Makeez Qaderi

Susan Johnson
CHD 120
Article Response on Understanding Families
In the article Understanding Families it talks about the how working with and understanding families
is one of the most important responsibilities that comes with being an early childhood professional. As it states
in the article To be effective in this work we must first understand families who are diverse in ways such as
culture, sexual orientation, economic status, work, religious beliefs, and compositions Examining these
characteristics helps educators engage families in ways that foster optimal child development. It also talks
about what an early childhood professional should do when interacting with the childs family and how they
should proceed about it. The article mentions family boundaries known as disengaged and enmeshed.
Disengaged family boundaries are families that give their children a sense of belonging, independence, they
are less strict and let their children have a say in a situation. Whereas, enmeshed family boundaries are stricter
and more opinionated. In enmeshed family boundaries, a child does not get to discover their own identity.
Usually, their identity is tied to whatever identity their family has. In the article, it explains how to approach
families of either boundary. It states when an educator is speaking to families of either boundaries, they should
speak about the strengths of the child. In addition to helping the family and child notice the characteristic that
makes the child unique.
While I was reading the article I came across the Ideas for working with families Rules and I found
it really interesting. I liked the article explanation on how to handle a situation when a child brings home a
school rule and tries to apply it at home. Moreover, I have seen that same scenario with my oldest nephew.
Upon reading Ideas for working with families Rules I have a better insight as what to do if I were to come
across that situation again. DAP relates to this article because as I have previously stated, understanding how
to work with families is a very crucial aspect of being an early childhood professional. If an educator works on
understanding all families of any race, religion, culture, or gender than that will help the educator engage
families in ways that encourages excellent child development.
I chose this article is because I would like to work in the early childhood educational field. I had an
idea of how important understanding families is in early childhood education, but I wanted to further my
knowledge. As I was reading this article it stated that the need for understanding the family system theory in

early childhood settings has been underscored by professional organizations in their guidelines for preparing
early childhood elementary professionals. For this reason, I thought it would interesting to write a paper on
how important understanding families are in an early childhood setting.