A Series of Mongolian Events part 2

Despite the lack of organization in management, actually almost every aspect of the place, I don't dislike my current employer.

They're nice people and I've been treated well.
My compensation is more than fair,and they've given me over two dollars an hour more than I was making when I started there.

I'm making more than five dollars an hour above what I made after 12 years of working for the assholes.

The health benefits are decent, too. 

I didn't get the support I needed when Louis was a part of my group. I don't think any of them understood exactly what I was dealing with and had they known, I'm not sure they'd have done something anyway.

They all have a lot of things going on and just like my old job and every other child care facility, they don't have people who want to stay.
A high turnover rate seems to be part of the business.

When you have programs that, unless someone from the office goes out, would be unstaffed on a daily basis, you have to prioritize. Since I wasn't out of ratio, it wasn't important to anyone but me. Some of my parents helped me out by calling our program office and complaining and asking why the child with a foul mouth and an inability to control his anger or physical aggression was allowed in a program with their own child(ren), but it took much longer than I'd have liked to get him out of the group.

I confess to still wishing I could have helped him fit in, though. To have been able to perform a miracle.
Alas, I am not divine.

Sending me someone to help with a disturbed child wasn't high on their list of things that needed to be done. I was highly pissed off, but at this stage of life, I can't necessarily afford principles. I need the job and more importantly, the health plan. I still let them know what I thought, but refrained from using profanity or screaming, at least in front of anyone.

I have to admit being aggravated on a small level by a few things.
It's not helpful to me to have my infrequent emails ignored. An acknowledgement that I've been heard helps a bit. I can't even count the number of times I've sat in group meeting and we've all been informed that we should answer the emails they send to us. That they'd like to be 'acknowledged when we contact you'.

All I can do to keep from smacking my forehead and audibly groaning whenever it's brought up.

I'd like the support to run break programs from my site, and although no one has given me the slightest bit of encouragement, I still have hope. I know I could do a lot better than what's being done at most of the sites this company runs.
I say most because I haven't seen them all.
We'll call it an educated guess.

I don't want to see all of their programs.
Ever.

I hate the way all the other programs I've seen are being run.
The adults don't seem to have bad intentions, but there's little autonomy for the kids. They don't have a lot of choices. When there are things provided for them to choose from, only a few items are available.

Every site I've seen is chaotic and loud and there are marginally dangerous activities happening with all or most of the kids.

I worked at one of those places Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Three damn days too many.

I can't wait for school to start again so I can be back to my own site where things are clean, everything's in the right place, the kids understand what's expected and I understand them and their needs, too.

If I had to describe this site using only one word, it would be abysmal.
But you know me... I can't use just one word to describe anything. I have to go on and on and on instead.

What's wrong at this site, you ask?
Oh my god.
What isn't wrong?

Safety and licensing violations are happening on a daily basis. I know I've said before that one doesn't have to be a parent to be good at this job, but I think it helps.

It seems that the 20 something bubbleheaded idiot (and her equally dippy sidekick) usually in charge at this place can't even see the potential for accident when they've been allowing kids to 'bungee jump' off the play structure using jump ropes.

Allowing them to pet 'only the friendly dogs' that come onto the playground.
Here's a good one, too. The kids check in right after school, but the site director has made a practice of not signing some of them them in until they go wash up and use bathrooms and then come back.

This is done on purpose so the child can leave the program area without supervision.

So, using this method, the child is no longer in custody of the school but not in program custody, either. If something happens to that child while he or she is wandering down the hallways, I'm sure it's our responsibility. I don't actually care who would be blamed, it's not safe for kids and that has to be our number one priority.

It's a licensing violation, of course. And a huge red flag to me, I've been doing this job too long to allow something stupid like that.
Many kids have expressed their puzzlement (Well Kyra lets us do it!!) about why I don't allow it, instead taking them as a group to the restrooms to wash after they've all been signed in.
Why isn't the bubblehead there right now?
She let her criminal history registration lapse.

There are various reasons for that to happen, but in this case, she just didn't get on it in time. It's taking at least a month, sometimes two months for the fingerprinting and FBI checking to happen. It's a pain in the ass, but it's for the safety of children, which is worth a great deal of trouble.

It's due diligence and I respect the intent, although of course there's no way to catch every potential unsafe-to-children person. Or people like Fluffy and her minions who have no business being around kids, even if they don't have bad intentions.

But if you don't have a current registry listing, you cannot be alone with children under licensing laws. My employer will not allow someone on site who is not current in the registry, so she's off work until it goes through.

So this is not a good place for kids.
If you ask me.
Pleas ask me. I will definitely tell you what I think.

Their art supplies are crap.
Not one special item.
No stencils, no open art area stocked with different colors of construction paper, no choices of regular paper or card stock or tracing paper or paper edging scissors. No paper punches, tape, string.

The pencils (all 3.5 of them) are chewed, too. None of them have erasers. There are no bits of fabric or ribbons or yarn. No felt or fun foam or little flowers. No drawing books.

And there's no opportunity to independently create. Kids should have those things put out for them, it should be kept stocked by the adult in charge and that same adult or adults should mostly be hands off unless asked for assistance. Make it available and let them figure out how to use it.

I have so many things at my site for art. For everything, really, not just art. Kids need a lot of choices. GOOD choices so they can make their own decisions and make smart ones.

Oh sure, I've had to explain a bit about keeping things nice and doing our best to avoid wasting our supplies (please put things away in their proper bins so we can find it next time, popsicle sticks belong in the trash, the recycle bin is for paper, please complete the pages of the book you're writing and then we'll staple it together) but once they understand what I am asking, they do just fine. They take pride in our stuff, rightly considering our things communal property and working together to keep things nice. I don't have to stand over them and lecture or point, they communicate with each other and encourage their friends to help with stewardship.

This place I'm stuck working in (over 40 kids) has one tiny bin of LEGO...and by tiny bin, I mean one that's about 10 inches long by six inches high and half full of ancient and discolored bricks with teeth marks in about a quarter of them. The solitary baseplate is bent in the middle and can't be built on.

All the games they have are missing pieces, boards are torn in half, there are no separate areas for various activities.

In childcare, it's a lot to ask to have quiet, but there's nowhere in this program that a child can go to be alone and have some peace. I spotted a sign on the wall (quiet area, you MUST ASK STAFF!!!) with an arrow pointing downward to an area where a bunch of discarded school furniture and junk from the program are just..tossed against the wall. Nowhere for kids to relax a little.

In our little room, there is a corner with a table and a trifold board. The board has interesting photos to look at and is labeled 'chill zone'. A child can bring a small art project or a book or one of our little manipulative activities or some other thing of their own choosing and spend whatever amount of time is needed to decompress. Some kids utilize it, most of them don't, and so far it's usually only one at a time. When a second child needs a break, they're allowed to take a chair into the hallway and sit near the window where I can still observe them.

After an eternal day at school, sometimes they need calm.
Always, really, but sadly they've learned to keep going even when they don't want to.

They need a break now and then.
I try to make sure they have it.

This program has no art books, no origami books, nothing about science experiments or bugs.
Really not many books of any sort, although the ones they do have are carefully divided into grade levels. Reading time, er, excuse me 'literacy activity time' was accompanied by using one of the phrases I hate the most to describe what should be a fun activity..."Please choose a book that is only from your level."

The kids are allowed to wrestle.
"But Kyra lets us do it!"
My stock answer, "Do I look like Kyra?"

Two boys were pounding the crap out of each other on my first visit there. I walked over to them. Put a hand on a shoulder of each of them.
"Guys. We don't hit each other here. Wrestling isn't a good idea, either. Please sit up now and keep your hands to yourselves."

They looked at me incredulously.
"But we're brothers!"
"I don't care if you are cousins or uncles," and I gestured at the older one, "Or if you're his grandma."

That made them laugh. And the younger one called the older one 'Grandma' for the rest of the afternoon. Also, they stopped hitting each other.

The play structure is one of the older types, it has metal stairs with handrails. One of the little girls had put a leg over the rail and was doing flips over and over and over. Her head was clearing the sharp and hard edge of the metal staircase by maybe two inches every time she went over. If you've ever seen a kid do this, you know they go around FAST and if they strike an object, it's going to hurt.

Seeing her head so close to the steps was horrifying.
It was somehow worse that the site assistant was standing right there watching as it happened.

I walked over and stopped the child from flipping.
"I need you to do your flips," and I pointed at one of the horizontal bars suspended over the much softer and hopefully less-lethal bark chips, "over there."
She looked at me, mystified.
"Why?"
"Because this is a handrail, not a piece of gymnastic equipment. It isn't safe. Your head was barely missing the edge of the stairs."
I showed her how hard the edge was and said that I don't like kids getting hurt.

She walked away from me, still looking confused.

And the site assistant said to me, "But Kyra lets them do that. She's just doing gymnastics!"

I was incredulous."Seriously?"

She said again, "But Kyra lets them do that."

"Do you not see the potential for accident here? This is very unsafe!"

Then she got defensive and said, "Well I don't know why you're mad at me! I didn't know!"

I assured her that I wasn't angry at all, but that after raising two kids of my own and hundreds of other people's kids, I can't NOT see it.

So there's more. I spent three days there. A total of 12 hours. It felt like a full 40 hour workweek.

I sent an email already to a manager person regarding the children not being signed in and told him that the rest of my concerns will be addressed in person, but that I felt this one needed to be mentioned now.

I enjoy sleeping in, but I'm looking forward to getting back to my own site on Monday morning. Where it's clean, mostly organized, the kids know what I expect and why I expect it (safety first... always) and are happy, monitored,and kept busy with good activities.