The daily conversations you have with parents in your role as an early learning and care (ELC) professional, where you share brief discussions about their child – talking about how their day went, sharing the joy of milestones reached and exchanging pleasantries – lay the foundation for a trusting and respectful relationship to develop between you. This relationship is crucially important to the development of a partnership approach, where you work together with parents in the child’s best interests.

The trust built up within this relationship will be key if an occasion arises where it becomes necessary to have what may be a more difficult conversation with a parent about their child. Such conversations might relate to concerns you have about a possible developmental delay, a sensory or learning related issue, or a behavioural or emotional issue for a child. Knowing how to approach these conversations and what to say when sharing your concern, while also trying not to cause undue distress for the child’s parent or for yourself, can sometimes be challenging.

To access the resource, please click Banardo’s Sharing Development Concenrs with Parents.pdf