We had 20 kids in the shelter preschool this morning, until one of the twins got sent home for swinging at a teacher. (He was not among the twins I inventoried last week.) Of the 19, I'd estimate 17 cried some time during the morning.
These are some of the reasons for tears, roughly in order of frequency:
- I want my momma. Momma-missing can arise when the child is dropped off or when the mother is glimpsed outside the play area. But often, no external stimulus is apparent. A wave of anxiety? A sudden recollection of loss? I don't know and the kids can't say. Doesn't I want my momma say it all?
- Toy disputes. The subsets: having a toy taken away; not being able to play with a toy another has; having blocks knocked over.
- S/He [hit/kicked] me! Usually accompanied by S/He [hit/kicked] me first! These are frequently escalations of 2 and rarely witnessed by teachers. While they are irresolvable in a court of justice sense, we try to point out that many are actually 4s.
- Collisions and other accidents. Running isn't allowed in the classroom, but incidental contact happens, especially with a score of kids thrashing around or trying to crowd into the same space. Some kids have a hair trigger if they're bumped unexpectedly. For others, the injury can be highly contextual; today they might bounce up from what provoked tears yesterday.
- Discipline. When kids are disruptive, I usually start out patient and work my way up through restraint and speaking sharply before they're given a time out. Somewhere along that continuum, a kid may cry. Too bad, kid, those tears don't work on me.
- Fights and skirmishes. These are usually escalations of 2-4. Most of the time we can dive in and separate the kids before fighting results in tears.
- Teasing. Teasing and verbal bullying take awhile to have an effect, and most of the time, we can head this off. We also help the kids build the inner strength resist name calling.
- Other. Today, one boy was crying because his daddy wasn't going to take him to dinner. They teachers remarked how he's been prone to tears in the past week. He wasn't like that before.
We had to play in the gym because some new outdoor equipment was being installed in the playground. Because I'm not there every day, I can play more actively with the kids than the teachers do. They need to preserve a certain amount of authority. I've reached the point in my career where I'm trying to shed whatever authority still clings to me.
This week, I instigated dodge ball. (A kid really can't unload on a teacher, so a willing volunteer target like me is red meat.) To keep carnage to a minimum, the basketballs were prohibited as too big and hard. I only allowed the kids to throw at me, and only I could throw at them. That way, no one got blasted with too much force.
The kids followed the rules, we all got a work out, and nobody cried.
