Engaging families in early childhood programs is about building strong, genuine partnerships that support each child’s growth and well-being. Family engagement goes beyond participation in events; it’s an ongoing, two-way relationship where educators and families work together, listen to one another, and make shared decisions.

Collboarations with families enrich learning experiences, strengthens bonds, and enhances outcomes for children by creating a supportive, inclusive environment. Explore what family engagement truly means, the difference between engagement and involvement, and how we can encourage meaningful connections with families in early childhood settings. Be sure to download our Family Communication and Media Kit Guide at the bottom of this post, especially for early childhood programs.

What is Family Engagement in Early Childhood?

When you think about family engagement, what comes to mind?

Engaging Families in early childhood programs is an ongoing process of respectful and responsive relationships between educators and families. Family engagement focuses on listening, welcoming ideas, and encouraging shared decision-making. The goal of family engagement is to create partnerships, leading to stronger outcomes for children. Families are our biggest partners in early childhood. Educators should work to establish relationships with families to provide appropriate experiences for each child.

Difference Between Family Engagement and Family Involvement

Family involvement occurs when families participate in activities and take advantage of opportunities in their child’s early learning setting. This usually means attending meetings or special events a program offers.

Family involvement and engagement in early childhood programs are important. Research shows that parental or family engagement in a child’s education can improve test scores, attendance, social skills, relationships, behavior, and feelings about school.

Quality family engagement occurs when programs offer opportunities for all families to be partners in their child’s education. It’s a cycle of early care and learning programs that demonstrate commitment to engaging and involving families in meaningful ways, and families are committed to actively supporting their children’s learning and development.

We are striving for this type of relationship: not just programs trying to involve families but families actively engaged as well. Family engagement aims to create partnerships, leading to stronger outcomes for children.

What Does Family Mean To You?

Let’s take a minute and talk about families. What does it mean to you?  Take a moment and think about your own family. Who does it include? Why did you include them? 

ou may think of a particular group or individuals who have influenced and shaped your life. You may recall celebrating birthdays, holidays, or cultural events together; maybe it brings to mind certain home-cooked foods or memories of special relatives. But when you think of family, it may also bring sadness, hurt feelings, and difficult memories.

Regardless of your family experience, family is central to an individual’s life, especially when children are young. Families play critical roles that significantly affect children’s overall well-being and development.

As professionals, it is critical that you understand and appreciate all children’s families. This means it is important for us to evaluate our own biases when it comes to our thoughts about families and what they should include. While your own values and experiences impact your thoughts, as early educators, we need to set aside our perspectives and instead recognize the importance of families in a child’s development.
You will meet individuals who define family differently than you do and who may share values, customs, or codes of behavior that are different from yours.

Our job as early childhood professionals is not to judge or pass our bias onto a family. Instead, we are responsible for supporting the child’s development.

This means recognizing and understanding that a child’s achievements are based on the support and encouragement they receive from their family. Therefore, learn more about their family, their values, and how they want to encourage their child’s growth and development.

This means recognizing and understanding that a child’s achievements are based on the support and encouragement they receive from their family. Therefore, learn more about their family, their values, and how they want to encourage their child’s growth and development.

Defining Family

As early childhood educators, we should recognize that every family is different. Each person defines family in his or her own way. It is important that providers incorporate a statement of families into their parent handbook. This allows families to feel welcomed during the initial meeting of your program and the family.

NAEYC’s Definition of Family

Using the The National Association for the Education of Young Children definition of family is a great way to include families and build their understanding of their role as the first and most important teacher for their children. The NAEYC definition is  “the term family may include those adults, besides parents, with the responsibility of being involved in educating, nurturing, and advocating for the child.”

When we are defining the term family in our program we may say that “Family to us, is any person who has an interest in making sure a child is successful. This can include other adults, older children, or friends involved in the child’s life”

These are “stakeholders”. Just like a company who has individuals who have a vested interested, children have people who are invested in their growth and development. This can be considered family. READ Principles of Effective Family Engagement

How to Get Started with Family Engagement

Now that we have defined the term “family” and understand the difference between family involvement and Family Engagement, it’s time To include families in our programs.

But where do we start with family engagement in early childhood programs?

Family Engagement begins with the onboarding process.

Engagement should be woven into:

• Handbook
• Orientation process
• Daily activities
• Classroom environment
• Consistently throughout the year

We can begin to include families by setting up an environment of two-way communication. This begins with understanding the program’s beliefs and the family’s values and beliefs. This is the beginning of a mutual relationship of family engagement.

Practical Ways of Engaging Families in Early Childhood Programs

Early childhood educators and directors are busy. Family engagement is one aspect of the program that often gets let go or isn’t as effective as it should be to be effective. Engaging Families in Early Childhood Programs needs to be part of the everyday fabric of your early childhood community. Let’s look at practical ways of engaging families in early childhood programs.

Get to know Families with Family Questionnaires

A great way to get to know families is by using family questionnaires. At experience curriculum we provide a downloadable questionnaire in our member resources that helps you to find out what is important to parents, and families and the values they have in parenting and goals for their child.

Keep in Touch with Family Newsletters

A great way to get to know families is by using family questionnaires. At Experience Curriculum, we provide a downloadable questionnaire in our member resources that helps you determine what is important to parents and families, their parenting values, and their goals for their children.

Connect with Families by Creating Family Photo Displays

To further this two way communication, teachers can add in family photos and displays in the classroom and program. Children and their families feel apart of the classroom when they see themselves represented.

Having a picture of their family says that you care about them and their family! You care about them as a WHOLE Child, not just their education. Just like families, teachers should also add their own photos to a family display. This adds in the component of two-way communication and strengthens the trust of the relationship.

Welcoming bulletin boards with information for families tells about your program, lunch menu, and other components of the day allows families to feel well informed with who is caring for their child each day. 

Communication at a Glance with Bulletin Boards

Displays and documentation are another way to help families understand how young children learn and build on their communication and engagement.

When we post things where families can see them, we are able to expand our knowledge of early childhood education and how young children earn.

This can open up further communication with families in a way that you may not have expected.

Welcome Families with a Welcome Area

Like children, parents should have an area that welcomes them into the classroom or program. This may include parent mailboxes, a sign-in/sign-out station, and some items to tell about the day. 

Add community resource pamphlets and parenting books that can be checked out.

Encourage family involvement by creating displays in this area or including a dry-erase board to ask poll questions about your daily topic.

Offer Multiple Methods of Communication

Other great ways to incorporate two-way communication is through 

• Apps like brightwheel
• Emails
• Phone calls
• Conferences
• Written notes
• Texting or social media

The key is to find out exactly how the family would like you to communicate and then incorporate that into your day. If you are using brightwheel, you can engage in two-way communication right in the app on a daily basis.

Communicate Your Program’s Value Through Displays

Another way to help families understand how young children learn and build on their communication and engagement is through displays and documentations

When we post things in a place where families can see them we are able to expand the knowledge of early childhood education and how young children earn. This can open up further communication with families in a way that you may not have expected.

Invite Family Contributions to Strengthen Community

Now that this relationship has begun and our communication is open, trusting, and flowing, we can move to a place of further investment with families. Invite families to visit during circle or story time, sing songs, tell stories, show books or pictures demonstrating their culture, and introduce culturally specific food. Make family participation part of your classroom culture! This helps build and strengthen the family engagement with the entire classroom. 

Support Learning & Play at Home with a Center Check Out Library

Families, especially working families, don’t always have time to go to a library or seek out activities with their children. We can extend our resources for families by providing resources and books about community happenings, events, and things they may be interested in. This lets families know that our support is solely about partnering with them to build their child’s development.

• Offer a bin of books for families to check out.
• Create a toy or activity lending library.
• Offer parenting packs with self-care, recipes, or health materials with community donations.

Plan Family Events for Learning and Bonding

Family events are a great way to build family involvement and engagement. These can include open houses, family picnics, holiday events, art shows, classroom showcases, or any other way you want to celebrate families and the development of young children. 

Hosting family events is a fun way to bring families together for a stress-free time of learning and bonding. We use these events to be with the families and allow them to participate at any level they can. We engage, educate, and make home/school connections with the group. At least two events per school year that provide educational opportunities for families and students after hours are suggested.

You may want to start the year with an open house or use our Celebration Kits to plan seasonal and holiday events.

Communicate Growth with Child Assessment and Portfolios

Families need to know how their child is developing, their strengths and challenges, and how they support their children growing to their fullest potential. By hosting family-teacher conferences, share each child’s development with progress reports and portfolios.

Each day provide updates through the brightwheel app or by sending home Creative Mind Daily Art Notes from Experience Preschool to help parents understand the purpose and to give background information about the child’s progress. Experience Curriculum provides Individual Child Assessment forms and portfolio tools so you can easily share this information. Send them home monthly or save them for the child’s children to share at conference time.

brightwheel makes daily activity and routine sharing easy. Recording observations connected to lessons and skills saves teachers time and makes documenting easy. Then, use those observations to create digital portfolios, making learning visible to families.

Share Parenting Articles and Child Development Information

Build a strong home-school connection and provide families with tools to support learning

at home. Share helpful resources from our blog, such as:

• Parenting articles offering tips and support.
• Streaming music playlists to enjoy theme-based songs with children.
• Child development information to help families understand key milestones and learning concepts

Building a Strong Foundation: Make a Difference By Including Families

Remember, including families is as simple as just making it a priority. When you create your lesson plans, create a space for how you may include families in the topic. Is it sending home a question for the week? A book suggestion? A family event?

Continually look for ways to engage families in early childhood programs. Regardless of the activity of inclusion, when you make it a point to include the family, you are building strong kids and strong families. You are making a difference in their growth and development.

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Download the Family Communication & Media Kit Guide

This guide provides the tools to effectively market your program and share the exciting news about your partnership with Experience Curriculum. We also provide resources and tips for Engaging Families in Early Childhood Programs.