r/ECEProfessionals

There's a severely developmentally delayed child in my 2.5-3yo room who spends most of the day trying to do unsafe things and screaming, hitting, kicking, and biting me when she is not allowed to do them. She is nonverbal and requires 1:1 attention to prevent her hurting herself or others. Redirection to other toys or sensory activities, even similar to what she wants, does not work. Instead she continues screaming for up to 50 minutes at a time and has to be physically blocked from engaging in unsafe activities, all the while hitting, kicking and biting me. I have scars on my arms from her.

I am the only one in my classroom, meaning the rest of the kids are not adequately supervised. Whenever I leave her to go deal with the resulting conflicts or injuries of other chileren, I cannot physically prevent her from doing what she wants. This has included covering herself, another child, and the bathroom with pee from a toilet a child had just gotten up from, throwing herself down the stairs to the loft, throwing books or toys across the room or our of the loft, eating crayons, slamming her head into the ground, going into the storage closet and dumping out bins of toys, ripping all the decorations off the walls and eating them, removing covers off the vents and swinging them around, taking papers off the counter, and getting into the laundry basket to suck on used mop pads. Repeatedly. Every time I turn my back.

After 35+ incident reports over two weeks, a corporate "behavior specialist" came to observe. For the last several weeks, i have been running the over ratio but I was suddenly magically in ratio for the observation. Wow!!! Amazing right??!??

The "behavior specialist" allowed her to play with the circle time book which is one of the few materials in the room that's only for teachers, as she destroyed the one in her last classroom.

Because it was new to her, she sat by the behavior specialist and played nicely with it for 20 min while everyone else did art (for the first time in months bc i can't do any curriculum with her in the room by myself). By the end of the time she was throwing the book.

The behavioral specialist had two suggestions to fix her behavior:

✨️🎊🎀🎉💓 "GiVE hER a BuCkEt of WaTeR to PlAy in So shE doEsn'T plAy iN thE tOiLeTs" ✨️🎊🎀🎉💓

OMG. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT???‼️🤯

Oh wait!! I did!!!! 😱🤯

I've tried it before, and she dumped the entire goddamn bucket all over the fucking floor and herself and her friends while I was changing a diaper, then ran to play in the toilet. I can't exactly leave a kid alone on the changing table, so toilet playtime it is!

Also, let her play with the ONE SINGLE BOOK she's not allowed to. let go of another boundary! Sure, why not??!??

Anyway, I'm quitting.

This is so detrimental to all the other kids, to me, and to the classroom environment. The amount of injures I've gotten from her is ridiculous, and she's starting to harm other kids as well. I feel bad for her. She needs significant intervention, speech and occupational therapy, and support. She won't get it here, let alone in a room that's chronically over ratio.

I'm sure others have dealt with situations like this and I'd love to hear it because I'm so exhausted and burnt out and miserable, i feel like a failure for quitting, and I need to hear I'm not alone.

First time posting but have loved reading/commenting on this reddit! Thank you so much for this space.

TLDR:
I’m a floater recently assigned to fill in as an assistant in a 3s room. Lead is out a couple days this/next week so I’ll be with another floater, taking on some lead responsibilities. What advice would you give me?

Details:
I’ve been at a center for a couple months and have been a floater until now (previously was an aide with 2-3s elsewhere and then have been with lots of ages here). This week and last, I’ve filling in as a teaching assistant in a 3s room (8 kids until nap, 10 after 3pm; all boys; most about to turn 3) since the previous assistant teacher left last week. It’s been pretty good - I’m definitely learning a lot in this role, especially about classroom management, which has gotten easier as the kids and I get to know each other.

I don’t plan to accept a promotion to this role permanently (I prefer infants/1s and don’t think 3s full time forever is sustainable for me) and am communicating that to admin. However, the lead teacher in the classroom has approved PTO this upcoming Friday, Monday and Tuesday, so it looks like it’ll be me and another floater running the room on those days, most likely with me in a more prominent role since I’ll be the one who knows the routine, expectations and kids better.

What advice would you give me? My biggest challenge at first was classroom management when running transitions and responding to other moments of kids testing boundaries. Like I said, I feel like I’ve learned a lot in that regard (effective consequence options in the room, when to ignore behavior vs when to engage, etc) and they definitely listen more often now when instructions come from me instead of the lead needing to come back me up every time. But her presence alone still makes things smoother (even if I’m leading something) and the very end of the day when she leaves and it’s me and someone else is trickier with her gone. It’s not just classroom management ofc, as there are many elements of leading (and I want general advice about leading circle time, activities etc too) but my main fear is definitely general chaos ensuing, even if I come in clear, confident and consistent with the expectations the lead has set.

What would you say isn’t obvious to floaters/assistants but is helpful when in a lead role? I think I’ve heard lots of the usual advice (be clear and confident - they can sense uncertainty; look and address for underlying needs/causes of disruptive behavior in addition to behavior itself; use immediate, logical and realistic consequences whenever possible; keep transitions smooth and timely so they’re kept engaged and not bored; keep relationships at core of everything; regulate myself since they feed off that energy; give choices/autonomy while maintaining safety/boundaries, etc) but is there anything specific to leading that you think would help/isn’t obvious/intuitive?

Thank you in advance!

hey yall- florida teacher here, and it’s my first year in VPK and i’m getting ready for my upcoming CLASS observation. does anyone have any tips or know exactly what they look for? i have a coach from my ELC helping but shes been telling me some things that are simply not feasible with my specific class (ie. suggesting kids have more choices during rotation learning groups, when i have structured my groups to be in a specific way because there are certain kids who cannot be with each other or they intentionally provoke and hurt others)

anyways looking for any advice cause i have an extremely rough group of kids who don’t like structure or routine or being told what to do and it’s genuinely stressing me out thinking about how they’re going to act on observation day.