Is it easier to be a parent if you were a primary/nursery teacher beforehand?

[Pantheon]

Just curious as to whether having that experience makes becoming a mum less of a shock to the system or if it is still a massive change when you actually have your own kids?

It's still a massive change. Teaching or looking after other children is much different to your own.

Still a massive change. I was a teacher in a nursery then moved into the main primary school. As much as I love working with the younger children, it’s still not the same as having a newborn. The whole lifestyle change was hard and feeling exhausted was tough.

I don't know but I can tell you from lockdown experience that just because you are teacher doesn't mean you can teach your own children!

Many teachers in lockdown weren’t able to teach their own children because they were at work. I was. My children (year 4 and 8) were alone at home because I had to go in to work. Don’t know how it was allowed in hindsight. I complained and tried to fight (age of the youngest) and was told I’d face disciplinary if I didn’t work.

I wouldn’t say I found it ‘easy’ but having been an EYFS teacher in a previous life I found that I was quite easy going and had quite a few ideas for sensory activities at home, and free/easy activities for toddlers once they were a bit bigger. Being in kid mode for work did make things easier.

i did not notice with friends who literally had never been around children since they were children themselves panicked a lot about whether their babies were engaged/stimulated enough even though they were doing such a good job.

It didn't make it any easier for me. I was a primary teacher, so my knowledge of tiny babies wasn't more than any other person. I think having behaviour management training has made the toddler years a little easier, but it's still very different to dealing with pupils as you care more about your own child, both in the moment and for their future.

I do think it made it a bit more enjoyable, as I had a better appreciation of child development so small developments were more interesting to me than other people.

I do find it’s a big advantage for me now as a SAHM to a toddler. Not so much if the child is in nursery. But many SAHMs I know seem to think “learning through play” just means completely free play, not realising that the play opportunities offered need to have some educational basis themselves. Luckily many classic toys are classics because of the skills they provide (eg play doh, train tracks) so most kids do get what they need, but it’s an advantage to have the knowledge to do it deliberately.

I was a primary teacher for many years and then stopped before becoming a mum. I do think it’s made me more patient than I would have been if I hadn’t been a teacher.
But now that my child is at school, having been a teacher first makes it incredibly difficult. I see what’s good about the school, but I can also see very clearly what needs to be improved. This is quite isolating in its way because the other parents don’t see I’m so I am on my own with my views for much of the time. On the plus side, I think having been a teacher first has helped me to support DC with phonics and maths.

I was trained and worked in early years childcare. I think it prepared me on some of the practical things like changing nappies and dressing a baby and I knew about expected ages and stages of developmental but beyond that, no. I don't think anything truly prepares you for the life change and getting to grips with parenting. That comes with time and hands on experience.

I was a Primary teacher before I had DDs and had worked in a pre school before doing my PGCE.

I don't think it helped me with the baby stage at all. It was still a massive change.

I think it's made me calm and more patient in general. But I'm pretty laid back anyway. I also think it gave DDs an advantage with their phonics as I was used to the system anyway and read with them all the time at home so they flew in terms of their reading.

I agree with a PP that it's both a blessing and a curse when they start school. DD2 struggled with her fine motor skills and writing in Reception and I definitely felt judged being an ex-teacher that her writing was not as strong as her reading.

Some parts were easier. I'm trained up to about age 8 so I did have a bit of a panic when mine got to that age! I found the responsibility quite scary when ds1 was born because I always had my boss there when looking after children in the nursery but as a mum, I was on my own with dh. Entertaining them when they were older babies/toddlers was easy and so much fun.

No, it didn’t help me. I thought it would.

When I was pregnant I hated the fact that people would say to me, "oh, you're going to be a great mum cos you know all about children," as I knew that being able to teach a class of 5/6/7 year olds would be in no way any help when becoming a parent of a newborn! I was worried about these expectations placed on me, and I actually totally fell apart when my daughter was born, and struggled massively with my mental health etc. Despite attending NCT classes, reading books and talking to people, nothing had prepared me for the intensity of the early days, and PND/ PNA on top of no sleep etc nearly broke me. However, when she was a toddler and now she's at primary school, I do feel that some of my training/ experience has been useful in my parenting, and the reverse is also true, I think I've become a better teacher from being a parent. That's just my personal experience though!

@SoStupidFeelingSad my husband is a teacher. When we were totally locked down he wasn't in. The arguments! It was a lot easier when he did go back in.

I work with under 5s. It possibly helped that I have ideas how to entertain and manage behaviour in young children. Although DH was good at this too and he had zero experience with small children.

It didn't help deal with sleep deprivation and the all-encompassing nature of having a child.

Quite a few people I know are EYFS teachers but their kids have no contact with them any more. In my own family I know 3 EYFS teachers and they are really struggling. I think it can sometimes be that they are less tolerant (or sometimes too indulgent) with their own kids because they’re burnt out with other peoples’

My BIL is headteacher of a primary school but not a parent. I was very much amused at the bewilderment on his face when he was helping out with activities at DN10’s birthday party (also his DN, not his DC) and the DC were running rings round him. He couldn’t get his head around the idea that DC “in the wild” don’t do what you tell them to do 😂

I don't know the answer, but I suspect it works better the other way round.

I do know that a friend of mine found becoming a secondary teacher far less daunting than her fellow teacher trainees. They were mainly straight out of university. She already had three teenage children!

I can stand in a hall and do assembly for 500 interested, attentive children. I could not get one tiny baby to stop crying. It was quite a deskilling experience for a while.

I wasn’t a teacher and had nothing to do with childcare, but didn’t find being a mum hard at all. IMO there’s far too much stress on here about how hard it is. It isn’t hard for everybody by any means.

Of course babies and very young children can be tiring, but they grow up so fast, and you look back nostalgically to the ‘tiny’ years. I did, anyway.

My mother was a teacher. It certainly didn't make her a good mother by any stretch.

I qualified in early years after DS1 but before DS2. I 100% wish I knew then what I knew later. He was such a difficult baby and child. A lot of it was sensory and i look back now on awful stressful moments that i could have diffused. I was pregnant when qualifying so started work in early years when DS2 started school. I still see things every day and wish I had the knowledge and experience the other way around. More importantly, the confidence. I'm such being a parent is still a massive shock but even if you don't know it you have confidence and knowledge and more importantly a team of experts in your colleagues that you can call on. I think people in early years don't realise how out of their depth parents often are, some are critical of parents saying why would you do X or Y and I find myself constantly defending the parent, how on earth could she or he know this? They are accountants / hairdressers etc

I should add being a parent first is a huge asset to anyone working with kids. I think i handle parent relationships better and have a type of empathy for little people that wasn't really unlocked in me before motherhood

Thank you all! I have often wondered about this since becoming a parent.

I don’t think it made it easier but I did learn things through my degree/work that I can’t imagine I’d have knew in advance any other way. Personally the main thing that helped me was having siblings a lot younger than me, it taught me the sort of parent I wanted to be and how fast the years go.

Not really if you are a secondary teacher (like me), I don't think.
Having your own babies, toddlers and young primary-aged children is nothing like teaching groups of teenagers. And by the time your own are teenagers, you've got 12 years' experience of parenting your own child. Yes maybe you might be a bit more aware of the teenage stuff because of having had contact with a lot of teenagers, but mainly I think you just learn as you go.

I think the biggest parenting benefit from teaching is the knowledge and ability to navigate your dc's experience of school, university application etc - both by advising them and by knowing how to deal with the school itself if necessary!