This book focuses on parents and teachers as adult learners, who should be growing and learning along with the children in their care. It lays out a theory of what parents and teachers need to care for children and themselves and then it shows how the author has assisted parents and teachers to put these theories into practice. McDermott relies on stories and listening to the voices of parents, teachers and children to make her case. She weaves together the latest theories and research with these stories. She uses narratives of actual school meetings, workshops, parent planning and discussion groups, testimonies, newsletters, and research of others in the field, to demonstrate applications of theory and research. She fills a gap by focusing on parents from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Key Features: o Focuses on parents and teachers as adult learners o Focuses on the dynamic process of parenting and teaching o Provides a theory to practice model to support parents, families and teachers o Provides a tool or guide for thinking through problems and finding solutions that take into consideration the needs of all involved.

This work focuses on parents and teachers as adult learners, who should be growing and learning with the children in their care.

Empowering Family-Teacher Partnerships: Building Connections Within Diverse Communities prepares students to work collaboratively with families and community professionals in support of children's early education and development. Students are invited to develop a personal philosophy of family involvement to guide their work with families and to join a community of learners in relying upon their collective insights and problem-solving skills to address family involvement challenges. The author takes a student-centered approach to delivering substantive information and framing activities, providing: (a) comprehensive coverage of the diversity of family lives represented in classrooms and strategies for working with those families; (b) challenges to family involvement and strategies for addressing them; (c) strategies for communicating effectively with and empowering families, and (d) reflections, activities, tip boxes, and field assignments designed to facilitate students' skills in building positive family-school-community partnerships.

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Principles and possibilities to inform and inspire caring in your leadership practices! Do you feel like something is missing in today’s schools? Do you feel student success is too focused on academic accountability, test scores, and college readiness? Recalibrate your leadership with the help of this book to promote the practice of caring which, with academic rigor, is essential to effective schooling. Caring School Leadership is a research-based collection of ideas, principles, and values illustrated with numerous examples and stories that will inform, inspire, and guide you. Evaluate your current leadership practice and evolve to lead in the way to which you aspire. In addition to insights and lessons about caring from educators and human service professions like nursing and ministry, readers will be introduced to themes of · Caring in interpersonal relationships with students · Cultivating schools as caring environments · Fostering caring in families and communities

In a seemingly tumultuous time of political change, caring and healing are needed now more than ever. This is especially true in education, which has been criticized for a disproportionate focus on the technical aspects of teaching with less focus on its “human” aspects. Creating Caring and Supportive Educational Environments for Meaningful Learning is a collection of innovative research on the practical and theoretical questions involved in organizing traditional and nontraditional areas of study around themes of care and support for students within the framework of current educational systems and standards. While highlighting topics including service learning, ethics of care, and student mental health, this book is ideally designed for teachers, administrators, researchers, and academicians seeking current research on the importance and ethics of the human aspects of education.

Improve student outcomes with a new approach to relationships and networks Relationships matter. Who You Know explores this simple idea to give teachers and school administrators a fresh perspective on how to break the pattern of inequality in American classrooms. It reveals how schools can invest in the power of relationships to increase social mobility for their students. Discussions about inequality often focus on achievement gaps. But opportunity is about more than just test scores. Opportunity gaps are a function of not just what students know, but who they know. This book explores the central role that relationships play in young people’s lives, and provides guidance for a path forward. Schools can: Integrate student support models that increase access to caring adults in students’ lives Invest in learning models that strengthen teacher-student relationships Deploy emerging technologies that expand students’ networks to experts and mentors from around world Exploring the latest tools, data, and real-world examples, this book provides evidence-based guidance for educators looking to level the playing field and expert analysis on how policymakers and entrepreneurs can help. Networks need no longer be limited by geography or circumstance. By making room for relationships, K-12 schools can transform themselves into hubs of next-generation learning and connecting. Who You Know explains how.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Have you, as a parent, ever found yourself treating your children in a way you would never tolerate from someone else? The authors of Emotionally Intelligent Parenting call for a new Golden Rule: Do unto your children as you would have other people do unto your children. And most important, they show us how to live by it. Based upon extensive research, firsthand experience, and case studies, Emotionally Intelligent Parenting breaks the mold of traditional parenting books by taking into account the strong role of emotions -- those of parents and children -- in psychological development. With this book, parents will learn how to communicate with children on a deeper, more gratifying level and how to help them successfully navigate the intricacies of relating to others. The authors take the five basic principles of Daniel Goleman's best-seller, Emotional Intelligence, and explain how they can be applied to successful parenting. To this end, the book offers suggestions, stories, dialogues, activities, and a special section of Sound EQ Parenting Bites to help parents use their emotions in the most constructive ways, focusing on such everyday issues as sibling rivalry, fights with friends, school situations, homework, and peer pressure. In the authors' extensive experience, children respond quickly to these strategies, their self-confidence is strengthened, their curiosity is piqued, and they learn to assert their independence while developing their ability to make responsible choices.

Learn how to create culturally responsive, socially just school–family partnerships that positively impact student learning outcomes. Responding to the current rise in White supremacy in America, a surge in hate crimes against BIPOC students and families, and the gaping digital divide exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this book addresses the need for educators and schools to develop competency in working with diverse families and their communities. Chapters address misconceptions of school personnel that often result in microaggressions and miscommunications that impede fully including families in the education of their children. Exploring a wide range of sociocultural issues present in today’s schools, readers will learn how to better work with military families during deployment, students with disabilities, families with various living arrangements, immigrant families, and religiously diverse students. The text features engaging, real-life scenarios and research-based practices designed to improve the academic success of all K–12 learners. Book Features: Innovative models for creating culturally responsive family and community engagement initiatives that focus on student success. Reflective questions to facilitate discussions in various professional development venues, including schools, university programs for teachers and administrators, and community organizations.Concrete examples of successful partnerships involving public schools, a higher education institution, and a public city library.An extensive list of resources for building better educational programs and communities. Contributors: Bryan D. Bowens, Eugene E. García, Maria A. Pacino, Kathryn Scorgie, Susan R. Warren, Catherine White, Jerome Zamora