690. [Accessed 20th October 2016]. Ward, U. (2009) Working with Parents in Early Years Settings. Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd. Whalley, M. (2007) Involving Parents in their Children's Learning. London: Sage Publications Ltd....