Relationship Building
Appropriate relationship building between child care staff and children allows a child to have a sense of belonging and security to try new things as they learn and grow.
The best practices (per GO NAPSACC) and the related resources in this section focus on caregiver practices that create strong and positive individual relationships with children in their care. Healthy relationships between children and staff lead to accepting, open environments. In turn, this promotes a sense of belonging that helps children feel safe trying new things.
Best Practices
The resources in this category are the same for the following four GO NAPSACC best practices:
- “Educators and staff positively acknowledge and greet each child by name when they arrive and throughout the day.”
- “Children are spoken to in a positive and supportive tone by all adults.”
- “On a daily basis, educators intentionally engage individually in a meaningful, warm, and responsive manner, with all children, seeking it out if necessary.”
- “Children are allowed to develop and engage in activities without being limited by biases based on their race, gender, class, or other identities.”
Resources
5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return
Summary: Staff how-to guide on engaging children in serve-and-return interactions and relationship building. Available in multiple languages.
Source: Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University
A-to-Z’s of Early Childhood
Summary: Short videos, quick tips, and printable tip sheets on how to strengthen children’s development under each letter of the alphabet. See “I” for Inclusion, “J” for Justice, “S” for Social and Emotional Development and Learning, and “X” for X’s and O’s (using warmth and affection to build positive relationships).
Source: University of Florida Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies
Anti-Bias Resources
Summary: Information on culturally responsive strategies, anti-bias practice, and equity in early childhood caregiving.
Source: National Association for the Education of Young Children
Banking Time: Strengthening Your Relationship with Individual Children
Summary: Specific strategies to support positive relational interactions with children, resources for implementation guidance, and a tool for reflection in practice.
Source: National Center for Pyramid Model Interventions
Behavioral Expectations and Positive Guidance
Summary: Age-appropriate positive guidance from birth to age 12.
Source: Utah Department of Health and Human Services
Building Positive Relationships with Young Children
Summary: Tip sheet explaining the importance and basic how-to of relationship building.
Source: National Center for Pyramid Model Interventions
Classroom Strategies
Summary: Resource library on building core social emotional skills, including relationship building, self-regulation, and communication. Resources under each strategy may include videos, podcasts, and brief downloadable/printable guides.
Source: ECE Resource Hub by the University of Virginia
Five Anti-Bias Education Strategies for Early Childhood Classrooms
Summary: Strategies that include incorporating activities that share and celebrate differences, using diverse books and stories, preventing and addressing microaggressions, exploring real-life stories about social justice, and providing children with opportunities to discuss bias.
Source: Public Broadcasting System Southern California
Go Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAPSACC) Bilingual Self-Assessments
Summary: Free for providers. Contacting a consultant and completing the online version of the social emotional assessment opens a suite of planning, learning, professional development, and implementation tools to understand further what the best practices are and how to make them happen in your child care.
Source: Go Nutritional and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (Go NAPSACC)
Guide to Teacher-Child Relationships
Summary: Relationship-building techniques used to improve the quality of interactions between teachers and children. Hands-on, practical strategies and printable guides covering topics ranging from greeting each child as they arrive to spending special play time with every child.
Source: ECE Resource Hub by the University of Virginia
Practical Strategies for Teachers and Caregivers
Summary: Toddler and preschool-appropriate, downloadable resources that include social emotional skill reinforcement materials, scripted stories for different social situations, relationship building tools for caregivers, a book list, activity guides around popular children’s books that provide hands-on ways to embed social emotional skill building activities into everyday routines, and more.
Source: Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning
Relationship-Building Strategies for the Classroom
Summary: 10 classroom or group-based activities that educators can use to help strengthen educator-student relationships. While some strategies are geared towards (and marked for use with) older students, strategies marked as appropriate for “all grade levels” can be adopted for preschoolers.
Source: Office of the State Superintendent of Education
Skill Building Opportunities
Summary: 1-page guides for professionals and parents to help them turn common behavioral issues into opportunities to promote life skills in children. Browse all of the resources available in both English and Spanish, or filter by skill or age.
Source: Mind in the Making
Social and Emotional Health: A Guide to Families with Children Birth to 8
Summary: Though geared toward parents, this guide gives tips on building positive relationships for all caregivers of infants, toddlers, and preschool children.
Source: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
Teaching Social-Emotional Skills: Teacher-Child Relationship
Summary: Multiple materials that can guide classroom practice, including information on positive communication and positive descriptive feedback, relationship-building strategies, re-teaching skills and routines after breaks, and individualizing approaches.
Source: National Center for Pyramid Model Interventions
Understanding Anti-Bias Education: Bringing the Four Core Goals to Every Facet of Your Curriculum
Summary: Excerpt from the second edition of Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (2020) by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards, which discusses the four goals of anti-bias education and how to implement supportive practices.
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