Fears & What If's...

So the Christmas break is over and back to work it is... The year hasn't started great, only two weeks in and we've had to say goodbye to a loved one and seen my little cousin admitted to hospital...

But these fears weren't my biggest over the holidays; I became very anxious about returning to work with one group in particular. My youngest and largest group: 10 kids between the ages of 3 and 7; it's a challenging group. We have 5 beautifully behaved, polite, bright, willing to learn kids but we also  have 2 selective mutes aged 4 and 5, an autistic boy aged 3, a 7 year old with ADHD who can be very disruptive and another boy with extreme ADHD who is also very violent aged 5...

We are known as the circus class and it's very easy to see why. Every class, my classroom assistant and myself and breaking up fights, giving countless timeouts, trying to keep the attention of 10 very active little kids and trying to defuse problems before they start. We encounter hitting, kicking, swearing, spitting, chairs being thrown across the room... pens, pencils, books, rucksacks have all flown across the room at some point. So you can imagine my anxiety levels towards the end of the holidays...

 Before Christmas we had made huge progress with 4 of the 5 challenging children: Both my selective mutes where able to whisper to my assistant and myself; We had made the 7 year old with ADHD the "classroom helper" so he would help us hand out colours and activity sheets, it seemed to really calm him down and his behaviour had improved  very very quickly; With the violent ADHD 5 year old, things improved a lot slower but we still made progress, we were starting to learn what triggered the violent outbursts so we diffused the situation before it got too bad, we weren't perfect and still we had days where he was totally out of control, days where he swore at us teachers, hit, spat and kicked everyone who was in his reach and threw chairs across the room, but they were less. With autism it's different, we aren't equipped with all the tools to help him fully, but we do our best, we have days where we make progress and you start to think "Okay, we can deal with this, we're going in the right direction" but the next day you are right back at square one, progress is almost invisible.

My anxieties were in particular with the selective mutes and the ADHDs: After two and a half weeks with no class, not seeing us twice a week, would they still feel safe enough to whisper to us? After two and a half weeks with no routines, no structure, was the ADHD going to be worse? Were we going to have to start back at square one? Were we going to have to do all of this over again? Was everything a waste of time? Had it been worth the stress and worry?

First day back, all seemed calm to begin with, we sat down and did and colouring activity; Our 5 year old girl who is one of the mutes, whispered to me "Yellow please" my heart skipped a beat, I passed her the colour, smiling from ear to ear "Good girl you remembered the colours, high five!"; Our eldest ADHD sat nicely, helping one of our younger children who can't read yet, "Good job buddy". I turned to my youngest mute, held up a colour "What colour is this one?" silence, in my head I was begging him to talk, I'm not sure if I wanted him to talk  more for the benefit of his confidence or mine...still nothing..."Okay... don't worry. It starts with Rrr.." he smiled "Red!"  another round of "Good boy, well done, high five!" was in order. Our kids survive because of the constant praise we dish out. The children beam when we praise them, they are happy and proud with themselves.

But it wasn't long before my tummy flipped, I heard the dreaded word..."FIGHT"...Oh great here we go again. Yep I could have made myself a million air if I had bet on who it was fighting, violent ADHD vs Autism, the result? hurt feelings, a scratch and timeouts. I still get frustrated that a 3 year old autistic boy is capable of doing a timeout very well, yet a 5 year old ADHD will not sit still and just starts attacking me for putting him there, but it's something we knew we'd have to work with...

Oh it's good to be back, I still have anxieties, but now they are different. What else can I do to help these children? What if this as good as it's going to get? What if I'm making it worse? What if I'm not good enough? Will we have also taken 4 steps back after Easter break?

We have another 5 months left with this class, on bad days we look and each other and say "How the heck are we going to survive another 5 months?" but on good days we are more positive "Can't believe we only have another 5 months with them...it's going way to fast" Yes we still have days where we feel like just breaking down and crying, days where you clear up after the kids have left without saying a word to each other, days where you feel helpless, like you're never enough. But those days are getting less. We also have days where we smile constantly, were ALL the kids get sticker for good behaviour, days where when parents ask how their child behaved that day you can smile and say "Wonderful, they did a great job today".

Maybe 5 months is a long time, but we are sticking with these kids and helping them the best way we can. Our goal as teachers is to do the best possible job, to help the kids learn, have fun, smile and most of all to see happy little faces. Anxieties aside? Yeah, we love our job.

A look back on 2014

Wow, can't believe another year is over. Can't believe all the things that have happened over the past 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8765 hours, 525949 minutes, how ever you want to put this year.
As a whole we've been through many ups and downs: Schumacher's accident, Banchi's accident, we lost Robin Williams, Joan Rivers, Peaches Geldof, Joe Cocker, John Button, P.D James, Lynda Bellingham, Richard Attenborough, Maya Angelou, to name a few, we saw  Oscar Pistorius sentenced to Jail, we watched Syria get ripped apart, watched planes dissapear left right and center, Ebol spread like wild fire through Africa...
But it wasn't all bad news, There we more fifth birthdays then ever before, it was annouced that Little Prince George would become a big brother later this year, a paralysed man was given the ability to walk again, a deaf baby got to hear for the first time, In Toronto a  high school senior took his great grandmother to his prom because she had never been to one before, a family in Alberta who have triplet boys all fighting eye cancer were donated thousand of dollar by strangers to help fund the treatment, thanks to social media many missing people/kids have been found safe and well...See it hasn't all been bad no has it?!

For me personally 2014 has been filled with many ups and downs. Many woderful things have happened and I've met some amazing people. I've laughed, smiled, jumped with joy... but I've also struggled, cried and shattered into a million pieces. I've gained a lot but also lost so much. You can be so depressed and no one even notices, you can be on the verge of tears, drowning and everyone is oblivious.You put someone first who puts you second. You work at something really hard only for it to fail. You give 110% in a realtionship with someone who only gives 40%. You are there for your best friend at 3:00am because they need help but when you call a few days later they won't even pick up their phone. It seems like all you're doing is giving everyone everything and they are just walking away with it. When I look back I'm happy with how I coped and the way the year ended.

I also learnt a hell of a lot this year:
-Its not necessary to be in a forest to be lost; you don't need to see everything grey to see no colour in your life; but you need sufficient strength to fight your problems.
-I'm a lot stronger than i though I was, but I don't have as much patience as I though I did.
-I'm not good at taking advice and criticism.
-I can't let go.
-it only takes one person to give you a chance so you can prove yourself.
-Never give up, just keep moving foward, doesn't matter how slow you advance, as long as you keep going.
-No one else cares about your problems, they are fighting their own battles.
-Friends just take advantage.
-Never trust anyone more than 90%

Every year is going to be full of ups and downs, no year is going to be perfect. It's what you do with these ups and downs that makes the difference!  I wish all who read this a happy new year, I hope it's filled with health, happiness, laughter, love and joy. I also wish you hugs, comfort and strength when you face bad days.
"Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it."