It's wrong to slap co-workers, right?

Do you know why co-worker is hyphenated? So no one thinks I'm a cow orker.

I've been at still another wild and out of control program this week. No, not the one I wrote about last time, a whole 'nother one! If you're keeping score, that's two in one week!

The kids are loud. Active. Some of them are obnoxious with each other. They don't respond to most of the things being said to them. This is partly because there are a lot of different people working at the site, and the 'do this, not that' isn't exactly consistent. We all have different ideas of what's acceptable behavior, what's over the top, what's unsafe. Yeah, sometimes safety is subjective.

Example:
There are chairs on the younger kid side of the program. There are several reasons for this. These chairs have a 50 lb weight limit. Many of the kids in our program are far over 50 lbs. Some of them are taller than I am. Ha, I'm over 50 lbs, too. But for whatever reason, some of the adults have allowed our kids to go poach those chairs.

They bring them over to our side of things. Now guess... do they just sit in them and have a quiet conversation or read a book the way the kids on the younger side do? NO they do NOT! Why, they act like the rowdy bunch they are and spin in them, use them as weapons, push each other off of them and generally engage in exactly the types of behaviors that we really don't need. There is an acceptable activity level, and anything that contributes to upsetting that balance is not helpful.

Guess it doesn't matter because the chairs are getting destroyed and will have to be thrown away at the end of summer, if not before.

I hate waste.
I hate when good stewardship isn't being taught to the kids, too.
It costs the company money.

I know, it's not my company. But in a way, it is. The better I am at my job, the larger my contribution and the less I allow things like destruction of toys and furniture that were paid for by the company, the better we all do. Everyone wins when we all make a damn effort to keep expensive and inexpensive items from being destroyed. Those shitty little plastic chairs are about 50 bucks apiece.

The kids are, as usual, not under any kind of control, self control or adult control. If you've been reading here for awhile, you know I don't advocate controlling kids, I  would rather equip them with the skills to control themselves.

But most of the staff are, um, let me see.
There's an existing stereotype of a day care worker.
Low pay, low IQ, probably not smart enough for any other line of work.
This stereotype, like most others, exists for a reason.

I know there has been more than one occasion that I've responded to the question of what I do for a living and seen someone's perception of my IQ visibly drop about 20 points.

Not that I care too much, I do enjoy the work and I feel that I'm where I should be.

But we have a lot of 'professionals' who aren't clear on what needs to happen during a day care program. It's been that way everywhere I've ever worked.

This week, I was told to show up and be in a support position.

Meaning I don't have to deal with being in charge. No paperwork, no rosters, no head count forms, no answering the phone or the door. Very little clean up or other tasks, either.

I get to do my favorite part of the job.
Show up, hang out with the kids, play some games, help with whatever activity is planned, go home.

But there are no activities planned, at least not during the afternoons, which is when I am there.

As usual, not enough things for the kids to do even if there was a planned activity.

There aren't enough blocks or LEGO or magna tiles. Not enough games. Or rather, there are games, just not ones they want to play. There are a lot of boys. Most of them are bored and they get into trouble all the damn time.

But it's not MY job to tell them,  "Don't, don't, don't," unless they're doing something unsafe.

And speaking of unsafe. Before I arrived yesterday, one of the kids decided he was pissed off at another kid and ran away from the program. Right out the door. Fortunately, the other group of campers (the program is divided between the older and younger kids) were outdoors, the adults who were with them caught Mario and brought him back.

Was anything done about it? I actually don't know, it happened before I got there.
But he was still in the group when I arrived. Now you know I like kids. Otherwise this job would not be a good fit, because, well, the place is full of young humans.

Mario is shrill, whiny, angry and really good at being mean, sneaky and rude to the other kids. Although I care about him because that's what I do, I don't like him much. He's not a very nice person. He needs constant monitoring and redirection, sometimes every minute. No exaggeration.

Today I didn't get there until 2. The kids had just returned from a field trip. And guess who got mad and ran away again?
Yep.
Mario.

Only this time he ran out the doors of the field trip location and into the full-of-fast-traffic street. The location is just off the freeway, and people are in a hurry when they're passing by.
One of our staff went out and got him, and fortunately he wasn't hurt.

But because of the possibility of something bad happening and because it has apparently happened other times this summer, he's been asked not to come back to the program.

When kids do things like run away, it's not because they are a problem, it's because they have problems. It's not something we're equipped to deal with because none of us are qualified to be one on one with a special needs kid and our ratios don't allow one adult to be responsible for one child. It's sad because if he's not going to be in the program, his sister won't be able to attend, either.

One of the people I am working with at this program worked for the employer I  left in January this year. Evelyn wasn't my favorite person, although I never had to work with her.

On a summer field trip a few years ago, she had her little group cut the line in front of my kids at the prize desk as we were in our last 15 minutes at the place. And by the time my kids got to the desk, their tickets had expired and my kids didn't get their cheesy prizes. I made up for that by buying them all little LEGO knockoff cars and they had them the next day. But I'm still aggravated at how inconsiderate she was. Airhead with a dash of arrogance.

So she's running afternoons at camp.
She has lots of tricks in her repertoire.

She says things like, "Gregory! Am I  going to have to text your dad and tell him that you're not listening?"

Okay readers... why is that not a good way to deal with Gregory's behaviors?
I'll help.

• Gregory's dad doesn't work at camp.
• Evelyn, who can't get the kids to listen to her in the first place, just handed her authority to someone who isn't even there.
• Evelyn, who can't get the kids to listen to her in the second place, just handed MY authority and that of every adult who works at that site to someone who isn't even there by threatening the kid. She has no intention of texting his dad, either. So she's threatening a child with something she would never do.
  
  

Evelyn's not a bad person, but she's clueless.

"Jessica! If you don't stop that right now, I will have to have a talk with your mom when she comes to pick you up!"

Jessica, who has heard that one approximately 200 times this week, continues the behavior. She knows.

Evelyn's also really great at rewards.
Ughhhhh.
"Who wants to win a prize by helping clean up the LEGO?"
When she doesn't get a response, she puts on a fake disappointed face and takes a doleful tone. "I guess we won't get to advance our token today."

Then, the five kids who still give a shit about the dumb game will go clean up the mess made by other kids. So the kids who made the mess have no responsibility, the teacher succeeds in getting toys picked up, and more useless trinkets are handed out.

The token is advanced. Yippee.

There's some stupid 'game' board that they use to bribe and cajole kids into doing what should be done in the first place.

I'm not privy to what great prize they're going to get if they make it to the end of the game board, but most of the kids seriously don't care.
They aren't invested in the process.
Gee, I wonder why.

I know I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating.

If the children aren't listening after you've said something 20 times, it's not the kids who are having comprehension problems.

If a person is using a system of stars and trinkets and cheesy little prizes for kids, they're making a ton of work for themselves.

I've always had good luck with telling kids that it's time to clean up. If I observe reluctance or kids that aren't contributing to the effort, I remind them (as a group) that, "We all played there. It's up to us to take responsibility for the clean up."

If it's time to go outside or to the gym or some other transition, I make it clear that until our job is done, we won't be moving on. It does take some work to get everyone working together at first, but they catch on.

They catch on so well that I can say, "Time to clean up," and have them actually clean up! Without me standing over them or playing dumb games to get them to take responsibility.

Offering them a star to pick up the mess they made in the first place is one of the dumbest ways I  can think of to get results. Most of the kids hate  it. Many of them won't be manipulated like that, either. They are tired of the crappy, cheap little prizes and have figured out how to just... not.

This also contributes to the general attitude. They're bored, they act up, they don't care because there is no reason TO care. No one is invested in that stupid game except for the staff. And (here's  the stereotype again) The staff is  mostly too dumb to see just how much effort they're putting forth for a small return.

Keeping track of stars and tickets and who did what and rewarding everyone, even those who don't help in any way at any time with prizes at the end of the week after threatening NOT to... man, I hate that shit.

So I bring projects. I spend time at home, going through my boxes and boxes of supplies and looking up more ideas and making sure I have every single piece in the bag because gawd knows it probably won't be at the site. It's amazing, though. Things are much calmer when they have something to do with their hands! Shocking, I know.

I try to ignore the torrent of stupidity from the adults around me. Sometimes it's hard. So far, though, I have managed to avoid saying anything to my co-workers about how dumb I think they are. I know it won't help.

Usually I proofread and edit and fiddle around until I'm happy with my posts.
I did not do that this time. It's late, I'm tired (and apparently crabby) and I'm going to bed.