Reflecting: last August

This time last year I seized an opportunity to work in a daycare as a teacher. Horrible experience but I learned from it.

I realized I can't handle being around other people's kids in an authority position. It's not a place where I could be like "oh you don't know how to act, you're getting punished". These kids were two and three years old from the shelter next door and literally coming from broken homes. It was hard to feel like the authority figure I was supposed to be when what they really needed was love and therapy. Some more than others.

I also realized that I can't personally work with kids with behavioral illnesses such as autism or speech impediment that causes frustrations and acting out from the child. It hurt trying to understand them and not being able to and frustrating each other because the communication pathway was not working out.

I wanted to do more and learned I couldn't. I have family of which are autistic and have speech impediments but I forgot how to deal with kids like this when they were that age. It's a pain in the butt. Lastly, i couldn't deal with the children changing out constantly. Because they were from the shelter, the kids were only funded thru the shelter for a few months. That sucked the most. I thought I'd have them for a while, maybe a year or two like other daycares. But this wasn't the case here. I refused to get attached.

After two weeks, I quit. Every once in a while, I think of them. I wonder how they're doing and how they'll grow up and how I affected their life in those two weeks. A lot happened in those two weeks but I def am not cut out to be a teacher. Def not for that age. 2-3 year olds if they're not mine, I refuse.