Children, Families, and Communities Guidebook: Parenting Roles

[CLO: 4]

Throughout this course you will develop a Children, Families, and Communities Guidebook that demonstrates your knowledge, learning, and personal philosophy developed during this course. In Weeks 1 through 5, you will add a new section to this guidebook, with a specific focus on partnerships with children, families, and communities. In Week 6, you will present your cumulative guidebook, as the Summative Assignment, by developing an audio, video, or multimedia presentation to show your work. The purpose of this guidebook is to demonstrate your philosophy of how to develop and maintain effective partnerships with children, families, and communities in your role as an educator. To help you better understand how to develop an excellent Guidebook, please see this week’s Instructor Guidance for explicit modeling, examples, and resources.

The final guidebook, developed in Weeks 1 through 5, will include the following sections:

• Parenting Roles
• Beginning Early Childhood Education Professional Family Partnerships
• Maintaining Early Childhood Education Professional Family Partnerships
• Families, Communities, and Advocacy
• Family Behaviors, Circumstances, and Diversity

This week you will begin developing your Children, Families, and Communities Guidebook. More specifically, you will be completing the Parenting Roles section. This week’s readings include the American College of Pediatricians (2013) position statement on the rights, roles, and responsibilities of parents. This resource presents seven distinct roles that families play in modern day parenting. The family’s role often has a direct impact on the developing child, as well as those to who educate them. It is important that early childhood professionals are knowledgeable of various parenting styles so that they can best support children’s development, along with supporting parental growth and learning.

Guidebook Setup: You may choose one of the tools below to create your Children, Families, and Communities Guidebook, utilizing either a text-based guidebook or electronic guidebook. Select one tool that you will use and add to each week to create your guidebook:

• Text-Based Guidebook: MS Word Document or .pdf, including text and images.
• Electronic Guidebook: Google Sites (Links to an external site.), Weebly (Links to an external site.), or Wix (Links to an external site.)

Guidebook Title Page: Your Guidebook title page will help create a professional and knowledgeable image of who you are as an expert in family and community partnerships. Please include your name, title of your guidebook, and at least one relevant visual.

Guidebook Parenting Roles Section: For this section, you are going to create a Parenting Roles newsletter that you can share with the families in your care. Create a one to two page newsletter that summarizes the seven roles that a parent or guardian plays in a child’s life at school and at home. Explain the potential positive and negative implications of the parental role. Finally, recommend one helpful resource that supports collaborative family relationships between the early childhood professional, parents or guardians, and the child.

Content Expectations:

• Children, Families, and Communities Guidebook Title page: Set up your Children, Families, and Communities Guidebook with a title page, including your name, title of your guidebook, and at least one relevant visual.
• Parenting Roles Newsletter: Using Chapter 3 from the Gestwicki text as a guide for the seven parenting roles, create a newsletter that includes the following:
  • Summarize each of the seven roles that parents or guardians play in the lives of their children at home and at school.
  • Explain how each of the seven roles can directly impact children at home and at school, both positively and negatively.
  • Recommend at least one resource that a family might use to learn about an aspect of child development or parenting. Please include an APA citation, summary of the resource, and a rationale of how it supports positive development.

Writing and Formatting Expectations:

• Newsletter Appearance: Newsletter is well organized (i.e. formatted with easily read font, appealing colors, has a professional appearance, and includes a logical organization of the content).
• Organization: Demonstrates logical progression of ideas.
• Syntax and Mechanics: Writing displays meticulous comprehension and organization of syntax and mechanics, such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
• APA Formatting: Newsletter is formatted properly and all sources are cited and referenced in APA style, as outlined