The author's presentation at the staff meeting centered on Diana Baumrind's parenting styles framework (Baumrind, 1967). Baumrind believed that there were four requirements for effective guidance: nurturing, communication, maturity demands, and control. She rated parents on these four dimensions and identified the pattern of parenting that correlated with the most competent children. In her research she found that the parents of competent children were strong in all four of the parenting dimensions. Sadly, many child care programs are paralyzed by problems with guidance. Knowing how to partner with struggling teachers can be the key to ensuring children's physical and emotional safety and can lay the groundwork for improving program quality. To meet this imperative, Baumrind's ideas provide a useful framework for understanding the problem, promoting discussion, and bringing teams together to make change.