I sit here rehashing out my day with the children, it makes me sit and wonder why I haven't lost my mind. I teach the room that the children need more assistance, I have received a lot of training and certificates to do this. I found that my need for training came out of desperation to help the children that seemed to pour into my classroom. I'm like every other teacher who wants a perfect normalized classroom full of purposeful children... doesn't that sound amazing?! What I have always found that I have a classroom of sensory seeking, run in circles, hang from the rafts kind of children. I use to find myself uneducated on how to reach and calm these children. These were the days, I would go home and I just want to cry. It wasn't from the fact that my room wasn't perfect or that I was bitten four times that day, punched in the face, head-butted, etc. I wanted to cry because I felt so out of control of what was happening, I felt that I couldn't reach my children, I couldn't help them, how do you help a child understand not to hit their head against a wall when they were upset or overstimulated. I felt helpless. I hated that feeling, so one day I started searching out conferences and workshops. I was lucky enough to attend an all-day therapist conference! This was amazing, it was for child therapist but when they heard my story they allowed me to attend. There I was just a Montessori teacher among giants. They took me in and listened to my struggles and gave me so much advise, I walked away feeling empowered! I then found more conferences, so I went after work during the week, I used my Saturdays to go to all day meetings. I went until I couldn' find anymore. Do I say I am an expert? I wish! I haven't been to college for this and I still and will continue to have so much to learn.
As I applied these methods and principles in my classroom something started to happen, my room started to have moments of quietness, my children started getting what they needed from me and they didn't hang off the rafters as much! It was in those moments that I sat down in my purposeful classroom and wanted to cry, to cry from the peace of the children. Did I still have days where I felt like I was dying on those hills, of course! Though as I found those moments of beauty, it was completely worth it. So, what I am saying is, seek information, don't take one person's opinion on the matter as the official statement, find four or five people to talk to about your struggles. This has made a world of a difference for me. I still have really hard days, but I don't get upset anymore (15 years later). Now when a child breaks down in front of me, I know it's not because he is being mean but I have upset him by telling him no and this is his way of expressing his pain. I can then work through it with him and help him to see better ways of expressing himself.
If we take care of our minds and bodies, educating them, nurturing them, and resting them. This will allow us to better take care of the children around us. We affect each child's life whether we want to or not, the questions is, is it healthy or unhealthy interactions?
