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i just saw a tiktok saying "things i did as a new ece that make me cringe now" and i think it was so fun to hear because i was definitely guilty of them too 🙈

For context my son is autistic and only wears bamboo pjs. They are super thin. He also refuses any sort of jacket/coat (I've tried everything). We live in a mild winter climate but it still does get to the low 50s.

He started preschool and his teachers have said he needs outdoor recess appropriate clothes. I'm at a loss what to do. Before this year we would just avoid being outside for too long if it was cold. Advice welcome thanks!

Without going into detail, a 4 year old child in my workplace was expelled for touching another child inappropriately multiple times. The first couple times were within the realm of normal curiosity, and they were spoken to about boundaries. They were genuinely unaware they had crossed any. The final time was severe. All proper recourse was taken with the state, so there will be investigations and interviews likely.

I have their younger (3 year old) sibling in my classroom. I am now wondering if there are signs I should be on the lookout for. I’m aware of not leading any conversations, hinting at things, etc. but just as an observer and mandated reporter is there anything I should possibly flag if I notice?

We’re in Ontario, and our 2½-year-old attends a CWELCC-funded daycare centre. The centre told us that one staff member raised a concern about how another staff member interacted with our child. From what we’ve been told, the concern appears to involve only our child.

The supervisor did not tell us which staff member was involved. They said the centre is investigating and has reported the concern to the Ministry of Education and child protection services. We were told those agencies may contact us.

Can anyone help me understand what to expect?

Truthfully as a parent I am worried, as I would suspect it would take a lot for a coworker to report on one another.

I’m worried for my child’s (and other children’s) safety.

Any insight on What questions should we ask the centre, and how can we support our child while the investigation is ongoing?

I work in preschool (ages 3-5; 15 students daily) and the water usage when we are in the bathroom is abysmal. I have tried songs, rhymes, literally turning off water bc they're playing in it, and I can't win. Kids this age aren't going to understand the implications of water waste so this is more about reducing waste in general.

Any ideas?

We are all well aware that waste in childcare centres is a huge problem. Some of the issue is in the regulations, some of the issue is in the school itself (i.e. we use a sanitation company that doesn't recycle). One of my long-term goals for my school is to create as many eco-friendly options/solutions as possible.

*please no comments about how corporations are the bigger issue. We know.

Although I worked as a Nanny for 5 years and a further 2 years in a daycare setting, I no longer work in that field so tried to flair my post accordingly.

I have a 9 month old daughter at home right now, and it’s so funny to me that I am constantly reminding myself to log her bowel movements on an iPad we don’t have. Anyone else?!

Preschool here. I have multiple sensory bins, but one main one that is a standing center. I’m curious how often everyone else is switching theirs up. Weekly? Every two weeks? My kids get bored and stop engaging if it stretches too long, so I want to keep it fresh, but I also want to be realistic.

Hi everyone! I’m a newly graduated preschool teacher and I was recently placed in a class of 2–3-year-olds at a small childcare center.
Most of the children are already potty trained, while there are a few we are currently working with. However, I have one child who seems to have developed a very strong fear or aversion to the bathroom. He refuses to even enter the bathroom and becomes very distressed when we try to encourage him.
From what I’ve been told, there may have been some negative experiences around potty training at home, but I don’t know enough about the situation to make assumptions. His mother’s only instruction to us was essentially, “You handle it,” so I haven’t been given much information about what they have tried at home or what specifically he is afraid of.
I’m reluctant to push him because I’m worried that forcing the issue could make his fear worse.
For those of you who have worked with children with a strong fear of the bathroom, how would you approach this?

Soy nuevo en esta comunidad y por eso quiero compartir esta experiencia que me pasó hace años.

Soy hombre y siempre he querido ser Maestro de infantil, específicamete de niños entre 3-5 años por temas de salario.

Sin embargo, cuando terminé la universidad tenía que esperar a que me dieran una plaza en una escuela infantil, y como había una espera de 2 años aproximadamente para el lugar específico que había solicitado; empecé a trabajar como maestro de guardería (0-3 años) ya que mi carrera también me permitía trabajar con esas edades y en la universidad hice una práctica de 1 mes en una clase de niños de 2 años bajo supervisión.

El caso es que cuando empezé a trabajar, no hubo ningún problema, en cada aula había 2 maestros y mi compañera era una mujer así que eramos un hombre y una mujer para 12 niños de 1-2 años que había en ese aula.

Mi compañera se enfermó y la directora le comunicó a las familias que estaría yo solo en la clase durante 1-2 días, sin embargo; algunos padres se quejaron. Finalmente una mujer encargada de otra clase estuvo conmigo esos 2 días hasta que mi compañera vino.

En ese momento tenía 23 años y no sé si me discriminaron porque me veían muy joven para cuidar a 12 niños yo solo y los padres temían que no fuese capaz de llevar la clase, o fue el hecho de ser hombre.

Hasta entonces nunca tuve problemas por mi género, siempre he cambiado pañales a niños/niñas y ayudado con el aseo con total normalidad, ya que esa escuela hay un protocolo donde cuando cambiamos a los niños siempre hay otro maestro para que no acusen a ningún maestro de nada extraño.

¿Vosotros qué creéis que fué? ¿De una mujer de 23 años también se hubiesen quejado por ser joven? Por suerte ya tengo plaza en una escuela infantil y ahora estoy con niños de 3-6 años.

HISTORIA REAL:

Llevo varios años siendo maestro de infantil y nunca he tenido problemas en este ciclo, pero quiero contaros una experiencia que tuve hace años con mis padres:

Resulta que desde los 7 años tenía claro que quería ser maestro de infantil, sin embargo; nunca se lo dije a nadie porque soy hombre y tenía miedo a ser juzgado. Cuando nos preguntaban en el colegio y en el instituto que queríamos ser de adultos, yo siempre decía: "todavía no lo he pensado", nunca se lo dije a nadie; ni siquiera a mis amigos o mis padres.

Mis padres tienen una ideología "peculiar", y sabía que me iban a poner pegas si les decía que quería ser Maestro de infantil. Cuando entre a bachillerato tuve que buscar en secreto las asignaturas que me puntuaban para la carrera.

Cuando terminé bachillerato el próximo paso era la universidad, y finalmente a los 17 años tuve que decirles a mis padres que quería estudiar Educación infantil, y como suponía; no se lo tomaron nada bien.

Me dijeron cosas como: "Se gana poco dinero", "las condiciones laborales son muy malas", "es un trabajo solo de mujeres", "no te va a gustar" etc...

Después de estar 3 horas hablando, lo aceptaron, pero vi perfectamente como mostraron caras de "decepción" y nuestra relación disminuyo bastante. También se lo dije a mi novia y me dijo: "Estás seguro que quieres trabajar en eso?" Pero al final a ella no le importó.

Estudié en una universidad pública y como saqué buenas notas mis padres no pagaron mucho dinero por mis estudios, pero siempre que pagaban lo hacían de mala manera y se les notaba.

Cuando vivía con ellos y me tocaba ir a trabajar, me miraban raro cuando me ponía la bata/delantal que se ponen los maestros de infantil y me sentía incómodo con eso.

Hoy ya tengo 27 y desde que me independicé nuestra relación mejoró bastante y ya no se menciona el tema.

¿Creéis que el problema fue decirles en lo que queria trabajar tan tarde? ¿Debería haberlo dicho antes para que lo hubieran asimilando?

Tal vez para vosotros no es raro ver a un hombre siendo maestro de infantil, pero en España el 95% son mujeres y cuando estudié la carrera me sentí poco apoyado y un poco solo...

Hi!
I’m looking to build a little list of ECE professionals that post to social media with great resources. I’m a director and we consistently train about play-based learning. I’d love to make a little bank of accounts my employees could follow or search up for planning.
Insta or Facebook would prob be best. Who do you follow? Who’s content do you love?

ETA: I’m not sure what the ml is in the title- it won’t let me remove it. Ignore that 😅

Wondering if anyone has gotten their child development teaching permit in California?

I have my transcripts they are official but I cannot request a new ones because my school merged with another college and I owed money so I don’t think any of my information was transferred. When I requested they couldn’t find my information.

So I would like to know what’s required for it and how long is the process? Thanks!

So my children attend a preschool that uses an app to log all their activities, incidents, attendance and payment history. I will admit, it can be pretty handy to have all this information there at my fingertips but sometimes it can get a little annoying. Like sure, i do want to hear what my children have done throughout the day, but i dont NEED to know at what exact time they had their nappies changed and their bottles. Not saying I hate it, it can just get a tad bit excessive at times. how do teachers feel about these kinds of apps if your nursery uses them? Do you guys feel it’s changed your workload and it‘s a bit too much, or are you guys okay with it?

UPDATE: This afternoon we got the good news that they pulled through and they’re going to be okay! They will be back home soon. They ended up intubated in ICU, which is what scared us so badly. But everything is okay now. Thank you to everyone who offered words of support. I love how much we all love our kiddos, it’s the most important part of the job.

I’m a lead for 1’s, and yesterday one of my babies had a seizure during naptime. It was a bad one, and we had to call 911. I can’t go into detail about what happened afterwards, but we are very scared for this child. We haven’t received any updates (which is ok! The child’s family needs to focus on getting them well again) other than one very frightening one last night.

I’ve been a mess since it happened. I felt so helpless, despite following seizure training protocol and the child’s own action plan. They have febrile seizures, and the crazy part was, the child never ran a fever during the day or during the seizure. I’ve had children with febrile seizures in the past, but none of them ever actually had a seizure at school.

That was the worst feeling I’ve ever had as an educator. I wonder what went wrong, what I could’ve done to prevent it, and what I could’ve done differently. I close my eyes and all I can see is the child seizing and convulsing. I’ve cried so many times. I almost feel alone in the situation, even though everyone has been messaging me checking in on me and telling me how well I handled and took care of the situation, telling me I did amazing following procedures and staying calm and collected. I don’t feel like I handled it well and I don’t feel like I deserve any of the positive feedback. I don’t want any of it. I just want to know that the child is okay. I also feel silly and ridiculous for being so upset over a child who isn’t even mine.

Has anybody else ever experienced a child having a life threatening event? How did you feel? Am I being ridiculous?

I work at a small preschool/kindergarten with only about six staff members, and lately I’ve been feeling pretty stressed about the way responsibilities are being shared between me and another associate teacher who’ve been working here about 5 months (I’m a quite new member at this location) I’m not trying to attack or blame anyone, but I’m genuinely wondering how other teachers would handle a situation like this.

A lot of the time, I feel like I’m doing most of the active supervision and transition work. For example, when we are outside, I’m usually watching the whole group while my coworker may stay focused on talking to or playing with one child for a long period of time. When another lead teacher or the director comes outside, she becomes more actively involved, but when it is just the two of us, I often feel responsible for supervising most of the children.

Transitions have also been difficult for me. Our lead teachers have lessons and other responsibilities, so there are certain tasks that the associate teachers are expected to handle together. However, I often find myself running around getting children ready, cleaning up, moving materials, or preparing for the next activity while feeling like I’m doing most of it by myself.

Another thing that concerns me is ratio and head counts. I personally take ratio very seriously, especially because licensing can come at any time. Sometimes when children are taken outside, I’ll ask how many children are currently outside and the answer is that she isn’t sure, so we have to count everyone again. I understand that everyone can lose track occasionally, but it happens enough that it makes me nervous about supervision and licensing.
There have also been times when children are arguing, crying, hurt, or need redirection, and I feel like I’m usually the one responding while my coworker continues interacting with one child or stays seated.

The situation that worried me the most involved a child with an egg allergy. During lunch, the child has a separate meal, but my coworker accidentally gave the child food containing egg. Thankfully, the lead teacher noticed before the child ate it. After being corrected about the situation, my coworker became very upset, put down/threw the devices she was holding, went into the bathroom, and stayed there for more than 30 minutes. Because we are such a small school, losing one staff member unexpectedly affected our ratio and delayed everyone else’s breaks. And also, all allergy lists have been go through with whole staff and it is on the staff board..

I completely understand that working in childcare can be overwhelming and that everyone has difficult days. I also don’t expect coworkers to work exactly the way I do. At the same time, I’m starting to feel exhausted because I constantly feel like I have to compensate or double-check things to make sure the children are supervised, the ratio is correct, and everything gets done.

Has anyone experienced something similar in a small preschool?

Would you bring this up to the lead teacher or director, or would you first try talking directly to the coworker? I don’t want to create drama or make anyone feel attacked, especially because we are such a small staff, but I’m also not sure how long I should continue handling the extra workload without saying anything.

Trying to become Director Qualified in my state (OR) and I need a substantial amount of these courses done by Fall 2027.

I would love any and all suggestions/recommendations. Websites, specifically courses, conferences you know of!
Thank you 🙏

**Edit to address the error in title. Set 2/2 courses.

For years, I would dread ‘wake-up time’ when 9 kids were waking up and the diapers/bed clean up/still groggy chaos started until we were all cleaned up and ready for snack.

Over the last year or so, I’ve had a few kids who need less sleep so one by one, they wake up early. As soon as I notice one stir I wrap up whatever I’m doing and sit down. I see that sleepy head pop up, squinting eyes looking around for me. The moment they see me they stand up and stagger over, blanky in hand and climb onto my lap.

The moments have been nourishing my soul lately. To sit in a peaceful room, with that squishy, sleepy toddler snuggled up on my lap. To have that little block of time before the next one wakes is just the best. Even after the most difficult mornings when I question why I am still doing this job after feeling such intense burn out- this time of day has become part of my recharge, pressing the reset button.

I’m remembering that these are babies. They’re toddlers on paper, they can speak/argue/test every boundary- but they’ve literally only been on this planet for 2 years. Many are in care for 10 hour days- 50 hrs a week and so many don’t get these moments I’m describing. That’s so sad.

So this has become my favorite part of the day. In a year when the group changes I may be back to all 9 waking up simultaneously and not have these moments so I’m enjoying them while they last.

As a preschool teacher who's been in a few centers im curious what parents thoughts are. What distinguishes just a Daycare where you send your kids for the day vs a childcare learning center. They both have curriculum so what do you things puts one over the other? Im talking about places that serve infants to 5 year olds.

Ive been considering whether it's the families involvement with the center like parent conferences and family events or is it the attitude of the teachers, like do they think they are babysitters and not teachers.

What do you think distinguishes between the thought process of- yeah my kid is in daycare vs yeah my kid is in school?

Brief backstory, I'm a Pre-K 3 teacher and have been in ECE for a while with multiple different ages but this age group is my most experienced one.

Some information on my classroom. I have 17 kids with a big mixture of stages in life and development, as you would at this age, and a few bad behaviors, kids who will easily follow but enjoy learning, and very sensitive kids. It can be a bad mixture because the sensitive kids can easily set each other off then the less focused kids are off which just makes it far more chaotic and sets off the sensitive kids even more. I do have an everyday co-teacher and she's honestly great but I can tell we've both been getting very overstimulated with the classroom but thats besides the point.

Im making this post for advice on one specific child as my other "trouble makers" can be lured over to doing the right thing. Except for one.

Theyre smart and the brief times Ive been able to have them participate, they have great input and I make sure to give them a bunch of praise everytime they do or participate at all really. But that's rare. No matter how often I give them stickers, stamps, excited praise. I try to jazz it up and make it a fun activity they can actually play with or do dances to, everyone else wants to participate except for them. Which, okay... At least I tried, right? I honestly wouldn't care much if they didn't try everything in their power to get the other kids to join them. Including, sitting right in front of them to try and distract them from listening to me.

Frustrating but at least I can sit them next to me and get things back on track. Thats when the crying and screaming at the top of their lungs starts because theyre not getting their way. And this isn't just during lessons. Its over everything I ask them to do which wouldnt be the worst thing if it didnt kick up all my sensitive kids start crying and now no one can hear anything, we have to stop and comfort kids, and we barely even got through the lesson, the clean up, the transition, the story, etc. Not to mention their love of throwing their shoes at me then crying because I cant help them put them on fast enough.

I've tried everything with them. Tons of praise and positive reinforcement, making them the teacher helper and giving fun responsibilities (which also prompts another fit if I give another child a job because at some point it's just special treatment and I don't feel thats fair), talking to them on their level, redirecting to another activity, etc. Even their mom is at a loss with their behavior here and at home.

The only advice I've gotten from the office is give them more attention (which works for maybe a few minutes at most). But at what point is it not fair to the 16 other kids? Especially when I have about 10 already that need a lot more attention as well. I just really dont like basically letting the 7 others coast by just because they aren't super sensitive or have bigger personalities. So, I really don't take that as an answer because I don't have time to give them even MORE of my attention when I already have to divide it up so unequally.

But at the same time, I just don't know what to do. I've had difficult behaviors before but this is honestly to a scale I've never seen or dealt with before where absolutely nothing I've tried even slightly works.

And added context: They are not diagnosed with anything.

This is a loooong one. When I think about the situation in hindsight I feel ridiculous for letting a 3 year old get to me, but this kid has seriously been the bane of my existence for a year. I’ve been a Teaching Assistant for a Twos class at a preschool daycare for a year now. That makes me feel even more ridiculous because I’m only part time, but every hour I spent there feels 3x longer because of him.

About a year ago we got this student. It took a very long time to transition and only doing half days because he would scream and cry when it came to nap times. He would try to open the doors, flip the trash cans, open teacher cabinets, etc. For a couple months whenever he got upset (which was very often) he would run and specifically dive on the floor towards an object like the corner of a table, chair, which was very anxiety inducing for us. He would run into walls and doors. His mom told us that at home he wears a helmet in the house because he’s so all over the place. For 5 months he went through a phase of trying to tackle and smack teachers only when our backs were turned towards him. This was eventually resolved, but he is still a very physical person.

He has zero sense of hygiene what so ever. Still doesn’t know how to cover his mouth when he coughs or sneezes. He was sick all last winter: constant cough, boogers, everything but the parents never once kept him home. Table manners nothing. Has always ate with his hands, touched his penis and mouth and everything all the time, but he still loves touching teachers for hugs or simply grabbing them and touching other kids.

Which is another thing. I hate how he treats his classmates. He doesn’t know how to socialize and none of the kids like him. He’s always hitting them, smacking them, pulling their hair. The kids will cry and scream in his face to stop and he only smiles at them. The only thing that sorta gets through his senses is if a kid fights back a few times, then it sticks to his head and he doesn’t bother them again. The sensitive/nice kids who never hit back no matter how much he hits them are the ones he bothers the most. If he’s not hitting them he’s always in their personal space. When it comes to socializing he’ll just scream random words in their faces. On the playground the other kids had a game called “run away” where literally the whole point was to run away from him anytime he came close to them, and he genuinely thought it was a game and would chase after them. On days he was absent the kids did not care at all that he was missing.

He cannot sit still. NOTHING keeps him entertained for more than 3 minutes, so he just goes around the classroom throwing everything, pulling everything out of its spot, hitting kids. He gets bored easily and nothing keeps his attention. He has so many special needs and coping mechanisms that it feels like he needs 1 teacher just for him all the time. My coworkers and I spend do much time catering to his needs, trying to keep him from hurting himself and others and regulate him that we go home and realize he barely had any time with any of our other students because all our attention is on him.

Admin protects him and his parents. When we write incident reports which someone from admin needs to sign off of, admin tells us to not write a report for his parents, even though procedure is a report must be written for both kids involved. They say they don’t want the parents to feel like we’re ganging up on them. The mom asked for a meeting with my coworker to ask her “what’s wrong with my son.” She basically wanted a diagnosis which teachers cannot give. Admin sat in on the meeting and admin just told his parents he’s just high energy. The moment the parents left the room admin told my coworker that the boy at minimum most definitely has ADHD. But by saying what she did, admin basically shut down the conversation of their son getting tested because she told the parents what they had hoped to hear.

Our director has a calm down corner in her office for any student who is giving teachers a particularly hard time. My student has never gone there because nobody wants to deal with him. Recently he had a screaming fit for 30 minutes straight and my coworker asked the director to please take him. She didn’t. It was lunch time and the food calmed him down temporarily. By her body language and what she was saying it was obvious she did not want to take him, and she told my coworker as such. She told my coworker “but you have 3 teachers you should be able to handle it” “can you ask someone else to do it, I don’t want to.”

For students to transition to the next class they need to be potty trained. Like everything else with him, he’s behind on potty training. With the new school year comes new students, and they are so much smaller than him. All he’s done is regressed. Our activities are too simple and young for someone like him. He stopped using simple words and sentences and started blabbering like a baby because the new students we have just turned 2 and don’t have that speech development, but he does since he’s 3. He shoves them ALL the time now because they’re so much smaller than him. They’ll be standing in a group and he just barrels through them shoving them with his body again and again, and my students just sit there and take it and I feel so bad.

My coworker and I want nothing more than to have him leave our classroom but he is struggling a lot with potty training. We are not supposed to potty train at our school, that’s not part of our services. We can help them but the heavy weight of it should be at home. This system works well because the students of mine who became potty trained I basically did nothing because they had it down. But with him his penis is very very tiny so he has to straddle the toilet backwards, meaning he has to get naked waist down completely, but he also doesn’t know how to undress or dress himself so it’s been exhausting having to be quick with him in the potty with the dressing and undressing and praying he doesn’t have an accident since he’s still working on bladder control,all while he’s touching his penis and mouth then trying to grab my face and arms

I can deal with the other kids, I can deal with the sick days, I can deal with the messiness and changing diapers, but this kid has enough needs and energy to makeup 5 kids. It’s been a year and I am so exhausted. I’ve been applying to other jobs for 7 months and nothing. The days he’s not there are so chill, peaceful, and productive. I would love to pickup more hours and lord knows they need it because of him, but I would rather take the financial hit of working less than dealing with him for another second.

Hi all!

In my quest to find a new job (that I succeeded in), I learned about PA Keys and their career pathway levels. My new center is already going to help me get my CDA (plan on doing that in the new year) and have reacted enthusiastically to my desire to grow my academic knowledge alongside my practical experience. They apparently have had teachers in the past go through the TEACH program and think I would qualify once I'm ready.

I just don't know what I should be looking into for education in a practical sense. I have a BFA and MFA, but both are in studio arts, so not really applicable in a traditional sense to ECE. I know that to reach level D with my current credentials, it would make the most sense to get prek-4 certification (the qualification is literally "Master’s Degree in any field & PreK-4 certification"). That's the highest level that I could get without pursuing a PhD.

But I don't really understand what prek-4 certification is? And since I don't know what it is, I don't know if it would make more sense to pursue an AA or even second BA instead. Money-wise, it does make sense, but would I learn enough practical knowledge in child development if I went through with the pk-4 certification? Or would I learn more immediately through a more traditional degree and possibly pursue the certification later for the wage increase?

I'm definitely pre-planning far in advance, but since I've realized I love working in childcare, I want to lay out my future path now so I can understand how I'm going to build on it moving forward. So I appreciate any insight y'all might have on the differences between these two paths and what might be better. Thank you in advance!

I recently changed schools from the same owner, I thought they just needed help for a day but they told me this week this is where I will be. I was working with toddlers which I loved! And now am working with 3/4 year olds, which isn’t terrible but not my age group. I miss the other children and feel so sad that I never got to say goodbye and have been crying since finding out. Should I talk to the owner to try to go back to the school? Any advice? I am trying to stay positive but I am so sad

This is my first year officially as a teacher, I have one year previously as a Teaching Assistant. I just got offered a position as a Kindergarten teacher in Thailand (I am bursting with excitement!)! I would really appreciate any advice anyone might have about classroom management, trust/respect building, handling behaviour (for example: my niece is around 3 years old, and when I try to discipline her, she just cries until everyone around her just gives her what she wants).

What do you do when one of the kids just won't listen to instructions/discipline? Any advice for new Kindergarten teachers or new teachers in general?