*Names have been changed.*
I didn't think so much attitude could fit into such a little
person. She wasn’t even one year old yet and she challenged everyone. Angie was
playing with a toy when Bria pushed her and grabbed the toy. As Angie tried to
get back up Bria shoved her down and once Angie was laying on the floor she
placed a hand on her stomach and pushed down. Angie began to cry and when the
teacher told Bria to play nice and not to push, she just grunted and slapped
the teachers hand. She acted like this in front of her mother a few times and
the mothers reaction was to laugh and say "oh my god, Bria," Because
that's clearly the best way to react.
"He's not cleaning!" whined Ray. "It's not time
to clean up yet, you can keep playing" the teacher replied. He looked at
the kids at the table and mumbled what I assume was another complaint about
them not cleaning. Ray walked up to the table and leaned over to snatch a toy
away from John. John yelled "hey!" and looked to me for some help as
Ray began to take the toys and put them away. After telling Ray, again, that it
was not clean up time and giving the toys back to John and his friends at the
table Ray began to cry. Apparently, he really wanted to clean up. The crying
quickly escalated into a full blown tantrum as he threw himself on the floor
and kicked the chair and the table disrupting everyone around him. This sort of
thing happened just about every time Ray was told he couldn't do something.
"That’s mine!" he rips the toy from the other boys'
hand and proceeds to push him to the ground. The teacher asks him why he did
that, the toy was not his and everyone has to share. The little boy pouts and
turns his body away all the while holding the toy even tighter. There are other
variations of this scene that happen all the time at the day care I work. We
start off as selfish little humans that seek attention and pampering from our
parents since we cannot do them for ourselves; but when the kids start to grow
up and they learn about sharing and playing nice with others is when the tricky
part comes in. I've seen teachers handle the incident above in three ways, take
the toy from the child and give it to the other, leave the child with the toy
and tell the other child to play with something else, or the teacher takes the
toy away and no one gets to play with it. Each option is sort of like picking
your poison, which isn't too hard when you’re not the one who's going to be
poisoned.
"Hey that’s mine!" complains Derek. Jay grabs the
toy from Mark and tells him to give it back to Derek but Mark would not let go.
I tell Mark that he cannot take someone else's t, "Derek was playing with
it, please give it back and apologize."
That didn’t work.
Derek stared at me, almost challenging me to do something. I
walked up to the boys and took the toy away from him and gave it back to Derek.
Mark wasn't very happy about that and started throwing toys across the table
and then finally stomping his feet, sliding back his chair and throwing himself
on the floor. When told to sit back in the chair he gave a shrug and slid away
from the table. He continued in this mood all day.
It's safe to say I'll be looking for a new job soon (and I'm
highly considering home schooling my future kids).
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