Why strong relationships with early childhood educators and carers are important

When you have strong and respectful relationships with early childhood educators and carers at child care, there are many benefits for you and your child.

Benefits for your child

A strong relationship with your child’s educator makes it easy to share information about your child. With this information, educators can help your child get the most out of their time at child care.

Strong relationships are also good for your child’s social and emotional development. They set a good example for your child and help your child learn how to have strong and healthy relationships with other people.

Building good relationships with educators also shows your child that you’re interested in and care about how they’re going and what’s happening for them at child care. This helps your child feel valued and important.

And when your child sees that you have a good relationship with their educators, it reassures your child that they can trust their educators too. This helps your child settle into child care more quickly.

Benefits for you

The benefits of strong relationships with educators at child care include:

• knowing how your child is going at child care and feeling that their development is important
• knowing that educators are interested and understand when you talk about your child
• feeling comfortable to raise concerns and work out solutions with educators
• knowing what’s happening at the child care service, including any upcoming changes or events
• being able to influence children’s programs and feel that your opinion is valued.

Child care is also known as early childhood education and care or early learning and care. Likewise, child care centres are sometimes called early childhood services or early learning centres. We usually talk about child care and child care centres or services in our articles.

How to start building relationships with early childhood educators and carers

You can start building relationships with your child’s early childhood educators and carers before your child starts child care and also in the early days.

Here are ideas to get you started:

• Find out about the child care service’s orientation process and how you can help the educators get to know you and your child.
• Spend time with your child in their group and get involved in what’s going on.
• Go to ‘get to know you’ sessions, working bees, parent nights and other events, if you can.
• Let educators know what you like about the service.
• Ask educators how you can help your child prepare for child care. For example, are there tasks your child needs to be able to do or rules your child needs to know?
• Find out what the routine will be like at the child care service and discuss how you can make this consistent with your child’s routine at home.
• Offer tips on caring for your child. For example, ‘Ina eats best with a spoon’ or ‘Jono loves listening to music when I do a nappy change’.

Letting your child see that you trust educators is a great way of helping your child settle in at child care. One way to do this is by putting a photo of your child’s educators on your fridge at home. Just check with the educators that this is OK with them.

Tips for communicating with early childhood educators and carers

Once your child starts child care, open and respectful communication will help you build strong relationships with early childhood educators and carers.

This can be as simple as introducing yourself to educators and saying hello and goodbye at drop-offs and pick-ups. Letting educators know that they’re doing a good job also works well.

This lays the groundwork for talking with educators about your child and your child’s interests, likes, dislikes, needs and expectations. And you can talk about how your child is going day to day. When educators get to know your child like this, it helps them better support your child’s overall learning and development.

You won’t always be able to talk to educators face to face, but you might be able to call, email or message, or use the service’s app. It’s a good idea to ask your child’s educator about the best way to stay in touch.

Things that educators will want to know about your child

Your child’s educators will want to know:

• what your child is interested in – so they can make learning engaging for your child
• what makes your child happy, sad, worried or afraid – so they can comfort and encourage your child
• when a parent is away – so they can reassure your child
• when your child’s routine has changed – so they help your child handle things like a different pick-up time, a difficult night’s sleep or an early wake-up
• whether there are big changes in your family circumstances, like new siblings, house moves, death or separation – so they can help your child adjust.
• how to manage your child’s health conditions or additional needs, if they have any.

If there are challenges at home, consider asking your child’s educators or the service director whether they can refer you to family and child resources in your community.

What to do when there are problems at child care

Sometimes there might be problems you want to discuss with your child’s early childhood educators and carers – for example, problems with lost items or your child’s toileting. If you already have a strong relationship with educators, these matters are likely to be easy to raise and resolve.

You can sort out many problems with a note, an email or a phone call.

If you can’t sort out problems this way, it’s best to make an appointment with your child’s educator. If this doesn’t work or you feel uncomfortable talking to the educator, you can talk to the service director or manager.

If the matter still isn’t resolved, you can contact your state or territory regulatory authority.

It might also help to check your service’s grievances and complaints policy.