Trying to remember that I’m the grown up

*Deep sigh* Today was rough. I work with a population that likes their routines and structure (and let’s face it…so do I) but we are only on day 6 of school and the routines are not fully engrained in our minds. We’re also working out the kinks of scheduling instruction and supports so that our students can be successful in the classroom. The meltdowns throughout the day make me feel like I’m not meeting their needs. Actually, I am definitely not meeting their needs at this point. I know it is never going to be perfect but I want my students to be comfortable in school and be able to participate in class. Right now this is not happening.

My day started out with wrangling my new kindergarten kids through the breakfast line and repeating the same directions 5 MILLION times. –Hands by your side. Body still. Turn around. Stay in the line. Keep your body off of other people. Hands down. Stand up tall. –Then a new 1^st grader comes in and has a melt down because he doesn’t know where I am. After I settle my kindergartner with her breakfast and rush to the side of my tantrum throwing student, he refuses to walk through the line. However, he wants breakfast and is willing to stand in one place and yell and cry until it comes about. Little does he know that I don’t give in easily. After 5-10 minutes of him yelling, I convince him to walk through the line (still yelling) and sit at a table. He finally eats some of his food and I set a visual timer to let him know how long he has until he has to throw it away. When the timer goes off, I tell him that it is time to throw our breakfast away and he shoves a whole biscuit in his mouth. He doesn’t want to throw anything away so I pick up his tray and throw it away. This causes a full out meltdown (and let me remind you, this is with his mouth full of biscuit and a cafeteria full of k-2^nd graders). The biscuit ends up all over the table and he ends up on the floor—screaming, with big alligator tears rolling down his face and snot oozing everywhere. I maneuver him out of the cafeteria and convince him to take a deep breath, which finally calms him down.

This was all within the first 45 minutes of my day and serves as a good indicator of what the rest of my day was like. By the end of the day, I was struggling to soothe my students and remind them of the routines in place. It took all the mental strength I had left to not have a meltdown myself.

Parents, how do you do it????

Pray for me.