Know

Welcoming Each Child and Family

Where do you feel welcomed? What happens in a place that makes you feel welcome?

Spend a few seconds thinking about the two questions above. Then consider all the things you do in your daily work to make infants, toddlers, and their families feel welcome in your classroom and program. How do you greet children and families in the morning and when it is time to go home? How do you ensure that infants and toddlers feel welcome, learn, and develop while having fun? How do you comfort them when they seem upset or miss their loved ones? How do you ensure that families feel welcome and supported?

成功的幼儿服务提供者为与他们一起工作的儿童和家庭创造积极、友好的环境，并努力在与他人的互动中取得卓越的成绩。工作中最重要的方面是你与孩子、家人和同事建立和培养的关系。正如虚拟实验学校的几门课程所强调的，人际关系随着时间的推移而形成，需要持续的努力和承诺。与他人合作是你工作的一个重要部分，无论你是一个全新的或经验丰富的员工，你的成功和效率很大程度上取决于你与他人合作的好坏。无论你是与婴幼儿、家人、同事还是上司交往，早期培养这些关系对你的成功至关重要。yabo11vip

Infant and toddler development happens so quickly. When families and caregivers work together, communicate, and share what is observed and experienced, opportunities are created for better understanding and supporting this rapid developmental growth. Asking questions, communicating, and listening with families helps support continuity of care between home and the care setting.

了解儿童和儿童发展是绝对必要的，你作为一个幼儿保育员的角色。虚拟实验学校内的个别课程提供了关于每个发展领域（如认知发展、身体发展、社会和情感发展）的广泛信息，以及关于如何促进最佳成长的策略和实践想法。有关婴幼儿发展的全面信息，请参阅这些课程。随着婴幼儿的发展，有关安全环境、学习环境、健康环境、积yabo11vip极指导、虐待儿童和家庭参与等主题的知识将增强您的能力，并使您能够积极影响您所接触的儿童和家庭的生活。当你所照顾的孩子健康、情绪稳定、与社会有联系时，就可以实现最佳发展。然而，除非你把婴幼儿的家庭和家庭文化放在工作的首位，否则这种发展是不可能实现的。yabo电子游艺

When engaging with families of infants and toddlers with special learning needs, you should work with your T&Cs and program directors to ensure that you have the resources and supports you need. You should work collaboratively with T&Cs, program directors, and family members to be sure that an infant’s or toddler’s Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) outcomes are addressed (if appropriate) in your classroom and program. Successful inclusion of children with dis/abilities requires careful planning, intentional teaching, and ongoing communication among all team members. As highlighted in Lesson Two in this course (Working as a Team), building collaborative relationships takes time and attention but has meaningful outcomes on your practice.

You should work with your T&Cs and managers to ensure that families are welcomed and supported at all times in your classroom and program. Just as you care about how infants and toddlers in your care are welcomed, you have to pay attention to how families are included in your daily work, not only at drop-off and pick-up time, but throughout their child’s day. In doing so, consider the following:

• Ask family members how they want to be involved and remind them that they are important to you.
• Respect each infant and toddler in your care and their families and acknowledge diversity and individual differences in growth, background, values, and beliefs.
• Share information with families about the work you do with infants and toddlers in your care and, if needed, explain why you do things a certain way.
• Families can choose to be involved in various ways. For military families, it is critical to have flexibility in how they can participate.
• When families volunteer to be in your classroom, they need to have clear directions and a purpose and to know what the expectations are for them.
• Family members want to have meaningful conversations about their infant or toddler. Make sure you keep them updated about their child's growth regularly. Acknowledge all the great things infants and toddlers do on a daily basis and share those with their families often! Ongoing communication and collaboration benefits everyone.
• All families have strengths and all families have challenges. Focus on each family's strengths and build on those.

Introducing Family-Centered Practice

Because families are central to their children's development, particularly when it comes to the early-childhood years, they are partners, active participants, and decision-makers in their children's education process. As a result,family-centered practiceis 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 (Sandall, Hemmeter, Smith, & McLean, 2005).

Family-centered practice also means that you understand the important effect all family members have on each other and on the infant or toddler. Each family member affects the other and the ways that the family functions. All family members are interconnected. From our families, we learn skills that enable us to engage in school and the workplace.

When considering family-centered practice, you are viewing infants and toddlers as part of a larger system; you are viewing family members 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. In an effort 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 that may affect a family's involvement. What affects one family member can affect all family members. A family is a complex 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 table:

Family-Centered Practice Family-centered practice is a set of beliefs and actions that influence how we engage families.
Beliefs	行动s
家庭是孩子一生中最重要的决策者。	我们了解家庭的想法和喜好。 We provide choices in programming. We involve families in program leadership. We involve families in decision-making.
Families are unique and their differences enrich our programs.	We honor and respect diversity. We involve all the important people in a child's life. 我们让家庭参与进来。 We develop responsive and reciprocal relationships. We represent families in our programs.
Families are resilient.	我们了解家庭的优势、需求和背景cumstances. We connect families with resources. We build families' strengths.
Families are central to development and learning.	We share information with families. 我们倾听家庭的声音。 We view families as their child's first teacher. We respect families' expertise about their child.
家庭是我们的伙伴。	We use respectful, responsive, and two-way communication. We reach out to families. We involve families in all aspects of our program.

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

Family-Centered Practices

Honoring Diversity in Families

人生头三年的一些非常重要的学习与文化有关yabo电子游艺。婴儿和幼儿学习新单词、与他人互动的方式、如何交流以及如何玩耍——所有这些都受到文化的影响。文化是指不同群体的共同经历和历史。文化差异可能包括对家庭和社区的看法、对儿童的期望、父母的角色以及对教育的重视程度的差异。

文化是famili方式的一个重要因素es raise their children and how you, as a caregiver, provide care for infants and toddlers. Examine your own cultural experiences and consider how these experiences affect your practice with infants, toddlers, and families. Each caregiver brings specific values, beliefs, and assumptions about child rearing and development to her or his work. In almost every type of child-care routine you perform, your values about it were shaped by your childhood and training. As you work with infants, toddlers 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 a toddler to begin using a spoon and fork around age 3, when you might expect this behavior around 20 months.

有时，你可能不确定如何照顾一个婴儿或学步儿童，或者如何让有着截然不同经历和文化的家庭参与进来，包括那些不熟悉语言或宗教习俗的家庭。你可以承认差异，表现出对家庭的兴趣，努力建立关系，学习如何为你所照顾的婴幼儿提供支持。例如，您可以了解家庭如何以及何时喂养婴儿，这会受到文化的影响并影响婴儿的发育。当从文化的角度来看待差异时，相互尊重的谈话可以导致在群体早期护理和学习环境中如何支持这些实践的一致意见。yabo电子游艺

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, infants and toddlers also learn about culture 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 in a variety of dimensions, including:

• Composition (who is a member of the family)
• 种族和民族
• 语言
• Socioeconomic status
• 性取向
• Ability or dis/ability
• Educational background
• Values and traditions
• Child-rearing practices

Being a responsive caregiver to infants and toddlers means that you demonstrate sensitivity and consideration for the multiple backgrounds, experiences, values, and contexts in which children and families live.

Being a responsive caregiver also means that you are always professional and ethical when working with families. In doing that, you should practice the following:

• Keep information about children and their families confidential. This refers to reviewing child and family records, having conversations with other infant-toddler providers in your program or in the community, or engaging in conversations with other people you know in the community.
• 当你知道孩子或家庭的机密信息时，用这些信息来帮助他们，而不是评判他们。
• If individuals ask you for confidential information about infants, toddlers, or families in your classroom or program, refer them to your T&C or program director.

See

Embracing Diversity

与残疾儿童的家庭合作

做

你可以做很多事情来表明你在你的项目中重视婴幼儿的家庭。考虑以下反映以家庭为中心的做法的指导方针，然后思考如何在与儿童和家庭的工作中使用这些指导方针。

• Recognize the family as the constant in the child's life and that caregivers and service systems may come and go.
• Acknowledge that families know their children best, and learn to view them as partners and collaborators in your work. Reach out to them and invite their input.
• Facilitate collaboration between families and professionals.
• 鼓励家庭间的支持和人际网络。
• Honor and respect family diversity in all dimensions (cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, spiritual, socioeconomic, or in terms of family members' sexual orientations). You may do this by:
  • 询问家人home language, sharing key phrasesthey use at home.
  • Demonstrating genuine interest about each child and family you work with and making an effort to get to know them.
  • Havingfamily information and children's books in the languages of each family.
  • Inviting families to visit your classroom and program andsing songs, tell stories, and show books or pictures that demonstrate their culture, and, for toddlers, introduce culturally specific foods.
  • 观察一个家庭如何互动with their infant or toddler.
  • Asking families tocreate a family or neighborhood storybook.
  • Meeting regularlywith families to learn about their hopes, dreams and goals for their infant or toddler.