The Parent Volunteer

So often in child care centers we focus on promoting parent involvement.  We do this with meetings, parties, field trips, and classroom volunteer work.  For teachers it is important to feel comfortable having parents in the room at any time and for parents it is important to get a snapshot of their child’s world of friends and activities.

Generally those parents who have the time and inclination to volunteer need guidance while functioning in the classroom.  A short discussion with the director, family workers, and classroom staff can be extremely helpful in solving any bumps in the volunteer road and can avoid hurt feelings that can come.

The parent volunteer is not the new classroom teacher.  The parent volunteer is not the teacher for a day.  The parent volunteer is just that, a volunteer, someone to be supportive of classroom activities that have already been planned by the early childhood personnel.   Most parents are happy to follow the teacher’s directives and most parents leave the classroom marveling at how the teacher can “control” an entire group of young children.

Those parent volunteers who have difficulty in the classroom usually find problems in two areas.  The first areas are those parent volunteers who feel they should discipline or have the right to discipline the children.  This frequently happens if the teacher is shy about approaching the subject with the parent volunteer.   Perhaps they feel uncomfortable about placing limits on the parent volunteer.  Perhaps the parent’s personal idea of discipline comes from another culture – one that cannot legally be supported in our regulated child care system.  The center disciplinary directive guides the paid teaching staff and it is the paid teaching staff that is responsible for utilizing the disciplinary guidelines.  

The second area of difficulty for parent volunteers is “reporting to others.”  It is human nature to observe and talk to other parents in the classroom.  After all, for many volunteer parents the classroom is an exotic place so talking about it with friends is a natural.   Little thought may be given to the entire story that was seen or the challenge students may be having.  All this can create hurt feelings.

Successful parent volunteer programs happen every day and they have the ability to bring children, staff, and parents together to create strong early childhood programs.  They key to all this is pre-planning.