r/ECEProfessionals

Does anyone else’s workplace have bogus one-star Google reviews from “local guides” who have a history of one-starring places?… or is that just my centre?

One review is from someone whose child didn’t even attend, but her complaint was that our waitlist was too long (which is just the way it is in my area).

We just received another review from a parent who claims our centre is terrible and they pulled their child out after one day, but we haven’t had any one-day attendees that I can recall, so I’m not sure if this person is making up a situation for whatever reason, or if they accidentally left a review on the wrong place.

It shouldn’t bother me this much, but I don’t want my place of work to have a bad rating when it’s a genuinely great program! My director is amazing, which is a breath of fresh air after having worked under terrible management for a couple years prior at a different centre.

This is mostly just a rant, but if anyone knows how to remove Google reviews like these, I’ll pass the info along to my boss lol. I wouldn’t mind if they were from people with genuine complaints, but these are so unhelpful and not reflective at all of our program. 😭

There are a lot of big daycare chains like Kindercare and New Horizons that have locations across multiple cities. Are these generally a red flag and bad to work at (or bad for the children), or can some locations be genuinely great? Just curious if the corporate tends to trickle down to cutting corners at many/most locations?

Hi folks, I’ve been working in childcare/early education for 3.5 years, and I have my associate’s degree in ECED. I love what I do, and I’m passionate about working with children and families.

I have gotten pneumonia FOUR times since working with children, and I have contracted some type of virus seven different times in the last year. I do everything right - I wash my hands constantly, I take my vitamins, and as soon as I get home, I take off my work clothes and shower. I’m to the point where my immune system can’t handle it anymore, and I’m going to have to start looking at other jobs until I can heal my system. I’ve had this same respiratory issue for a month. Not to mention, I’m also a caregiver to my mom (she lives with me), so I’m under stress constantly. I think my system is just rejecting the job entirely.

I’m curious if anyone else has been in the same predicament as me, and if there are any jobs in proximity to childcare/working with families where I’m even marginally less likely to contract something?

How does ABA compare in terms of viruses? What about doing in-home case management for DCS? I’m also considering working in an elementary school. Are any of these safe options? I want to continue building my career, but I’m not sure if I really can.

EDIT: for context, I am a 26 year old woman and have been working with children since I was 23

I filed a 51a in Massachusetts for a daycare - results came back supported for two of the teachers

What happens next? Do the teachers get fired? Can they work in ECE again? What happens to the daycare?

Edit: I’ve gotten my answer. Teachers do not automatically get fired/penalized and it depends on the severity of the event. Thank you to those who provided clarity

Our centre has been having some major issues over the past year with hiring good staff. I am reflecting on our training system and would love to hear about your centres training process.
What exactly are the new hires doing before they’re in ratio to prepare them?
Do you have set “trainers” or is in on the staff in the room to train them?
Is there a check list of things the new hire needs to know before they’re in ratio?

I’d love to know what you wish your training system looked like too.
What could’ve prepared you more to be in the classroom?

I am interested in obtaining an EEC teacher certification because I love working with children and I want to gain access to higher paying roles in the early education field.

Unfortunately, I just finished my undergraduate degree and I did not take a *single* child development course (I received my B.A. in English) so I am looking for the cheapest/easiest ways to satisfy the education requirement. I’m particularly looking for specific program recommendations and to find out if there‘s any scholarships or aid available for someone only taking one class ;-;

Additionally, I worked as a counselor at an after-school program working with kids in K-1 for the past two years, would this experience satisfy the work requirement? I just secured a job working as pre-K teacher assistant for the next year at a local private catholic school, which I presume would definitely satisfy this requirement, I’m just hoping that if this earlier experience counts that I might expedite the process of receiving my EEC certification.

I hope this makes sense! Overall, I would love advice on getting through the EEC Teacher application in general– I find the whole Mass Gov. page on the eligibility standards kind of hard to navigate so any resources that are more comprehensive would be appreciated.

A five year old in our class is a very social animal and helps everyone. She's very verbal and developmentally ahead in meta-cognition, always being a very good child in class. She might be gifted but lacks the drive to learn ahead and is more social. But she can get overwhelmed and then sometimes cry on longer days. Afterward she feels bad about it as she doesn't want to cry and the teacher wants her to "get out of the emotion". But i noticed that after a short cry she actually feels better and can proceed independently.

So one day I noticed her tucked in a corner, during a group game, being hardly involved. After the game was over I told the others to go back to class and talked to her for a bit.
So I asked: "How does your head feel?"
Her: "Buzzing and it hurts. I feel tears."
I asked: "Do you think you need to cry? Would that feel good?"
She made this very wide nodding motion with her head as her face got tense. I offered her my lap and she got on, laying against my shoulder in the fetal position, and the tears came quickly. So I told her: "Just let it out. You'll be okay." It was a very soft and quiet cry, with some sobbing and mostly a lot of tears.
After about three minutes she said she wanted to go back to class. She got up and slid off my lap, dried her tears and went on with her day.

For most kindergarteners tears mean they need help to deal with the emotion, but sometimes it's a pressure valve. And a very damn healthy one as well. If anything, I mostly wanted to share this experience here to show in how many ways kids can behave and how possibilities can be missed. Kindergarteners learn about emotion daily and it's about finding what works for them in my opinion.

Thanks for reading <3

Signed my 2 year old up for childcare. I toured the space and liked it. Then was informed that breakfast is no longer served at school…. Ok. Then I was told the children will be playing outside in a Local playground from 8:30-11:30. Then the children walk back to school and have lunch and nap.

I don’t like this. He just turned 2 so he’s still in diapers. How will they change his diaper out there?? It’s so hot. It’s too long to be outside. What are your thoughts ? Is this typical for a 2 year old summer program??

I am the room lead in an under 18mo room. I have worked exclusively within this room for the previous 2 years and have cared for L since about 6mo. She is 18mo now and will be next up to move to toddlers.

What I usually recommend to parents is cribside comforting and gentle sleep training if they ask explicitly, but as you can imagine many of the children I care for already have well established sleep patterns by the time they begin daycare. We slowly train them out of anything dangerous or inconvenient (eg, contact napping etc.)

L has always been a child who needs additional comfort and support. Dad is away for up to 9 weeks at a time and Mum works night shifts in the medical profession so her routine changes frequently. Mum, Dad, Nan and each of her babysitters seem to have a different routine when putting her to sleep.

Mum has always BF to sleep, which has now evolved into co-sleeping. She feels incredibly guilty about it and asks me for advice every day. For context, I am 25 and have no children of my own. I demonstrate the way we put L to sleep, provide resources on how to safely cosleep, and reassure Mum that parenting is hard, sleep training is hard, and that as long as she is happy to keep co-sleeping and is not overwhelmed or touched out by it AND she is doing it as safely as possible, I support her decision to continue co-sleeping.

Mum burst out in tears on Thursday evening during pickup as her husband's family always makes her feel super guilty for co-sleeping (they sleep trained all their children around 3mo). The husband takes their side and says Mum is doing damage by not letting her CIO.

She asked if she ever cries at all during nap at daycare. I explained that she doesn't, she walks into the sleep room willingly, lies on her stomach, and is rocked to sleep within 15 mins. A little longer than some of our other children but nothing to worry over.

Mum said she cries for hrs and hrs at home. Wednesday night she had to drive her to Nan's at 11pm to get her to put her to sleep.

I love, love, love Mum. I firmly believe she is a wonderful parent trying her best and simply struggles because she is 'Mum,' to L, not because she made any poor parenting choices.

My partner works in a role where she comes across many smothering cases where co-sleeping has gone poorly and is sure I made a mistake. Now I'm thinking I should have pushed for something other than co-sleeping, but I don't know if I can bring myself to be another person telling Mum 'You are doing this wrong.'

Hello all! I teach ECE as a lead infant teacher and a child brought hand, foot, and mouth into the classroom two weeks ago. Since then it’s spread like wildfire! Two other kids in my care caught it, and I sent one home last week with active blisters.

I wash the toys in soap and water daily, sanitize them mid day, again after work, and drench everything in bleach including the floors. I’ve been lysoling down every surface imaginable that they can touch, but the spread continued. I even wore a mask one day, and then during diaper changes.

Four days ago I noticed clear bumps inside my mouth, and now it’s escalated to a really bad fever. Like, I’m cycling ibuprofen and acetaminophen maximum dosages and I still have the chills BAD. I’m staying hydrated and sleeping fairly well.

How long will this disease last after the fever?! I assume I have it, and I’m praying that I didn’t pass it to everyone I’ve contacted in the past four days when I thought this was just herpes. How are y’all surviving this?

So long story short i put my two weeks in last friday on the 26th. My director wasn’t in that day so i left a letter in her office. She came in over the weekend and saw it (i know this because my director told my coworker & coworker told me). So monday comes around and she doesn’t show up to work, haven’t heard a word from her. I already know she knows about my 2 weeks but i send her a message monday afternoon just to make sure. Still have yet to get a response. She did not come into work this past week except for tuesday AFTER i left…. She has not acknowledged my 2 week notice whatsoever.
Should i do anything about this? It’s a small company so there isnt any HR or anyone else i can go to other than the out of state business owner but i dont have any way to contact him…

Hey all, I've been in childcare a long time but am pretty new to classrooms, and I was thrown into a 4/5 year old room with a LOT of difficult behaviors (I was warned ahead of time lol). Most of these kids are going to kindergarten at the end of August, and most of them I've kind of figured out how to work with, but there's one boy I'll have through the next year that I'm really struggling with and want to get some advice for.

When he's asked to clean up, stop a dangerous behavior, join an activity, etc he just kinda shuts down. He'll say "no", stand in place, and get teary eyed, sometimes even actually cry. It doesn't matter how small or gentle the request, he will immediately shut down.

If it's cleaning up toys he'll stand to the side until another child cleans up his mess. If I ever ask him to give something to me (a dangerous object, something he took from my desk or a classmate's cubby, something he hurt someone with), he will run away from me. He'll go to the front of the line and basically be standing on top of another child who was there first and refuse to move. During quiet time he doesn't sleep (which is fine, we can give them quiet activities on their cots) and refuses to stay on his cot. He'll plant himself ~five feet away from his cot and refuse to move, and if we turn our back he'll immediately get up to get a toy.

He often doesn't want to participate in activities, and that's fine, he's allowed to do his own thing, but it often feels like he's just refusing to join just to refuse, and he's excluding himself from almost everything.

I just don't really know what to do. We've got a lot of kids who don't listen, and I've figured out tricks with all of them. We've got a lot of kids who have similar behaviors that I've kind of riddled out. But this kid just becomes a brick wall. He's not hyperactive, he's not running away and gleefully laughing, he always just seems really upset and about to cry.

One thing he doesn't have issues with is transitions to other areas (thank God!) Even if he doesn't stay in his place in line, I don't have issues with him refusing to transition and he doesn't try to run off.

His parents said he's having similar behaviors at home, and they're also struggling with it because none of their other children had these behaviors. His sister is also at our center and I can confirm those behaviors are not present with her.

Basically - help!

I work at a daycare in California, the backyard gets ZERO shade. Director will not allow shade sail because he thinks it’ll just catch rain. Sir, we are in CA. We have sun hats available for all the kids and a small outdoor tent for when they need a break from the sun. Kids all get sunscreened if the UV is high enough.

One of the parents does not allow sunscreen for her 4 year old son. We are outdoors from 10:30-12 and from 2-4 pm. Poor kid gets red as a tomato and on multiple occasions has gotten sunburnt - never that bad of a burn but it’s happened enough times.

I will ask her to write up and sign that he is not allowed sunscreen to cover my ass in case of a bad sunburn, but is there anything I can do for the kid? He hates wearing the sun hats. Maybe I’ll ask her to send him a baseball cap to keep in school. Idk.

I’m reposting this because I deleted it but it is bothering me again. My co teacher on Monday decided, during her teaching week, she would no longer be lesson planning. I can’t blame her. She is right. She was promised a raise for lesson planning and they backed out. But they would rather make my job harder than give her a dollar more an hour. Because what did they say when she said this? It’s fine, OP can just do it. OP has been alone before. We can just uh ignore that OP used to stay up until 2 am to get it done before. I went from feeling ahead after just completing my lesson planning for the following week to feeling severely behind.

If our plans weren’t so extensive I think it would be manageable. One lesson for last week required me to spend an hour pre cutting fabric and cardboard into smaller pieces they can cut themselves. Another hour was spent taping together enough sentence strips to make a ten foot timeline. This doesn’t include writing the actual plan in our system or requesting materials you may or may not get. My request to make this work was daily lesson planning time, although I’m sure it will only come for so long before I maybe get an hour a week! I’m not mad at my co teacher, I’m mad that they would rather sacrifice me up for a dollar.

I’m looking to add (actually rotate in) some new gross motor activities to my classroom. We have a mixed age of 1 to 3-year-olds. We currently have classroom push bikes from community playthings that they love, classroom Ybikes that no one ever uses, a largish wooden slide from Ikea that they use continuously, a smaller ball pit that we don’t use a ton right now, a set of vinyl foam climbing shapes that we use in various ingoing ways. A low table people like to limb up on, large hallow community playthings blocks, a cozy cube that literally no one ever goes in. We redesign a lot, make forts, obstacle corses, nests.

I’m ready to rotate and some other large motor components. What do you all love?

The things I have my eye on are the classic rocking wooden boat that you can twist over to make a stair set, a crash pad, one of those inflatable canoes that you can get in and be sort of smooshed. A Pikler labyrinth that is sort of a tunnel that you can climb through pop out of and climb onto.

We spend most of our day in a large play yard or in the woods. But we need some new fun in the classroom. Love to know everyone’s thoughts and experiences.

ECE professionals that now have jobs outside of ECE, what do you do?

I’ve been in ECE for about 4 years now, I absolutely love ECE and have been so happy at my center. However, company changes, unexpected classroom changes that I had no decision in and personal health reasons - I’m thinking that soon it might be time to move on. What are some careers people have moved to after ECE?

2 year old who kept singing “hot sauce hot sauce” at breakfast for his eggs (which we don’t have 😭) and then also he puts a baby doll blanket over his head and says “I a ghost!” he also called me “my (name)” when another friend tried to hug me 💀💀 he’s a trip

Edit to add
Have a 4 year old in another class I see at lunch in cafeteria. Her dad has a neck tattoo of her name she said. I also have a neck tattoo that says love. She asked me what it said and I told her. She said “so you’re in love to my daddy!” Mind you, I’ve never met her dad ❤️😭

We went to tour this week for a spot in a daycare's infant room. When we saw the infants outside, one was crying quite hard, snotty nosed and red faced. There were 3 eces for the 8 babies as they were getting ready to move inside. They were ignoring her aside from moving her out of the way and weren't interacting with the infants. She was left to cry alone on the ground the whole time we were outside. I asked about it and was told she always cries like when she sees an ece from a toddler room and her mom is aware of the situation. They said normally they are responsive to crying but the situation didn't sit well with me and worries me that if my baby cries they won't respond.

What are your thoughts as ECEs? It upset me seeing them ignoring a crying baby when the others were all calm. Is this too big a red flag? The daycare seemed great otherwise. I also have the option of my MIL caring for my baby at home but worried she will be overwhelmed. We feel lucky to have been offered a spot as daycares have huge waitlists here. I put him on lists when I was 10 weeks pregnant and this is the only daycare I have heard from so far. I am worried if we don't take it we won't get a toddler spot later on.

Hello everyone! I am a graduate student working with a lab about ECE and I am currently working on an article about healthcare premiums and now that so many people are dropping out of programs like Covered California and Medicare is it common for this community to choose to be uninsured? I am curious if anyone is picking up a second job to get coverage that way or what are the alternatives? I saw that medicare enrollment dropped significantly this year and I immediately worried about all the family care providers out there. I am just curious if anyone has insight on this? Thank you!

I have dimple piercings, snake bites, neck tats. Other teachers have nose and ear piercings and tattoos. The other most “alternative” teacher and I are actually the most educated at our center and highest paid. I am so grateful to find someone to pay so well and not care about my piercings and stuff. I left the field for four years and worked at dominos and the owner HATED my piercings lol. Kids and parents love them so far. I’m so glad the stigma is leaving and curious how many more of us. Also interested in thoughts from the parents here