Hi!

My child has a holiday book exchange coming up and I’m curious to know what books you recommend buying for this? Children are 2 years old.

Do we buy a holiday book? Do we get a random cute book? Any suggestions on specific books to buy would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you

Hi all! I’m needing some advice on what to gift my co teacher. She is the most helpful and wonderful assistant I’ve had and I really appreciate her, but she’s about 10 years younger than I am so I’m a bit lost on what to get a 20 year old girl 😅

Just looking for some professional advice for my daughter’s daycare. We live in Australia and summer has been quite hot so far. My daughter recently moved up a room and has new educators. I’ve noticed when picking her up that her room smells terribly of body odour, coming from her educator (gets stronger when in proximity). It’s to the point that the smell is on my daughter’s clothes, sometimes hours after we’ve picked her up.

I’m considering have a discreet talk to the director, however her educator is of Indian ethnicity and I don’t want it to come across as seeming racist. What would you do?

So my boss gave me a 1099 and I had to pay 1100 for taxes because she didn’t take the money out of my paycheck. because she said it’s a small business. Plus I was earning not that much money.

It’s not the kids. It’s everything EXCEPT the kids.

My coteacher has been going through a rough time in her life. I have been so patient with her. But frankly, I’m at my wits end as this has been going on for too long now. She is on her phone CONSTANTLY. She’s texting multiple different people, I’ve even walked by and saw her shopping for clothes. During projects, she will walk away from the kids, sit down in a chair, and text as 5 different kids are shouting out that they need help. I know she hears them and I know she’s ignoring them. The kids will keep trying to get my attention, I’ll say something like “I’m helping Timmy right now, I’ll be over in just a minute!” trying to get her to realize I’m busy and there are multiple children under our care who need our assistance. She ignores it. When I tell you this woman is chronically on her phone, she is chronically on her phone. I just wanna rip it out of her hands and throw it out the window. Mind you, this woman gets paid more than me and she does practically nothing.

She’s also absent a lot from work. My director accepts her time off, I understand this, but she insists she needs to go on a trip once a month to “clear her head” because of her divorce. During the weeks she is not here, I have up to 5 different people working in my room in one week. Everyday it will be someone different. This throws the kids off, and sometimes I am working with someone who is completely unfamiliar with my room, the routine, and the kids. Once again, leaving more work for me to do.

I’ve talked to my director about all this, and I know she’s not going to do much to change it. Whether my coteacher is here or not, I’m the one doing all the planning, prepping all the projects and activities, filling out the paperwork, getting supplies for the room, cleaning the room, doing circle time, disciplining and redirecting, etc. I do everything. All of this just to get paid less than someone who sits there on her phone.

Forgot to mention she’s also late almost everyday, leaving me over ratio. Shes supposed to be here at 8:30, but doesn’t actually show up till 8:45, sometimes even 9:00. Once again, my director does nothing and she’ll never do nothing because apparently if you’ve worked here long enough, you can get away with anything.

Then, to top it all off, a coworker told me that she overheard her talking about me and saying that I “get overwhelmed with the kids” yes, you’re right, I most certainly do get overwhelmed because I am working with someone who has their phone in their hand almost the entire day. I work with somebody who literally ignores the kids. This really upset me because it’s one thing to say something bad about me that I could actually work on, but HER ACTIONS are the reason why I get overwhelmed. That is the sole reason why I am stressed.

One time, she was texting and a child came up to her and told her that another kid hit them. She was so engrossed in what she was doing on her phone, she didn’t even hear the child speaking to her. I didn’t intervene because I wanted to see what would happen. The child stood there waiting for a response for about a minute. Finally, the poor kid gave up and just walked away. It was honestly disgusting to watch. How do you call yourself a teacher but texting random men you met on a dating app is more important than a child who was just hit?

Idk, I’m at a loss for what to do here. I’ve said things to my director, nothing has been done. I think I just need to leave. They will never move her to a different room or do anything to discipline her and nothing will change. I forgot to mention the floats that do breaks that also don’t do anything either. I came back from my break at naptime to find 6 of my kids playing on the floor together when they were supposed to be sleeping. I’m at my wits end. I can’t do everybody else’s job. I put in 110% every. single. day. But I can only do MY job, I can’t clone myself and have the clones do what other people are supposed to do. I’m legally required to take a break and I can’t control what happens when I’m gone, no matter how many directions I give them. I’ve literally handwritten exactly what was supposed to happen while I was gone, what to do, etc. and I came back to a dirty diaper in the sink, nap time sheets with pee on them in a pile on the floor, and all the kids awake.

I’m so tired of this. It’s sad because I used to LOVE it here. It was a great place to work. So fun and we used to have some staff that were really great at the job and actually wanted to be here. Now we have people who have no desire to be here, no desire to do any work, no desire to do anything but sit in a chair and observe or text. I love these kids so much and they deserve so much better. I think I just have to leave.

https://todaysnorthumberland.ca/2024/12/13/breaking-news-opp-say-there-will-be-no-charges-in-the-death-of-a-toddler-found-in-septic-tank-north-of-cobourg/

No criminal charges, and all of the RECEs present that day are still listed as members in good standing with the college of ECEs. How does a child go missing from a daycare centre, end up dead in a septic tank, and absolutely no consequences. The owner is running a home daycare and still listed as an RECE.

I’m starting to notice a faint porta-potty/public restroom smell to my clothing and belongings like my jacket and bag.

Our classroom STINKS of poop all the time. The bathroom is right off the classroom and it has a half door so there’s no way to close it off. There’s no extra ventilation and NAEYC requires that we don’t use sprays/scents to counteract the smell. We do keep a window in our room open.

The classroom next door (whom we share the bathroom with) just tosses open poop diapers into the trash and so every time you open the trashcan you just fan the smell around.

I’m going to ask my coworkers if we could please make sure we place poopy diapers/wipes in a bag or at least roll everything up and seal the diaper, but anything else I can do?

Job 1: Daycare. (Support float teacher) Accepted offer. 10-3 Mon-fri About 12 mins away. Starts beginning of January

Job 2: Interviewing this week. At a church. Parents day out program. Tues & thurs 8:30-2:30. A little further away maybe 20-25 min

Job 3: Interviewing this week. Afternoon shifts. After school program. Mon-fri 2-5pm. 15 min away.

Job 4: Got an offer: daycare. Mon-Fri. 10-3pm. 15 min away

I have all together 3 years of child care experience between babysitting, daycare support staff, and working at a gym child care center.

The pay ranges from $16-17 for all. I also have another part time weekend sitter job. Which I am keeping because it is very flexible and I can take off when I need to. I would personally prefer the church job (if I get it). Because twice a week would work with my current schedule and the hours are perfect. I also feel it’ll be less pressure from directors and parents. I’ve worked at churches before and it just feels different. I don’t want to feel overwhelmed by working mon-fri. And I don’t want to work evening hours because I’m an early morning person so I’m naturally already up around 8-9am. So a morning shift would be ideal.

Our home daycare is taking two weeks off to take her son to Disney world. Would a Disney world gift card be a good gift for Christmas? We can't afford to do a big one, but somewhere between $25-50 is doable.

I spent my 20s on contracts so I never needed to give notices, I just wouldn’t sign the next contract. One center I wrote a formal letter with an envelope and after I turned it in, it felt too formal. The next center I was close to the director and just told her. How do I proceed with this center? What do you usually do? I’m leaving for student teaching, but in all honestly, I don’t like how the center is run and don’t plan on returning.

My son (almost 3 yo) is obsessed with imaginary play. I love to play with him; however, I can't help but feel I overstep and take over. Does anyone have tips for best practice regarding imaginary play and/or resources to read? I'm a huge nerd so interested in any textbooks or books that talk about imaginary play. I want to best foster his creativity and also enjoy the play myself!

I reported a teacher I work with to the state for abusing the children (see my previous posts for the details) and when my director found out she was super upset and told me she was disappointed in my decision to do that without talking to her about my plan to do that. She told me the last thing the center needs is state social workers crawling the place and told me that after how kind and accommodating she has been with my medical needs, it hurts her on a personal level that i went behind her back to do this. She had the audacity to say she was worried about putting me back in the classroom because after seeing the documentation i submitted she was worried about the teacher who i reported on. I told her I was appalled that she would be more worried about the abuser than the kids being abused. It was a really rough conversation and i want to quit. But im taking it to HR and everywhere i can possibly take it before I do. And even though i know im doing the right thing, its still really hard to feel like people view me as the bad guy. Im just so sensitive to what people think about me and im just feeling really alone and depressed. Any encouragement would be very appreciated 🩷

We’ve had a new director takeover our school recently and before the students would stay with their teachers for a year and then move up. Now, we have the students moving up monthly. This change has been very hard for staff members and teachers. As soon as we get settled with our new kiddos, our beloved old students move up and new students move in. It feels like we can never have a breather. The new students come in and struggle and the old students behavior declines. It’s constant making new rosters, logs, name tags teaching routines making new groups etc. We follow a curriculum that seems pointless as no student will actually see it from start to finish. Not to mention as soon as we get bonded our big students just leave. It’s soo draining and soo different from public schools in which I’m used to having my students for the whole year.

My center is closing for the holidays and next week is our last week. (With pay) And as you can see from my recent post getting families to read our "new and improved" lesson plans has been a challenge, as well as just trying to make meetings and get these children the support they need. Family participation has been low to non-existent which has made the job really hard this year.

I made a post about having a lack of cubbies and space. And a quick update on that is it's been an ongoing battle but I did get some cheap portable cubbies to put on top. Licensing said it was okay as long as bedding doesn't touch. However we have had outbreaks of head lice, COVID-19, and RVS. Yet we still have people sending in jumbo diaper bags and totes that are mostly empty! They never have extra clothing or shoes. Just a sheet and maybe a blanket if I'm lucky. (This is a preschool room where most of my students should be mostly potty trained/potty learned)

Same with people labeling their child stuff.Imagine getting upset with your child's teacher because of a missing sock!? Or mad because why yes I did write your child's name on their water bottle using a pink sharpie.

And I did send children with all kind of weird clothing combinations and no underwear or socks because my room doesn't have a lot of extra clothing and the ones I had never came back from home even though I wrote in red or black sharpie our school's name on the actual clothing and sent messages asking for them back.

I have had some wins, I got a lot of praises from former students and families, but I really wanted to get my classroom a lot more organized and get my students ready for kindergarten. Oh and more pay. I'm basically a lead teacher at this point but not paid like one.

Anyways rant over. Share yours please.

I have a 4 year old girl in my group who most of the time goes by the shortened version of her name, but sometimes, her parents and friends call her by the longer version. Sometimes she'll even call herself by the longer version, though mostly she uses the nickanme. It's something like she mostly goes by "Becca" when her name is "Rebecca" (though her name is different IRL). Since she mostly goes by the shortened version, we taught her how to spell/write that one first. She's mastered it well and if you ask her how to spell her name, she spells it the shortened way. She'll say her name starts with the nickname's letter, not the full name's, which again, makes sense.

Now, we're wondering if we start introducing her full name. Lately, her parents have been calling her by her full name more often. They don't say anything if she writes the nickname on her work or if we call her by her nickname (it's how they introduced her to us when she started, her going by her full name has been a recent change). When asked, they say they don't care what she goes by, she answers to both, and they want to leave it up to her, but also give her options. They also don’t care if she learns to write/spell her full name right now, but also don’t care if we teach her

We don't want to confuse her, because she's young, and she knows how to spell it. She'll be going to kindergarten next fall and will be with us until then. Do we wait a bit and then teach her how to spell and write her full name? Or do we let that be something she learns in kindergarten? Would teachers prefer she know how to spell/write both? This is new to me, as I've taught kids with nicknames, but they still mostly just always went by one name.

for a little context and background, my co-teacher and i recently (within the past 2 months) had a child move up into our classroom. she’s an absolute doll and her dad is very reserved, doesn’t talk much, but he seems nice. i know he’s a single dad and works in a jewelry store.

anyway, as a christmas gift, he gave my co-teacher and i necklaces. the one he gave me is absolutely beautiful, but i’ve kept it hidden because i know my boyfriend will most likely get upset and have me get rid of it. was it wrong of me to accept it? i asked some of the other teachers and they all said he shouldn’t be upset because it’s a nice gift and means nothing, but i know it’ll bother him. should i get rid of it? keep it but only wear it at work?

i know this seems so silly but i’ve been thinking about it since he gave it to me earlier this week! just need some advice from someone who isn’t overthinking it, like myself lol.

thanks in advance!

Our daycare has suggested that parents give 24 cookies so that the teachers can start the week with a whole bunch of cookies. I thought it would be clever to provide 24 ct bottles of shelf stable milk to go with the cookies. Is this a good idea or a bad idea? My thoughts were that there are going to be like 100 parents giving cookies, so why not a glass of milk? Then I started wondering what if some people are lactose intolerant, want skim milk, or whatever and now I’m wallowing in self doubt about how stupid my idea is. I just wanted some honest opinions— should I just get some cookies like I was asked?

The two things I make sure to do is be accepting of lost clothing, and also not linger when I drop him off/pick him up. I'm also friendly. What gestures from parents do you appreciate? I ask as it's imperative that his daycare is a healthy environment, meaning healthy staff. A harmonious environment benefits all.

Hi all, I am after an advise how to approach this situation. I am in kindy room, most days working alone with 10-12 children. One or 2 days a week I would have an educator placed in my room if the number of children is above 12. This particular educator, her behavour and attitude are acceptable and in certain way that I was really dislike.
Few months back, There was one time, she was sick and placed in my room all day. After a quiet rest time, we proceeded indoor-out door activities, I asked her if she could be outside with the children as I needed to write a Storypark post (we cant collect to internet in the outside yard) Her respond was “ I dont want to go outside cold cos I am sik” regardless of me told her my reason, and I am happy to swap when I am done. She went outsite, slamming the door behind her. After 5mins, she told all children to go back inside cos it was rainning, I went out to check and it was only mere dizzle then it stopped ( as children described).

The other time, one child didnt want to get his drink bottle for his lunch time “ i dont feel like drinking water at my lunch today” she told him” then you need to move away and cant have lunch now” I witnessed that I didnt want to talk with her infront of the children, other children were waiting for their lunch to be serve, and later I told her, she cant give the child unapproach discipline, time-out and remove the child from a situation just because he didnt want to drink water. Later I explained to her that removing a child from the group should only occur if they are unsafe or causing harm. I regretted not speaking up at the moment and felt sorry for the child.

This time, she was placed in my room again, in the morning I asked her to set up a water play in the water , she told me “ she doent know how to, she asked me we can swap so I can set it up) all day was busy as we had 20 children( combine both 3 and 4 kinder rooms) and Xmas party with Santa visit so around 15 parents came. I had extra staff support for the afteroon and event. We managed to do everything smooth. Around 4 I asked this staff and other staff to sort of children’s artwork and their drawing book, also poforlio book to tie together as we are giving it to family at the end of the year. 4:30 the other staff needed to go cover other staff finishing. 4:35 the number was 9, she told me she need to go to do the kitchen without tidy up the area and puting book back to the self. Then I heard she was chatting and staying in baby room ( noted that she is friend and from same country with the assistant manager also as baby room leader) About 4:50 I moved the children to baby room as I need to close the room and put the chair up. 5:05 when I was leaving I told her ( she shifted for closing), I mentioned that the children's bathroom sink needed rinsing, when she had time she could rinse it. Her respond was “ can you go and do it” (I shocked) I told her “ I finished my shift, and you were in my room then it is shared job” Her” just leave it then” Me, sorry A, but you need to do it, and it called teamwork and collaboration” Her friend( assitant manager didnt make any comment at all)

A little background about me: I am new to this role 7months since May, before me 4 others teacher left within 1 year. I am graduated last year, with 6 months working as ECT in another centre before I joined this centre due to relocate. Within 7 months, Iam sometime feeling quite exsauted at the end of the day cos I have to do everything by myself with little support. Always alone even the number is 12. I am also an introvert, while in the room I communicated with daily and work related. I dont chit chat, share and talk about me or life with others. However, I am friendly and outgoings. Trying to be a role model for staff and doing all the works if I can. I know people dont like to be told and trying not to be bossy.

Honestly, I am struggle with the way it is with this centre, moving children toldler, kinder 3years old for quite rest time in my room if they dont sleep some with anaphylaxis( the director wasnt aware). However the centre director is quite nice, kind, friendly, and respect the team. 4-5 staff are quite lack of experience, initiative, willing to learn and lazy! I am planning to talk with the manager about this particular staff and her behaviour, attitude with some of the example above without sounding complaining. English is my second language as well, I'm searching for the right phrasing that doesn't come across as demeaning.

I know it is a long post, perhap I need to get this out of my chest. I really appreciated your time and support.

To me, it seems somewhat developmentally inappropriate for children under 24 months old, but I just wanted to hear your opinions on it as ece professionals?

The assistant manager at the daycare center that I work at has been trying to get me to mix bleach with floor cleaner for a while. I went to the director about ti because she wouldn't stop even after I told her I didn't want to do that and pointed out that both the instructions on the bottles and their bleach use instructions prohibit that. AM changed her story to saying she was trying to get me to use floor cleaner at all because she assumed I was mopping the floor with plain water. 🤨

That was a few days ago. Yesterday, she poured enough bleach into my dish sink to cause my hands to crack up and my throat to become sore.

As far as the chef knives....

When I was hired, she held up the knife and she held up the knife-guard and told me to always put the knife in the knife-guard and always put the guarded knife blade-down in the drying rack cup, not only so that everyone knows where it's at, but to practice good knife safety.

When she decided she didn't like me, she started putting the open blade in my sink, hidden in a top-shelf bin we usually feel-around in to grab serving spoons, and tossed on the drying rack, underneath other things.

Who should I report this to and how? I've already written two emails about this to my director.

How long did you run a home daycare before deciding to close and what are some reasons for choosing to close the daycare? Also did you pursue a career after and was it still in childcare ?

That's it basically.

But yeah maybe you won't be all upset when I send your child in borrowed clothing because yeah your child splashed in puddles got all muddy, and unfortunately didn't have any extra clothes in that oversized tote that barely fits in their cubby. 🤷🏿

And no wants to come by and share a holiday tradition or anything? Cool.

Honestly I don't know what was in the air this week but holy cow were my kids tough this week. I'm a lead for older ones early twos and both my assistants were out this week so I had subs in my class. Monday through Wednesday my kids didn't not go to sleep until 1:30 we go down for Nap between 12/12:30. Wednesday we actually had to call for assistance from admin because of behavior during nap. We were trying to put kids down and the ones that didn't have a teacher next to then were up and running and screaming. Then yesterday it all fell apart. In the span of 45 minutes I had to write 7 incident reports. One little boy fell off our climbing toy and bit his bottom lip so hard it bruised, I had a boy get bit by a girl when we were peeling tape (anything to keep them happy), and when I redirected the girl to books she started scrapping with another girl over a book then she got bit. Then I had a little girl trying to get a baby from the baby cradle and somehow she fell and hit the side of her face on the cradle and instantly gave herself a black eye and a big bruise on her forehead. Then a boy was climbing on the table and when I went to help him down he slipped hit his chin in the table and bit both sides of his tongue. I of course then got chewed out by my assistant director in front of everyone because we were about to have an important guest at school. And then of course to make my day even better a girl had a blowout during nap literally all the way up to her shoulders. As I had her standing naked on the changing table in nothing but her socks so I could clean her up she starts peeing everywhere. Soaking her socks which she had no extras and we were about to go outside. I definitely cried on my lunch break. So that was my week of crazy how was everyone elses?

My current center is very small, higher paying, I get to work part time, almost an hour commute daily, no breaks, some issues with coworkers, get meals, flexible and laid back mostly. New center is brand new a little bigger than my current center, pay is lower but I'd be working full time so more money, 5 pto days, less than 5 mins from me, break, cameras in all rooms, no phones allowed in classroom.

Earlier this week one of my Pre-Kers was telling me about what she asked Santa for X-mas. We were interrupted by a four year old boy loudly proclaiming his disbelief in Santa Claus.

I pulled him aside and gave him the “you don’t have to believe, but your friends do, and they will be very sad if you say things like that” spiel. He responded with “but my mom told me he’s not real, and I already cried about it”. This broke my heart and made me feel annoyed with his mom, who also has a 2.5 year olds daughter. I talked to my director who said she would speak with Mom about her son telling other kids.

Apparently, when asked about it, his mom said “well, we’re living in POVERTY. And I don’t want my kids to think they’re bad kids”.

I have complete and total sympathy for single parents who are also low income, I know that it’s hard. I just think that when you have kids that young you can find a way to keep the magic alive. I spoke with my asst director, who has been a single parent on a Preschool Teachers wage, and she said she’s had very cheap Christmases but she would never spoil her kids’ belief in Santa until they were ready. I talked to my partner about this phenomenon as well, and he said that when he was younger his mom still pretended like Santa was real AFTER he said he didn’t believe.

I just feel like this mom in particular doesn’t really care about her children’s innocence/wonder. I have watched her look at her kids cry for her at drop off and say “what’s wrong with you?!”. This week she gave me a stack of her son’s artwork and said “I’m not taking this all home, do you have a shred pile?”. Not to mention that despite being too poor to give her kids a magical Christmas, she brings them to an expensive daycare, has her son enrolled in our Soccer program which is added cost, and just bought framed pictures we made of her kids WITH SANTA CLAUS when he visited our school recently.

My heart hurts for these kids, especially the 2 yo, who I guess will never get to really experience a Santa Christmas because funds were low one year and mom didn’t care enough to get creative.

ETA: A lot of these comments are providing perspectives that I should’ve considered before my rant. In hindsight I think I got worked up and stopped being objective about this. I appreciate the constructive feedback!

I guess I was going off of the assumption that these kids have always and would’ve always had a Santa Christmas for years, if not for Mom telling them the truth this year. Based on my interactions with this parent it does seem to me like she’s “throwing in the towel”, but I’m reminded now that the kids can still have a great holiday with or without Santa.

I have no problem with my kiddos believing different things, in fact we have those conversations when kids bring up religion.

I also have read the comments about families who are transparent from the start that the gifts all come from parents, I would say that this is a little different, since these kids believed up until a week ago, but that’s not to say that a parent can’t change their mind about how to go about Christmas! I did not intend to accuse this parent of abuse, or imply that I care about her kids more than she does. I don’t have a problem with her telling her kids the truth about Santa, I only have a problem with the attitude she has towards her kids, and I made an assumption that she carried this attitude over to this conversation with them. After some reflection, I think I’m more upset with the other attitude things (shredding artwork, etc) than the Santa thing.

I’m writing this post because I’m very confused as to what to do. Has a staff member who is a float who moves from room to room and this staff member is a problematic dishonest overall not a very good ECE. This staff member has caused issues with every single person in every room in the centre, causing issues and being nosy with others. With each issue she’s had with the other staff members. Our manager has conducted a meeting where nothing has happened. No reprimands were made by the manager and her behaviour has not changed. Unfortunately our manager is quite non-confrontational and doesn’t report or do write ups for educators who clearly break the rules. This staff falsely accused another staff of abusing a child and had the ministry of education come and investigate this certain staff member and also caused a serious occurrence where she lost a child and then proceeded to report it to the manager as if she was not the one to lose the child. This staff member has been in my room for a week and having her in the room causes quite a disturbance as she does not do her job as she lies about incidents and just overall does not supervise the children. So this past week I lost my temper at her because she left her shift 15 minutes early without communicating with any other staff member and compromising our ratios and she didn’t realise that the director of the of the company was in the centre so she ran back into the centre and pretended as if she was engaging with the children, so I called her out and she proceeded to lie to me and tell me that the time was something that it wasn’t so I pointed at the clock and asked her if she was blind. It was rude and unprofessional but I had been so fed up with her behaviour that I just lost my head. She then proceeds to go complain to our manager that I am rude and aggressive to her in the room and so we had a meeting with our manager where she obviously just denied everything and took no accountability for context. I am the youngest person who works at our centre so I understand working with older women they tend to overlook, my skills and speak down to me so I told her I demand respect otherwise I can’t work with her and I also reported to my manager all of the things that she was doing in the room and my manager did nothing. I’m planning on reporting this to HR on Monday, however I’m unsure because my manager hasn’t done anything and I don’t know how I feel about going over her head. I’m a very patient person however at this point I feel like her presence in the room is a disturbance for the children as she does things like give them her phone to play with during naptime does not change their diapers on time and other things I reported all of these things to my manager and she still has not done anything so I feel as though I have no option Other than going to HR reporting this and hopefully getting her fired. Am I doing too much? I don’t like dramatics and prefer to deal with things head on with respect and communication, but I feel as though this was the final straw to break the camels back.

My 22-month-old is a early developer (intellectually and physically). He started daycare at 18 months after Labor Day. He goes for 5 hours per day. It's a church based no frills place, but generally has a good reputation. I'm sure the teachers are overworked and get paid crap.

He's in a class with some who are still crawling. The next class is 2-3. He's the size of a 3 year old.

The initial report in November said he is overall adjusting well but sometimes pushes friends and throws toys...They added that "depending on the severity," they talk to him about it and take "breaks."

Breaks sounded like timeout in disguise. They have two small rooms total. One that's dark and for naps and one play room. Even if I ask them and they say breaks aren't timeouts, I don't think they have the bandwidth to watch my kid in a separate room.

The first and only time I got a note about throwing and pushing, he had just learned to throw balls at school.

Today his nanny picked him up and they told her he had to be "separated" for "10 minutes" due to pushing and throwing toys. Separated, breaks, timeouts are all just semantics in a lot of ways.

As a side note, I've witnessed the main room teacher sneer at separation anxiety based crying in other toddlers by saying things like, "This is contagious..."

That was a little girl seated on the floor by the entry crying (and I was rushed to drop my son off). It was early and no other parent was around.

On one occasion my son saw me outside the class when picking him up. He started crying through the diaper change routine at pick up. The doors were closed but I heard another teacher saying, "Go...Go...Go to Mommy..." after she finished changing him and he was running to the door still crying (this was after nearly 3 months of being there). It wasn't playful and sounded like she was swatting a fly out of the room.

I've shared observations like these with the director. This was about 10 days before the last separation incident. Her response was a 1-line Email saying, "I've shared your feedback with the teachers." She tends to be rigid, inflexible, and minimizing. Old school.

Is a 10 minute break customary at 22-months for pushing or throwing toys? I strongly sense he's bored or frustrated. I told them 1-2 minutes time-in's are ok, but had shared that I don't favor time outs masquerading as breaks.

I think he needs to go to the next class or a different daycare. My area is waitlists galore for the good daycares, but maybe turning 2 opens up options due to licensing. I feel trapped by convenience and because I want stability for him, not switching centers repeatedly or going back and forth between nannies vs daycare. I have another place in mind but they can't take him until 27 months.

This classroom feels like a lost cause where even crying frustrates teachers. Probably a sign of burnout (also related this to the director). Bio-wise, their background is an ECE certificate or some courses at a local community college (the main teacher has a business degree and later took some ECE classes). They don't strike me as being ECE professionals per se. I doubt this church can attract a boatload of ECE professional in a 1-2 class especially. That's why the director is complacent.

EDIT: I've also noticed my son has suddenly become very clingy. Following me around the house, crying more, and asking to be held. This started 2 weeks ago. In the past he was fairly independently playing for small periods.

I work at the center my sons attend. My older son is 2.5 and potty training. He can do all steps independently. He has some hang ups about poop but pees on the potty nearly every time he is taken to the bathroom. He still sometimes has accidents in between. I’ve been really working at home on trying to get him to self initiate and say when he needs to go potty.

We recently did a reorganization and he is in a toddler class of 6 kids and one teacher. I don’t understand how potty training is supposed to work in that situation. (The old set-up wasn’t much better two classrooms with 7 kids each and one aid between the two) If he does ask to go then there is almost no way for the teacher to get him to the bathroom in a timely manner unless they were already headed there. There doesn’t seem to be much (short term) point in helping him learn to express when he needs to go potty if most of the time it won’t help anyway.

Has anyone potty trained toddlers as the teacher in that situation? How did you make it work? Should I be focusing on a different skill to help him have fewer accidents?

It’s been a highly stressful job. During the first month I was experiencing burnout every day, wanted to quit, and had mental breakdowns. I had no support from teachers, directors, and colleagues alike.

They told me I would figure it out on my own. I would say that I have figured out enough to survive in this job and don’t experience burnout every week or day…but I need help still.

I’m really struggling with classroom management. I feel fatigued and stressed from preventing falls and my colleagues will just let children get hurt or experience possible concussions. I am constantly monitoring children and most colleagues don’t want to help and will just stay silent or choose to work on attendance for 10-20 minutes.

Can I have help? I need advice, guidance, and some ideas. I’ve been bonding with the kids and they’ve been receptive but I still leave every day stressed since my colleagues see most times as socializing time whenever possible.