More Crazy Train(ing)

Tuesday was session #2. We went over some of the same things we did in the first session, which was site directors only but this session was site staff as well.

Neither one of my staff were there. My site assistant from last year thought our district was attending Monday's training, so he showed up for that one. I'm not sure what happened to my other person, she's a new hire and was hired as a site teacher. 
A site assistant is not qualified to be left alone with kids, based on number of supervised child contact hours. A site teacher has put in the requisite hours and specific trainings to be with kids unsupervised.

I feel despair. There are people working for my company who really should not be working with children in any capacity. They're not horrible people, I don't think they would deliberately harm a kid, but my GOD some of them are just dirt stupid.

One person explained how she handled it when the 'kids aren't being good'. 

I can't quote her exactly, but she threatens the kids with their parents. 

"I'm calling your mom."

Then she said, when the kid says sorry and promises to be good, she backs down. And then if the kid acts up again (and they will, because she's spineless just like a jellyfish and has no fucking clue what she's doing) she threatens them again with the same threat. And backs down again. Then the third time (of course there's a third time because she hasn't dealt with the actual underlying issue) they 'cry and beg' so she tells them they need to 'be good'.

I don't usually blurt stuff out, but I did. 
"Don't do that. Don't threaten a kid. Don't use their parents against them."

Better to blurt that out than walk over and slap her in the head, which, while momentarily satisfying, would probably get me in some kind of trouble. 

I haven't ruled out head-slappin' for future encounters, though.

Other people contributed their opinions, too. 

So she did some kind of, 'oh, didn't know that' but I'm willing to bet hundreds that she will return to the default setting because she's an idiot.

I'm feeling a little more sane today after getting some distance, so I would like to tell her the same thing I have already said here.

I'd like to tell her don't threaten a child with their parent, either via phone call or the dreaded, "I'm telling your mom/dad when they come to pick you up!"  

Just don't. 

You're handing off your authority to a person who isn't even there. You're being paid to take care of the kid, you should appear confident to the children and be competent enough to handle routine disciplinary issues without having to call in reinforcements ("But I'm not really going to call!!") even hypothetical ones. 

By the way, if you were to call, how does this look to the child's parent(s)? 

It makes you look weak and ineffectual, actually. Calling a parent and saying, "Well, little Bobby wasn't being good so I wanted you to know!" makes you look unqualified and unprofessional.

And yes, I understand that there are times a parent should receive a phone call, I'm just talking about the day to day kid issues that occur every day in every program.

Once you've abdicated as the primary authority between 2 and 6 PM, you will never be taken seriously by that kid again. Guess what... go on, guess!!

The other kids will not listen to you either! You will lose your ability to guide the group. Even the kids who were listening to you will drift away. You are setting yourself up to fail.

Another not small issue? Having the child dread seeing their adult at pick up time. That kid has been away from the person(s) they love and the people who love them the most all day long. They've missed them, especially the smaller kids who are still so attached. All both parties want to do is reconnect. To hug and ask each other questions about their day. To renew that emotional bond and be happily together again. 

Don't mess that up.

Yes, sometimes you'll need to speak to a parent about an issue. Please don't make that the only time you've talked to them. Talk to them every day. Find out how they're doing, tell them a funny or intelligent or interesting thing their child said to you. Let them know their child is valued by you. That way, when you do have to address a potential problem, you have a respectful and authentic relationship with the family already.

WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND????

Another person, when we were discussing taking the fun things away from children so they'll participate in projects, was personally affronted. 

She believes the children aren't respecting HER when she 'spent a lot of time planning the activity' and then they don't want to do it.

Respect me, dammit. I worked hard on this.

Good god. 

Okay, Nancy. 
First, it's not about you at all. The kids have no idea how much or how little time you've spent on designing activities for them. They've been told what to do, how to do it, how long to do it, when they're done doing it, when to eat, when to pee, when to think, when to stop thinking ALL DAMN DAY.

When they get to us after a day of that, they need to relax. 
To have autonomy. 

I've preached it over and over. 
Give them good things to choose from. 
Give them a lot of things to choose from. 
Then get the hell out of their way and let them choose.

I know you've heard this one.

Make good choices.

It's often said by harried adults who aren't actually wanting children to consider choices. What they're trying to accomplish by barking it out repeatedly is for the child(ren) to stop making their current choice. 

Maybe kids are running around the room or dueling with scissors at the art table or getting angry and throwing blocks in the construction area or excluding other kids from a group.

You can't tell them (or teach them) to make good choices when you're not offering choices !! 

And the very simple concept that participation should be a choice instead of an order doesn't seem to be part of the equation.

You can't take it personally if a child doesn't want to do the activity you designed or found on the internet. 

It isn't about YOU at all.

Again, 
WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND????

Crazy Train(ing)

It doesn't matter how many years of experience I have doing this work.
It doesn't matter how well I do it.

The paperwork gods (disguised as state licensing inspectors) must be appeased. This means at least 18 hours per year of training in how to do our jobs. 
By the end of the year, we usually have 25 hours or more. 

Now you might think someone with over 20 years of experience in this job doesn't need to be trained, and you're not wrong, I could probably muddle through, but most of the time I learn at least one thing or am able to contribute a little around the edges. 

Today's contribution from me was a discussion about coercion by taking things away from kids, a practice that annoys me a great deal.

Our activity areas, or zones, are a way of separating play areas. One has construction, one art activities, one is full of games. I have an extra thing at my site, a dramatic play area. 

When we've finished with snacks, the snack table is cleaned and the afternoon's planned activity will be set up on that table.

I don't make my kids do the activity of the day, though. I offer it, but there are always young humans who don't want to make a project or do a science experiment. This ensures the ones who do come to the table are excited to participate and are willing to listen and work together without disrupting everyone else or taking the attention of staff.
It also ensures that the ones already engineering block towers or making things with LEGO or playing a rousing game of Go Fish will continue to do those things, allowing the adult(s) to focus on the guided activity.

However. 
Some of our site directors take a lack of participation personally and close all the other activities. 

So there's nothing else for the kids to do except the activity or cause trouble at the table where they're doing the activity. 

Put differently, it means the kids who have already found the thing they're most interested in are being dragged away and forced to do something they don't want to do and will react accordingly. I have specific children in mind because I know my kids, but it's not difficult to apply the concept to other programs, or shouldn't be.

I'd like to say the other directors caught on immediately during this discussion.

They did not.

The idea that kids have their own agenda seems to be a personal affront. 
"Well I work hard to plan activities and I think the least they can do is try it."
And the trite, "Well their parents pay to have them there, they're not getting their money's worth if their children aren't participating. And sometimes they even end up liking what we're doing!"

GAHHHHHHH.

Speaking as a parent, the answer to the question, 'is my child having fun' needs to be yes. 

I explained about giving the kids a lot of choices and letting them decide how they want to spend their time, but most of the other adults in the room are more focused on what they want the kids to do. 
How to control the experiences for our kids. 
Aggravating.

"Well I had to do things I didn't want to do when I was a kid, we all have to do things we don't want to do! This is no different."

When I responded that kids should be having fun while they're with us, no one seemed to really get it.

Equally foreign was the idea that our programs should be owned by the kids, not the adults. 

Yes, safety parameters and basic lessons about respect and stewardship will have to be addressed. Fire drills and snacks and gym games and messy art projects.

That is our job. 

Telling little Cindy that she has to come to the project table and do a project when she's deep in her little world of taking care of the babies and running a restaurant is overbearing and imperious and rude and NOT our job. 
Leave Cindy alone, dammit.

Why is this so difficult for some people to grasp?

Recruiting Kohnheads

Have you read Punished By Rewards?

It was published in 1993, I think. 
Let me go look that up for ya.
Yes, first printing in 1993. 

I have to say that I did not give rewards and trinkets to kids before I read this book, but after reading it, there was no way in hell I was going to do that to any child in my care.

Prizes for being quiet. For lining up 'correctly'. For remembering to hang up their coats. For being nice to someone else. Caught being good is the phrase. First, kids *are* good. There's no catching them doing it, it's what they are. When they make mistakes, does that mean they're not being good? That's what we're implying.

Little prizes for being part of the cleanup effort when they're the ones who made the mess in the first place? Yeah, no. 

On the occasions when a child who doesn't know me very well asks, "What do I get?" at the end of cleanup time, I say, "You get to participate in our activities and help put things away when we're finished."

One of the problems is that so many people don't know the differences between compliance, motivation and manipulation. 
They think that doing shit like 'secret scrap' is a motivator and is a good idea for dealing with children.

Have you ever seen anyone do this to a group of kids?

The adult announces at clean up, "There is a secret item (or scrap) and whoever picks it up will win a PRIZE!!!"

They scramble at first. Then they start to fall apart a little. Every 10 seconds or so, another child will approach the adult and ask breathlessly, "Has the secret scrap been picked up yet?"

Now how does the adult answer that? They can't say yes, even if it has been picked up. (If they even bothered to note an item in their mind, that is. A lot of them don't bother, just arbitrarily say after everything is done, "Zippy got the secret scrap today!!") and hand Zippy some little trinket that usually gets left behind because it's lame and boring and useless.

The answer to the 'is it picked up' question must always be, "Not yet."

If one answers yes, then how are they going to continue to manipulate and condescend to children during clean up  or any other time?

Their only goal is compliance. 
To make the lives of adults simpler by "motivating" kids. 
What a bunch of horseshit. 
Let's call it what it is. 
Manipulation. 

Secret scrap is another time I'd ask the adult, "Is this something you're doing for the kids or something you're doing to them? It isn't beneficial to the child to make them comply. It *is* beneficial for them to understand that they're an important part of our group and that all of us are better when we work together to accomplish our tasks."

The thing is, our lifetime conditioning is hard to escape. 
People do this shit because this shit was done to them.

I had never been a reward system person, but until I read Alfie Kohn's book, I saw it as relatively harmless. Now I don't. Now I see it as damaging, condescending, manipulative, overbearing and rude. It pits kids against each other, too. "Look at what a wonderful job Lisa did cleaning the art area!" translates to "Lisa is better than the rest of you at cleaning the art area." And in another this shit was done to me moment, who doesn't remember the teacher's pet? And the not-always-covert bullying that happened to the pet when the teacher wasn't watching.

We should not be setting kids apart in that way.

I would love to think the idea of simple respect for our young humans would preclude people from behaving this way. I would love to be the reason at least one or two or five people stop doing these things to children because of something I said or a podcast or book or essay I introduced them to.

Alfie Kohn is now doing podcasts. In his very first one, he does a role play and speaks as a principal would speak at a back to school night in a perfect world. Well worth the time I spent listening.

A bonus to the podcast format is that, um, how do I say this diplomatically?

Sometimes, stereotypes exist for a reason. I've mentioned before that I've seen my IQ visibly drop about 15 points in someone's perception when I tell them what I do for a living. 
It's annoying, but I can't control what other people think of me. 

The public generally views after school care as babysitting and the adults who do the work as babysitters. 

Quite often, the adults who are working in the programs think of it that way, too. 
You don't have to be brilliant or well-read to do the job, but it helps to at least read a book!

I can say that I have encountered more than one person who doesn't read, research, analyze or really care much about the why of what they do in program, only the what. 

What do I want them to do and how can I make them do it?
How can I make them 'be good'? 

Those people aren't going to read about the job. 
They're not going to live and breathe to constantly improve, either. 

Having a podcast to listen to is something that can be shared in a training session or two and a company that operates on the edge of budget constraints and can't afford to have someone like Alfie Kohn come talk to them can still share valuable information in that way. I'm already planning to share the links with our trainer. 

This is important to me. I feel that a token economy may be the biggest thing we get wrong when dealing with our program kids.

Had a little boy in my group years and years ago who melted down because another child was breaking the rules on the swings. We're talking serious meltdown here, because (and I quote) "HE'S DOING IT WRONG!!"

I'm not quite melting down, but when I hear about the prizes being ordered and people are chatting about 'managing children to obtain compliance' I want to say it to them. "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"

What do you think? Should rewards and tickets and trinkets be a thing that we, as day care providers inflict on children?

Or could we be a little more intentional? 
Be like Alfie.
Be a Kohnhead. 
::snort::

Please Share Your Ideas.....

For a long time, the people I love (and even a bunch of people I don't love but am acquainted with) have told me I should write a book about my work with kids. The funny stuff they say, the ways of dealing with the busy-ness, how to defuse and redirect and make things fun and to give our young humans a safe space to be who they are.

I think (?) maybe(?) I am ready to start putting everything together. I've been writing this blog for almost 20 years, after all. So I'm sure I can pull a book out of what's here already.

But I get stuck on how I want it to look. There's SO MUCH I think anyone who wants to do this job should know.

I'm considering the idea of making it at least partially a Q & A format.

So if you would, please, think about it for a minute or two and then ask me a question.
If you were going to suddenly be tossed into an after-school program with a bunch of young humans, what would be your burning question(s)?

I even have a working title now. 
Which I've already gotten attached to.

One of the things kids love to do is to write their own books. 
I love it when they do, but we have a rule about it. 
Yes, you may write a book. You may write 20 of them if you want. 
But you won't be stapling the pages together until they're completed. 
The reasoning behind this is sound... teaching kids not to waste their supplies. 

And what happens is this: A kid staples five or six pages together, starts working on their book, and fun happens instead. The book gets left on the art table and the young author wanders off to build a cup tower with some friends or play ping pong and leaves their book.

When it's time to clean up, the book is tossed into the recycling bin. 
Now guess... will that same kid do the same thing again and again if we don't address it?

So to address that issue, I save a book now and then from the recycle bin. I remove the cover, as I'm not trying to single out the perp. And when we have our meeting, I show them the stack of stapled pages and explain that I do want them to feel free to write a book. That they're welcome to do it every single day if they want to, but that we don't want to waste paper doing so.

One of my kids made a book last year and the cover made me smile.

I took a photo and saved it.

And that gave me my book title.

You're officially the first to know.

The After School Booch.

Coming soon.

Any questions? (PLEASE??)