Parents’ Trust in Their Child’s Preschool: Associations with Child and Family Characteristics and Aspects of Parent-Preschool Communication

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Trust is considered to be a crucial element of effective parent-preschool partnerships and an important prerequisite of parental involvement in their children’s educational processes. The present study examines the role of child and family characteristics and aspects of parent-preschool communication in parents’ trust. 735 families at 169 preschools participated in the study. All data were obtained in the context of the evaluation of a governmental preschool initiative in Germany. As well as trust, child and family characteristics were assessed using questionnaires. Aspects of parent-preschool communication were assessed with questionnaires and standardized observations. Structural equation modeling analyses indicate that a child’s behavioral disorder and their family’s language predict parents’ trust in their child’s preschool. In addition, the results highlight that the quality of informal communication during transition times is crucial in trusting relationships. Thus, all aspects of parent-preschool communication (parents’ perceived quality of communication, parents’ satisfaction with communication, and observed interaction quality between parents and professionals) are positively related to parental trust. Practice or Policy: Consequently, training programs should make use of these results to enhance professionals’ communication strategies and thereby to establish a trustful relationship with all parents.

Acknowledgments

The study present is part of the evaluation of the German federal program “Early-Years Language Learning: Because Language is the Key to the World” which is funded by the German federal ministry for family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth (2016-2020) and conducted by the Free University of Berlin and University of Bamberg under the lead of Anders, Kluczniok, and Rossbach. We would like to thank all participating children and their parents, the educational professionals, as well as all students engaged in data collection for their most active cooperation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics Approvals

This work was reviewed by the Ethics Committee of the University of Bamberg, Germany, and an approval granted (No. 2022-03/11).

Notes

1. Many terms are used interchangeably throughout the literature to describe the relationship between home and preschool. As this study was not conducted at the dyadic level, and parents responded to items representing general relational experiences within the preschool, we use the broader term PPP when talking about preschool-based activities of parental involvement or parent-preschool cooperation.