Home, School, and Community Relations

“Great coverage of topics, supporting research, and helpful examples/scenarios.”“The text provides the teacher the perspective of a parent and the importance of respecting the elements and indicators of developmentally appropriate practices to meet the goal for the child, not personal bias. Teachers are challenged to work with parents who come from hostile to undernurtured home settings or lack positive interpersonal skills. The text directs the readers’ attention to not only developmentally appropriate practices according to the NAEYC code of ethics, but also to websites to link different resources related to the subject matter.”

Carol Gestwicki was an instructor in the early childhood education program at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, for over 30 years. Her teaching responsibilities have included supervising students in classroom situations as they work with families. Earlier in her career, she worked with children and families in a variety of community agencies and schools in Toronto, New York, New Jersey, and Namibia (South West Africa). She received her MA from Drew University. She has been an active member of the NAEYC for many years, including making numerous presentations at state and national conferences. She has been a Fellow in the Early Childhood Leadership Development Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and she has been associated with the T.E.A.C.H. Model/Mentor program. Her other publications include more than two dozen articles about child development and family issues and scripts and design for 14 audiovisual instructional programs. She has three other books on topics in early education: Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Curriculum and Development in Early Education, Fifth edition (2013); Essentials of Early Education (1997); and Authentic Childhood: Exploring Reggio Emilia in the Classroom (2002). Currently, she writes a regular column titled “Grandma Says” for Growing Child.