Feel so guilty - working with children and my own children

[Piwlyfbicsly]

I work in a reception class. It's tough, I'm getting super tired, but I love my job and children like me. I had another career before, so this job is a result of retraining after being a SAHM.
My own children attend primary school themselves (they are slightly older than reception) and I feel so guilty lately. I definitely am patient and understanding with other people's children but I can't say I'm like this with my own. Why do I react emotionally so differently to children I work with? I don't feel annoyed or cross or irritated much. I always know what to say or how to help. Whether when my own children behaved the same way, I often felt so irritated and fed up.
Is it normal to feel this way? I'm heartbroken. I feel I was so unfair to my children. I remember being so tired playing train tracks with them or building just another tower from blocks. I am doing it every day now with other children and it seems like I have no problem with that.

I work in a school too and I often feel the same especially towards the end of term. The children at school get fun always happy Mrs butterbeeeen and my children get the dregs of what is left.

Absolutely hear you. I teach older children than my own but I have so little patience when they don’t get something. Whereas at work I would carefully explain it all again.

Oh I know just what you mean. I often feel that I am so grumpy and tired at home, my children see the worst of me

I think the emotional investment is different with your own children, and at the end of the day you are exhausted from having to always re-explain and be upbeat, whether or not it feels that way. We all do have a limit!

Is it because you aren't with them all the time? A bit like grandparents, you get to give them back.
I used to work in a nursery and was the same. I also think as parents we tend to forget all the times we did play with them and just remember the times we didn't.