Trust - 29/06/26

Something that may seem SO obvious to be an important element of childcare, can sometimes be forgotten about.

There are numerous amounts of areas that trust plays a vital role. We need the children in our care to have trust in us to be their special people to care for them during the day, we need the children's parents/carers to also have trust in us as practitioners, and us practitioners need to have trust in the parents.

In no particular order of importance - every element of trust is vital, but we will start to talk about the trust parents have with practitioners.

For all paths of trust, a bridge needs to be built. This is between the practitioner and the child, and the practitioner and the parents (both ways.)

If you think, a bridge is not built overnight unless you do a bad job of it - it has to take time to ensure it is the strongest it can be.

We do this at Nursery with our own strategies in place. For example, we offer settling in sessions - which I will go on to talk about.

Parents are putting their trust into practitioners that are working in their chosen setting, for their child to be able to go off for the day so they can have their minds focusing on other things. What ever the daily commitment is for sending their child to Nursery, they need, and should, be able to switch their mind off enough from their precious little ones to engage in what they need to be doing whilst they are child free for a while.

As practitioners, this is what we do day in and day out. We are all used to this transition, we are used to helping and supporting parents and we are used to building new relationships.

I think ALOT of people forget - as a new time mum/dad/carer, despite how many children you have previously had, if any - this is a HARD transition. From growing your baby, to meeting your baby, then handing them over to someone who may potentially be a stranger to begin with, is not an easy thing to do, and it is also not necessarily a natural thing to do.

This is a HARD and emotional time to go through. I personally think, that no matter how much we think about it or try not to think about it, those emotions are not escapable. I haven't ever experienced them myself with a child of my own, but I have seen this scenario enough to understand how emotional it can be.

A baby/child's early years are SO precious, and it is extremely hard as a parent/carer to hand over the baton for a certain duration of time a week. We of course want parents/carers to have as much trust in us as possible, as we truly love our job here, and we want this to come across; however this trust can only be formed if parents allow us in.

As long as the practitioner has a good understanding of your feelings as parents/carers, and how you would like certain things to be dealt with - which will never be achievable without honesty - then the parent will hopefully be more willing to work as a team, rather than either party working FOR anyone. As practitioners at Little Honeys, we feel that it is vital to work WITH you, not always FOR you. The child's best interest it at heart from both parties, and team work makes the dream work as they say!

I often tell parents that it is important to show those emotions.

If you need to have a cry with worry, or sadness of not being with your baby/child for some of the day, or simply everything coming down at once (returning to work, hormones, etc) when you're within our company - please always do. Your feelings are always valid and we want to support you. At Little Honeys, we understand this transition is hard, and we will always do as much as we can to support this. I will go into detail shortly just as to how, but first, talking about the relationship building with the child and the practitioner....

The only way to help children form that bond and build on that trust, is to build the bridge between us (as practitioners) and the child. Again, this bridge will not be built in minutes, we need to ensure it is done slowly, and carefully. This is why we offer settling in sessions - these sessions are not only for the child, but also for the parents to help with the separation, and getting to know the child's close workers.

These sessions are not done day after day the few days before the child is due to start with us, and are not rushed - instead, they are done over a sporadic two weeks before the child's due start date, they are spread out as evenly as possible to ensure the child does not become overwhelmed, and they are done at a pace that the parent/carer feels comfortable.

During the settling in sessions, as they go on (4/5 in total) we will increase the amount of time that the child stays, and slowly decrease the time the parent/carer stays for. This does not need to be explained in detail now, however, I would like to dive into why we do our settling in sessions the way we do and the science behind it - especially the first settling in session.

The first settling in session is 1 hour long, and this is where the child, the parent, and practitioner will all sit together to discuss the child (every single detail you could possibly imagine!)

As much as it is a 'paperwork' session, it is very important the child comes along.

As a baby, the baby will see the comfort of the parents face, alongside the new practitioners face and take everything in. The science is, because the baby has seen the practitioners face alongside their main comfort (parent/carer) - they will gain the understanding that the practitioners face is a safe space to be around, as they will always assume that any face that has been next to their 'safe space's face' - is comforting and they can seek support from. Babies are so so clever, and their brains work constantly. Faces aside, they also gain trust through familiar smells, and scenery. Even if they are not on the move yet, it is important they come along to the settling in sessions to ensure they are taking in their surroundings.

As a toddler, and then continue to grow, they start to become a little more aware, so these settling in sessions are just as important as when they are a baby.

I truly believe a lot of people forget how hard this is for the parents. I know I have already said similar if you scroll up (I appreciate if you have got this far, so thank you!)- but people act as if dropping their child to Nursery and feeling no ounce of emotion is normal, I will give you a hint as to how this is going to go on.... it is NOT normal, and no parent/carer should ever hide how they are feeling.

You are essentially parting for the day, for what ever reason, to try your hardest to switch your mind when all you want to do is have a cuddle from your little one.

SOMETIMES (and you are absolutely not a bad human for this) it is a great feeling to have a child free break. Engage in adult conversation, have some time to yourself, get the shopping done without having to have eyes in the back of your head, and many other little scenarios where child free time is beneficial. This is important. Finding it hard at first is ok, and also loving every second the minute you are apart is ok, but it is important to try to let go as much as you can and ease into letting go as gently as you need too, but it will truly help you - WE will truly help you. Please trust us!

Parent and child trust aside, I want to briefly touch base on trust between myself and my amazing staff team.

As a new owner of a Nursery (we opened 10 months ago now!) to suddenly needing 10 members of staff, as you can imagine, is very quick progression and a lot to take on. I need to ensure I am working appropriate hours to show my best practice, and if I didn't have trust in my wonderful team, I would be working constantly around the clock.

It is not only working with children, it is the admin, the paperwork, alongside the business admin which isn't childcare related - so much going on.

I am so lucky that I can put all of my trust into these amazing women that work for me - they are all fantastic at their jobs and I truly have the work/life balance I wished for.

Thank you so much for reading this far. If you are a new parent, a parent to be, a parent to a Pre-School child, I hope you have managed to take something away from this!

Lots of love xx