Positive Child Interactions

Provides strategies to help Orange County’s future, current, and expanding child care providers build strong, responsive, and emotionally supportive relationships with children. This section emphasizes the importance of nurturing adult–child interactions that promote self-regulation, communication, cooperation, and overall well-being through inclusive, intentional practices.

The Family Child Care (FCC) subsection highlights the unique opportunities within small, home-based programs to build close, family-like relationships. Topics include responsive caregiving, positive guidance techniques, culturally sensitive communication, and supporting social-emotional development across mixed-age groups. Guidance aligns with CLASS® 2nd Edition, CLASS® Environments, and the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS), and incorporates evidence-based approaches such as the Pyramid Model, Conscious Discipline, and Embedded Learning Practices that help providers support children with IFSPs, IEPs, or behavioral support needs while fostering a warm, inclusive environment for all children.

The Child Care Center subsection provides tools for teachers, administrators, and teams to promote consistent, positive relationships across classrooms and staff. Topics include effective communication, responsive teaching, collaborative problem-solving, supporting children with challenging behaviors, and promoting inclusion for children with IFSPs, IEPs, or individualized behavioral supports. This subsection integrates key frameworks such as CLASS® 2nd Edition, CLASS® Environments, the Pyramid Model, Conscious Discipline, and Embedded Learning Practices, offering strategies that strengthen emotional literacy, co-regulation, and a positive classroom climate that benefits every child.

Together, these subsections help providers at all stages; whether new, experienced, or expanding create caring, inclusive environments where relationships and interactions are intentional, supportive, and rooted in every child’s potential to learn and thrive.