2.1 Developing positive relationships with parents

In Videos 2 and 3 in the previous sections, Karen and Nicola gave many examples of how they work with parents to encourage them to promote their children’s physical development and activity.

From what they said in the two videos, you may have selected the following five ways:

1. Ensure you develop positive relationships with parents.
2. Increase your knowledge about the importance of physical development and growth.
3. Use this knowledge to educate children and parents about how to promote physical development and growth.
4. Identify activities that babies and young children enjoy at nursery that are aimed at promoting physical development, share them with parents and encourage parents to carry on doing them at home.
5. Be a positive role model for children by being active yourself.

You may have picked out other ideas from Karen and Nicola’s video clips, and of course, you may also have other ideas of how to work with parents to promote children’s physical growth and development.

Figure 1

This part of the course has highlighted the importance of working in respectful and positive ways with parents. However, some parents can be anxious about encouraging their child to take part in physical activity, especially if their child has a health condition or an additional need. The next section will look at how to plan physical activity for children with health conditions.