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Action 10: Know Your Children and Families

Families know their children best. They can help you understand their child’s development, interests, and abilities, so you can plan learning experiences to help them thrive. As you build respectful relationships with families and learn more about their caregiving practices, you can support the safety and well-being of everyone in the family.

Know Your Children and Families

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Action 10. Know Your Children and Families

Knowing your children and families is an important part of every Action in a culture of safety. Every child is unique. When you understand each child's development, interests, and abilities, you can create safe learning experiences to help them thrive.

Learning about each family's beliefs, culture, and traditions can help you understand their caregiving practices. Families may have distinct cultural perspectives based on their beliefs and traditions. When you respect each family's experiences and traditions, you can support their efforts to establish a safe environment for their child.

Remember, families may include parents, grandparents, other extended family members, and other people that play a role in caring for the child. Engaging in mutually respectful, goal-oriented partnerships with families allows you to share injury prevention information and build trusting relationships over time.

If a family is struggling with a loss, you can provide emotional support for them and their child. You can respond to any changes in the child's behavior that might be a sign of trauma. If a family tells you their child is shy around new people, you can create opportunities to help the child connect with a new staff person or volunteer.

Another way to learn about children is to conduct ongoing child assessments. They can help you understand each child's skills, abilities, and challenges. The best way to keep young children safe is to know about their unique development and behavior, and provide individualized, responsive care. Daily health checks are an important way to learn about changes in a child's health, sleep, behavior, and development.

Use what you learn from conversations with families, the child's assessments, and the child's health information to individualize care and learning, recognize children's challenges, anticipate when children need support, and intervene before problems arise. Use what you know about each child's individual behaviors, interests, and skills to predict what they will do. Then, create challenges that children are ready for. 

You can quickly intervene prior to problems arising by helping children communicate their needs and promoting other problem-solving skills. Each child grows at a different rate and has unique skills, abilities, and challenges. If you know both the children and their families, you will have a strong foundation to collaborate if challenges do arise.

Families will be more willing to trust when they understand you value and respect them. Knowing children and families is an essential part of building a culture of safety.

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Implementation Tips

  • Learn about children’s temperaments, abilities, and challenges. Children have different rates of development, as well as individual interests, temperaments, cultural backgrounds, and learning styles. Adults are better able to create safe environments that protect children from injury when they understand each child’s skills and learning styles.
  • Get to know each family’s beliefs, cultures, and traditions. Learning about each family’s experiences and traditions will help you talk with them about a safe environment for their child.
  • Use the family partnership process to help families identify safety concerns and develop strategies to address them. Meaningful relationships with families require two-way communication. For example, this may include discussions about:
    • Families’ expectations and priorities
    • Changes in the children’s routines or home environment
    • Children’s abilities at home and during program activities
  • Support children’s individualized learning and development in safe, well-supervised environments. Use information from ongoing observations, child assessments, and conversations with families to individualize learning experiences for children and help them practice new skills. Reduce safety issues by creating activities that children are ready for and anticipating when they may need additional supervision or support to help them succeed.
  • Maintain current family contact information. Use recordkeeping and other communication systems to ensure that your program has up-to-date information about:
    • Emergency contacts
    • List of adults authorized to pick up children at the center, home, or bus stop
    • Changes in schedules that may affect safety or routines

Resources to learn more:

Tips for Keeping Children Safe: A Developmental Guide
A Guide to Safety Conversations with Families
Injury Prevention Starts at Home
Cultural Perspectives in Caregiving: Applying Relationship-Based Practices

Read more:

,  Safety Practices