PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN EARLY LEARNING
Early Childhood Education and Care is not just about working with children. It is also about working with and supporting families. It takes a specific set of skills to be able to work with a diverse range of parents. These skills should be an essential part of professional development for all early childhood practitioners, and embedded in training, practice and policy for day care, pre-school play groups, first years of primary school at national and municipal level.
This leaflet summarises a report, Parental Involvement in Early Learning - A review of research, policy and good practice, researched and prepared by Margaret Kernan of International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) on behalf of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. The report was based on national and international literature and discussions from September 2011 and January 2012. It can be downloaded from www.icdi.nl.
The Netherlands offers a wide range of initiatives, programmes and information resources designed to support parents. However, with decentralisation of social services and education policy to municipalities and pressure on budgets, coverage is uneven and there are gaps in provision.
New agreements between government and
municipalities should, in theory, provide parents with easily accessible child-rearing advice via Centres for Children and Families (Centra voor Jeugd en Gezin).
However, in practice there is huge variation across municipalities, and parents report that they are less likely to seek child-rearing support and advice from the Centres for Children and Families than from their child’s daycare centre, pre-school or school.
Involving parents in education is a topical policy issue in the Netherlands. Government policy emphasises that formal educational institutions and parents bear joint responsibility for language and literacy development. However, evidence shows that even when a school meets all the legal requirements to set up structures for parental involvement, establishing meaningful partnerships requires more attention to culture, willingness and skills.
What is the current situation in The Netherlands?
www.bernardvanleer.org www.icdi.nl
Parents are children’s first and most enduring educators. Most learning takes place in informal settings such as the home and the neighbourhood.
Evidence shows that how well children learn is strongly influenced by their parents’ behaviours and attitudes, such as a literacy-rich home environment, cognitive stimulation, sensitivity and child-centred emotional support and valuing learning.
Everyone benefits from partnership between parents and professionals in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The quality of ECEC services can be improved by listening to the needs and concerns of the parents they serve.
Joined-up services
» – ECEC services should be
located physically close to where families live, take the whole family context in account when supporting children’s early learning, and link effectively with home visiting, social and health services and adult education.
Long-term vision
» – the most effective early learning initiatives are based on policy informed by research data from practice. This maximises the potential for cross-party political commitment, and continuity across changes of government.
Policy links
» – ECEC services work best when a comprehensive strategy links them to initiatives in other policy areas such as employment, housing and health.
Involving fathers
» – research shows that fathers are much less likely to be engaged in their children’s early learning than mothers, unless specific attempts are made to involve them.
Active learning
» – not only children but also parents and practitioners are learning all the time.
Acknowledging this can lead to more respectful relations between parents and practitioners.
Responding to diversity
» – practitioners need to
be specifically trained in skills at involving families of different countries of origin and cultural background, social class, educational level, and so on.
Why involve parents?
What stands in the way of involving parents?
What do we learn about involving parents from case studies of good practice?
Offering
»
children stimulating opportunities to learn, develop and socialise, and preparing them to make a successful transition to primary school
Giving parents
»
information and advice on child-rearing, helping them to find support from their peers, and enhancing their self-esteem as parents
Linking parents to
»
support on health, housing, training and employment, and to resources such as playgrounds, libraries, parks and cultural centres
Research shows that relations between ECEC practitioners and parents are often strained. Reasons include different expectations of each other’s
contributions, different views on child-rearing, and lack of confidence to speak openly with one another.
In general, the level of parents’ engagement in early learning is influenced by their social class, level of education, psychosocial health, single parent status, and, to a lesser degree, family ethnicity. Less-educated and unemployed parents also receive less informal support from family and friends. Practitioners need proper training to work effectively with parents, particularly those dealing with stressful circumstances such as poverty, unemployment, family breakdown or addiction.
