I Think You're Getting Too Big For Your Britches

   
For those of you that don’t know, I moonlight as a 1-3-year-old teacher at a Christian daycare when not blogging.  As you can imagine, working with a large group of small children leads to some pretty interesting discoveries about the human race.  I’ve known some of my kids since they were six weeks old, and every day I have the opportunity to watch them grow and learn. That said, this line of work has many ups and downs.  Money for things like paychecks and supplies are hard to come by. Staff turnover and burnout are extremely high. I’ve been trying to think of a way to share the nitty, gritty behind the scenes view of the childcare industry with you.  I finally came to the conclusion to borrow from Christian imagery so let’s discuss the seven levels of daycare hell.

1. Surrounded by Snotty Children Who Want to Love You

    The first thing I tell people who want to put their children in childcare is to prepare because they will get sick.  Children and Teachers alike catch everything coming or going through the daycare for months before forming any sort of immune system.  I’ve had pink eye once, hand, foot, and mouth once, so many upper respiratory infections, chronic bronchitis multiple times, and the stomach flu multiple times. The fight against rampant illness is a battle we teachers constantly fight with Lysol and bleach.  The actual solution would be to keep sick kids home until they get better. Unfortunately, parents have to work so they send their precious babies to me sicker than a dog, get upset when they have to come pick up their child, and bring them back as early as possible with a doctors note.  I should note that these are the same parents who complain that their child is always sick. While some parents are nice enough to keep their sick kidlets at home, they are in the minority.

     

2. The Sudden Realization that They’re All Tiny Sociopaths

    You might feel that this entry is a little mean but I’ve worked with these age groups for several years.  I’m sorry but I don’t. The children I work with are still very young. They haven’t achieved fully developed sympathy and empathy yet.  Yes, they can be prompted to cry when they get in trouble for hurting others or to apologize to classmates and teachers but they’re really only concerned with how it's going to affect them personally.  My children slap, hit, and bit each other indiscriminately. They can’t really share because if an object isn't in their direct possession, it ceases to belong to them. This makes disciplining this age group especially difficult and sometimes kind of impossible.        

3. Trying to Eat In a Room Full of Hungry Children

    Since your average daycare teacher arrives at work well before breakfast and doesn’t leave until nearly dinner time, we tend to pack and bring food along with us to eat throughout the day.  After all, one slightly unpredictable lunch break doesn't garner as much personal time to do adult things like make doctors appointments or pay bills alongside actually eating. Sometimes we do this with the kids during their meals but sometimes we snack at other times.  Eating in a room with small people is an incredibly unnerving experience. They continually want to know what it is you have and whether they can have some too. They clearly need whatever it is. The ensuing swarm is not wholly unlike a school of sharks who can smell blood in the water.  You must encounter and navigate through this gathering every time you want some freakin’ chips. Drinks aren’t typically as bad as they just don’t elicit the same overwhelming curiosity that food tends to. Still your children continue to assume that everything you have is also for them.    

 

4. Disrespectful Preschoolers with Attitude

    There’s really nothing quite like the attitude problems possessed by two year olds.  It’s ever makes them follow rules or instructions at home so they think they get to run the show at daycare. That's not how it works around here.  We’re not legally allowed to use any kind of physical punishments or even time out so how do we control and discipline our children? Threats and intimidation mostly.  We often throw around calls to parents and throwing away of possessions, food, etc. It’s not necessarily the best way to go about it but it more or less works to rangle the zoo.  When you have sixteen two year olds in a room with only two teachers, you basically do whatever you can to maintain some form of control over the chaos.

5. That One Kid that Will Not Fucking Sleep

    Nap time is literally the greatest two and a half hours ever invented.  This is when good daycare teachers clean their classroom, make listen plans, and enjoy a few moments of peace and quiet.  Or when the rest of us check Facebook, read a good book, and actually talk to each other. When this joyous time is interrupted by an inevitably loud and aggravating child who has chosen not to sleep, life becomes much less peaceful.  There is literally no greater sin then a kid that perpetually refuses to nap.

6. Potty Training the Unwilling

    Now on to my favorite subject: Potty Training.  You’d think that potty training one children wouldn’t be that difficult an endeavor.  You would be wrong. Potty training a child who has sufficient interest and is ready to do so is not terribly hard but that isn’t who we have to send the most time with.  Children who need to be trained because they need to go to the next room or their parents want us to do it are the bain of the two year old room. Even worse on us are the parents who want the teachers to completely train their child while they make no efforts to train them at home.  Let me give it to you straight, I cannot make your child go to the toilet.  Forcing them will only serve to torture your child and slow down or stop any progress being made.  

7. Terrible Children and the Parents Who Don’t Care   

The worst behaved kids in your class will never be absent.  They will show up every single day the daycare is open rain, sleet, snow, or hail.  Hell, most of their parents would bring them on the weekend if we were open. These kids will also likely wander in right behind you as you open the doors and will still be in the parking lot when you lock up at night.  They will continually test your patience, tolerance, and willingness not to be incarcerated. To make matters worse still, these children's parents fall into three categories: the I believe this is normal behavior parent, the I don’t notice/care about this behavior parent, and the my child is perfect and can do no wrong parent.  

So you have three different responses to the same behavior issue.  One parent tries to convince the seasoned daycare professional that behavior is totally normal and every kid does that.  One parent completely ignores their child's behavior and tries to explain that they never do this at home. Our last parent is typically sure that the sun shines out their child’s ass.  These kids are often spoiled and can do no wrong in the eyes of their birth givers. While all of these subtypes are annoying in their own right, those who just do not care are the hardest to get through to when their kid’s develop behavior issues.  

I hope that I have adequately conveyed a little bit of what life is like inside a daycare.  It’s often not pretty. Burnout rates are extremely high and staff turnover is so ridiculous that even other teachers don’t boring learning new staff’s names for at least a month.  We are overworked and underappreciated but we love our kids from the bottom of our hearts. Even the terrible ones. Especially the terrible ones. We worry over them when their sick and we celebrate their every triumph from first words to passing kindergarten tests.  Remember that at the end of the day, those people at that daycare might spend more waking hours a day with your children than you do. They are helping you to shape your babies into the people they will become.

Thanks for Reading,

A Southern Atheist