Building Relationships

I believe that relationships are essential to allow one to have a strong sense of self: you need to be known that you are valued, and you need to value others in order to provide the best outcome for whatever situation you are in. Of course, I'd like to say that some of the positive relationships I have in my life currently is with my parents. Growing up, I didn't always meet eye-to-eye with my parents, and I always considered them a bit too overprotective and eccentric. Today, I value my relationship with my family because I understand that they gave me a foundation for who I am today. I often see myself having a lot of the same style of parenting as my mother did, but I try to encompass the things I thought were positive on our relationship and build those same values and morals with my children.

Another positive relationship I have is with my husband. I feel like after you've been married for twenty-five years that we're a team and try to have an equal say in the rearing of our children. Growing up, his parents were much more lenient than mine, and I believe he brings a good sense of balance. He often points out where I'm overprotective and remind me of things I was in strong disagreement from in my childhood.

I also find that I have strong professional relationships. One would be with my preschool coordinator. I feel that this is a very nurturing relationship in both parts, as we both have our degrees in early childhood and we are the only two preschool teachers with a degree. Because we both have pedagogical training, we are able to relate with each other and aid in teaching my peers on proper pedagogical strategies. In addition, she aids me in informing the administration on how our decisions are founded in research. I believe this relationship also opened up the doors for other relationships for making friendships in our region, because we've been able to introduce each other to mutual colleagues and share resources/ideas. Perhaps the most important thing is that because we're going through our state evaluation, we've had state advisers inform us on what to expect and how to best adapt our classroom to receive a good score.

Finally, I would like to talk about relationships I've built with the children of the families I worked with. The first year I worked, I was fortunate to work with some children who were part of my First Steps internship, so I had some familiarity with their family. Going into a school system in a county I was unfamiliar with and had no contacts, it was nice to have someone on my side who wanted to use their word of mouth to advise other parents that I was trustworthy and a good teacher.

I think it's important that we foster relationships that are positive with everyone we encounter because the more that we know and understand people and their situations, the better we are able to accommodate for their individualized wants and needs. As a parent of a child with special needs, I think it's really important to establish good rapport with parents because it's so difficult to trust your child with a stranger; you want to be able to know you're placing your child in a good environment with a compassionate teacher.