"Standard I: Caring and Responsive Relationships; Registered early childhood educators (RECEs) understand that strong, positive relationships contribute to healthy child development and are necessary for children’s well-being and learning. Building and maintaining caring and responsive relationships with children, families and colleagues is fundamental to the practice of RECEs" (CECE, 2017, p. 8).

There are six standards of practice that are meant to guide the practice of early childhood educators, and each one is equally important to the field and child development. However, one of the practises which I see a lot of through my placements and in working with children is Standard I: Caring and Responsive Relationships. As you navigate through my website you will see many of my detailed plans, resources collected and pedagogical documentation focuses on, is inclusive to and tries to involve families. I believe that having positive and responsive relationships with families is a large factor in a child's development. By having a relationship with each child's families you strengthen your ability to plan and encourage that child's maximum development. Through positive relationships, educators and families can work together in collaboration to understand where the child is in their development and be able to implement practices and experiences in the classroom and at home that can allow the child to reach their fullest potential. By working together families and educators can make learning a fun and positive experience for children and allow them to excel.

I have created cultural awareness in my placement centres with the help of parent relationships. Through one of my responsive plans, I helped to spread awareness in my grade 1 placement classroom about the various cultural holidays and traditions different families celebrate. With the help of each child's family, we were able to create a safe environment where each child could bring forth their different cultural celebrations, and share them with the class. Thanks to the parents we were able to educate the children, as well as educate myself as an educator. By each parent participating and helping their children write presentations about their cultural celebrations, I was able to gain perspective and knowledge about various celebrations I didn't know about. I was later able to support and celebrate each family's cultural traditions and educate the children further through worksheets, lessons and classroom celebrations as the year proceeded.

I was also able to build a responsive relationship with one of the children's parents in my JK/SK placement and provide support to a child with diverse needs. Early on in the year, I connected with a child in my placement who had been diagnosed with autism. He learned differently than the other children in the classroom, as well as communicated differently. At the beginning of the year, the mother of this child shared with me some of her child's "tells" - by her communicating with me I was able to learn when the child wanted/needed something and I was able to understand his emotions. As my work with this child continued throughout my placement time, and with the support of the child's mother, I was able to obtain resources that would help me communicate further with this child, at their level. This child's mother was able to lend me a book about communicating with children with autism and diverse needs. Through our positive and responsive relationship, the mother was able to educate me and help me to better support her child.

As educators, it is our duty to support children in our classrooms, but we do not know everything. And parent relationships and interactions can help us learn new things and learn how to better support children. I believe is our responsibility as educators to support children and their families, give them resources to help them with their diverse needs and so on. However, if parents support educators and we build these positive relationships with each other then we can all support each other which can allow us to reach new horizons and support children to the best of our abilities, as a team.