Supporting Child Development Services: Curriculum Planning and Curriculum Experiences

Open Doors-Parent-child Relationships, the Cornerstone to School Readiness in the Home-based Option-Clip 7A

Brenda Jones-Harden: And I think the Head Start Performance Standards really do support what you're saying, because the curriculum, the visit should be planned with the parent anyway. So, it should be something intentional that occurs with the parent, perhaps at the last visit, or even at the start of this visit.

But one of the other things that I often like to do in home settings is look at caregiving routines and how parents, you know, bathe their children, feed their children, clothe their children, groom their children's hair, all those kind of things -- diaper their children -- and really think about helping them promote development in those contexts. And that may not be a curriculum, but it's certainly what parents are gonna do 25 times a day.

So, if we can help them to think about using every one of those opportunities, as a chance to teach language or a chance to work on emotion regulation, or a chance to do expressive, affective interaction, then probably they're gonna do it over and over and over again. We're giving them tools that are part of their normal experience, and that's what I think you're describing -- entering into their space. Now, yes, that makes it hard for us, because, again, we have to be a little more creative, but, again, that's why I think observation of self is so important.

And one of the things that we've been doing a lot with home visitors is videotaping them, and then using that in supervision to say -- because it's hard sometimes to be able to do all of that at one time -- but in supervision to say, "Here's an opportunity. What do you think you could do?" So, we're holding them and we're helping them, again, in the same way that we want them to be holding and helping the parents that they're working with. It's the parallel process that we all talk about.