I entered into the world of pre-school teacher fresh out of college as a complete novice.\u00a0 I had been teaching ballet to\u00a0 3 and 4 year olds since I was 16 and did some service hours at my University\u2019s pre-school as part of my education curriculum but really had no idea what I was doing.\u00a0 I was thrown right into the thick of pre-school:\u00a0 full-time with 20 children and 1 other teacher.\u00a0 I spent those first few weeks absorbing everything I could and not getting overwhelmed.\u00a0 I spent the majority of my time with a 3 year-old who was transitioning from the toddler classroom who just cried and cried (we remained close until I left the center 2 \u00bd years later).\u00a0 But I still learned so much those first few weeks from my two co-teachers who were drastically different in their styles but still had the same principals and goals.<\/p>\n
Nap time was especially hard.\u00a0 Once all the children were on their cots, my morning co-teacher would take her afternoon break and I was left alone to make sure everyone stayed quiet and with the goal of getting all the children to sleep before the afternoon teacher arrived.\u00a0 There were a few children that were particularly needy at nap time, requiring their back to be patted until they drifted off to slumber.\u00a0 I quickly learned each child\u2019s habits and requirements and developed a system for getting everyone asleep.<\/p>\n
There was one little boy, however, who only attended sporadically and had a particularly hard time going to sleep.\u00a0 He required constant reminding to lay down and be quiet as well as back patting.\u00a0 He was clearly tired and needing of a rest but the struggle always resulted in him crying himself to sleep.\u00a0 My morning co-teacher reassured me in my struggle with the simple explanation \u201csome kids just don\u2019t learn until you make them cry.\u201d\u00a0 And, as harsh as it sounds, It\u2019s sometimes true.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lesson I\u2019ve taken to other childcare centers with me and have had to remind myself throughout my mommying career.\u00a0 Obviously it\u2019s never appropriate to physically hurt a child but there are times when a child just isn\u2019t listening or isn\u2019t\u2019 learning and require an extreme sternness that makes them upset.\u00a0 It\u2019s similar to adults who won\u2019t act on something until they get really pissed off.\u00a0 Sometimes we all just need a bit more motivation and anger or sadness can be the necessary trigger.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t often intentionally try to make my children cry but there are times when I get frustrated with them continually repeating the same behaviors and not listening or learning.\u00a0 In these situations, especially if their safety is at stake, I will react in a way which scares or upsets them.\u00a0 Most importantly, though, I always try to reassure them after they\u2019ve been upset.\u00a0 I let them know that I was worried about them getting hurt and they weren\u2019t listening but I hope now they understand why it\u2019s so important to listen to me the first time.\u00a0 Sometimes I still have to repeat myself again and again but a lot of times they get the message and are better in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I entered into the world of pre-school teacher fresh out of college as a complete novice.\u00a0 I had been teaching ballet to\u00a0 3 and 4 year olds since I was 16 and did some service hours at my University\u2019s pre-school as part of my education curriculum but really had no idea what I was doing.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-home-school-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10054,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/10054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}