I’ll preface this by saying there are some wonderful parents out there who parent beautifully with and without limited means and raise lovely, well mannered children and I’ve encountered many over my 13 years experience of nurseries/nannying and schools.
But after the past 5 years, I think I’m finally going to walk away from the childcare industry. I’ve just walked in to the house after being tearful the whole way home and broke down after another day of sheer abuse from the children I nanny. No matter how well I teach and model behaviour, parents are not backing it up. Modern work/life balance is so bad that parents are giving into their children out of guilt and creating children that are unpleasant to be around. There should be no such thing as an unpleasant child! I should not be being hit for not giving them more sweets after they’ve had treats all night because they’ve screamed at me for not originally giving in and their parents have come out of the home office and given in to keep them quiet, undermining me in the process. I should not be having water thrown at me for telling them not to hit eachother in the bath. I should not be looked in the eye while telling a child an instruction or not to hurt another child for them to smirk and not listen and just walk away. These are primary aged children and I’m being shouted at constantly because they aren’t being taught ‘no’ at all.
I’ve worked with disadvantaged children who have come from foster care, poverty and abusive households and none of those children ever treated me as bad as the middle class KS1/2 children in beautiful homes who never go without.
Today an 8 year old child was asked what they wanted for dinner, I made said dinner which they decided they didn’t want and because I would not make an entirely different meal they threw it on the floor and later jumped on me full body weight while we’re sat on the couch. Meanwhile I’ve come home to an empty fridge and bank account and they have no idea how fortunate they are.
this isn’t an isolated thing. Like I said previously, this is 80% of the children in past 5 years. I spend all week trying To instil good behaviour, they don’t see me for 2 days over the weekend and it’s back on to square one on Monday
AIBU to walk away from working with children at all? I expect age appropriate challenging behaviour but I am sick of being abused all evening long every single day.