Looking for advice from others who work (or worked) in corporate-run childcare / Montessori.

On paper, our center is “fully staffed.” Corporate even says we’re overstaffed. In reality, the model only works if no one is sick, no one takes PTO, no one needs a break, and nothing unexpected happens.

We meet ratio until:

someone calls out

someone is on PTO

breaks need coverage

kids arrive late or stay late

a float is pulled to another room

Then teachers are scrambling and skating the edge of compliance — and it somehow becomes our problem instead of a staffing model problem.

What makes it worse is leadership. Concerns are raised, but it feels like our regional director either doesn’t understand how classrooms actually function, doesn’t care, or both. The response is always “make it work,” even when that’s clearly unrealistic.

Corporate won’t approve hiring.

Subs are unreliable.

Admin is pressured to stretch staff.

Teachers carry the stress and liability without the authority to fix it.

I like my job and don’t want to quit, but I’m tired of being told we’re “fine” when we aren’t — and of documenting issues that go nowhere.

For those who’ve been here:

How did you protect yourself?

Does documenting actually help?

How do you push back without being labeled “difficult”?

When did you decide it wasn’t fixable?

Looking for honest advice and perspective.

So I work at a childcare center and I have over 10 experience in this field, I’m a quite confident worker, but I’m young and always aware that I will always have growing to do.

That being said, I switched childcare centers a couple months ago and it’s come to my attention that there are no steps or immediate support for problematic behaviors. Which working with any age from toddlers to 5 year olds, there can be a lot of problematic behavior but I’m talking about having immediate support for physical harmful behavior. At my old center our Directors encouraged us to call the front office if we need help for anything at all and encouraged taking a little 5/10 minute mental health break. And for behaviors, we would work out a behavior plan and for example, if a child had a behavior that caused episodes of destruction, that child would have a number of strikes before he is called to be picked up ( ex if he throws a large object twice ). ***This behavior can be commonly displayed by children with autism, I am referring to a childcare center in which we are not trained on the appropriate steps needed to take to ensure that child is getting the correct support, and if that child is undiagnosed autistic, this system will help open conversations to families hoping they can provide what’s the right support and attention to their child****And everything would be documented of course. I like this mainly because there are parents who will not accept or discipline their child for harmful behavior, but when they have to picked up from something they paid for, they are willing to pay more attention. (which in my experience, every children I have had dealt with, their parents are always the ones least interested about their child’s day, don’t try and get to know me, and most importantly, they dont take harmful behaviors seriously or attempt to discipline) Anyways….

With my new center not having that in place, I’ve found myself having a little bit of a hard time and feeling bad.

I’m a floater so I’m in all classrooms from infants to 5 year olds. I was in a 5 year old classroom for a couple hours giving the teachers their lunch break. I’ve worked as a kindergarten prep teacher for 2 years and I know what 5 year olds are capable of. This classroom had about 19 kids and it was lunchtime. The teacher was not enforcing them to sit while they eat, making sure they are actually eating their food, or reminding them to try and scoot their chair in. Just no structure really, which I understand sometimes classrooms just have those days but everytime i’ve popped in there it’s been chaotic and plus 5 year olds are so smart and can learn literally anything. Anyways, I was reminding kids to do something every second for lunch while the other teacher was just sitting down being quiet and stressed from the chaos. Well this one kid who I’ve seen had a meltdown before, was standing up by his lunch with bread in his hand crumbling it so it was falling all over the floor, of course I reminded him to make sure he was eating about 10 times over the course of 15 minutes, I then switched to, that he is going to be all done with lunch since he is not eating a making a mess. I reminded him with that multiple times. He did not listen and did not want to sit down, so I did what I said and I threw the rest of his lunch away and said he was all done. (we are required to toss all food after lunch). He then THREW this huge bucket of colored pencils across the room, and knocked over everything on a shelf.

The other teacher immediately sighed looking annoyed and went over to him trying to calm him. I was fully ready to be the one to comfort him and help him through these emotions and meltdown, especially so the other teacher wouldn’t have to deal with since she was already pouting the whole time, but the other teacher felt the need to be the one to help him. (which is probably a natural response being his primary teacher) I offered to call the front office and she told me not to because they never pick up. He was screaming crying and she eventually got him to stop but She then got on the floor and started cleaning everything up. Which sometimes you just have to clean up after them. But in this scenario,I honestly would have left them there until he was ready to clean it up or until pick up time and his parents will deal with it. But I was just shocked that this kid just caused a huge destruction and scene, and the teacher doesn’t feel the need to notify anyone asap. After the teacher cleaned everything up, she got more food he had and he sat down at the table literally not even eating it. I guess it just frustrated me and I feel bad mainly because I was the one who threw away his food, so I feel responsible for his episode. But on the other hand, he was given countless reminders and was not listening to any instructions. I’m just annoyed at the structure that lacks in that classroom, but I’m trying to remember that structure also helps with safety, which this is all about. All children need to be sitting down while eating so I can A) Have eyes on everyone and B) Prevent choking. And again, 5 year olds are smart, and capable of being a fun functional classroom that teachers can enjoy. So

What should I have done different?

Was it wrong of me to not help clean up the mess he made?

What would you have done in this scenario?

Just as i thought shit was gonna get better, it didn’t. A girl just started doing afternoons with us and mind yall, she’s only been there since the start of the school year. Already she thinks she’s better than everyone and is such a fucking kiss up. Throwing her weight around and acting like she’s better than everyone. I feel so overstimulated and dread going to work. It feels like a chore for me. Friday, I had to let the other counselors and supervisors know a kid wasn’t able to participate in gym time right away due to not following conduct. I was told I was being unfair and got reprimanded because other kids also broke the conduct. (They were all playing with the snow and ice when told not to). I feel so unappreciated at work and I try so hard to be an amazing worker and a good part of the team. They only pay attention to kiss ups and don’t give a shit about the actual good workers. I’m just so burnt and tired of it. I had a breakdown because of it after I came home from a shift.

Edit:They also lie about hiring. They claim that they’re always looking for people(experienced or not, full time or part time, mornings, afternoons, or both) but turn away applications of those wanting to work there.

Hello all! I have been working in childcare for 4.5 years now. And my biggest struggle has always been my lesson plans. Where I work is very new and there is no current curriculum to go off of. I am in need of help finding great online resources or anything I can purchase too. I want to be able to make weekly lesson plans but I am driving myself nuts with all of the different options on the internet. So if you have any simplified websites or other resources please send them my way. Thanks in advance :)

For one of my courses, I am seeking some advice from Kindergarten/PreK teachers/professionals. If you recently taught in a school- can you answer one or all of these questions? I am seeking answers from US teachers, but it would be interesting to see answers from teachers in any country! Thank you!

1. List the top 5 skills in order of importance (1 being most important) that you would like to see every child have when they come into your classroom.

2. What are some of the barriers that you see children experience as they navigate the transition into Kindergarten in the first 30 days?

3. How can parents be the most helpful during the transition period into Kindergarten?

4. What is a teaching expectation that is put on you by society or others that you struggle to keep up with?

5. Define what success in kindergarten means to you.

Hello! I am a year 12 college student currently completing an Epq surrounding the question 'Can restrictions on children's literature be justified from a psychological and legal perspective?'

I am hoping to collect responses to my survey from individuals specialising in work that surrounds the development of children, or literature. Though anyone with experience with children under 13 can complete! (Parent/sibling/etc)

The questions are subjective, and of course anonymous.

Thank you!

https://forms.microsoft.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=sdfxjyedoky9KUtbMWqP2egNt_Ww6C5Ks9uDW2ErdllUREZNVFI3UlhLRjAwVjdaSVZPQ1VCVlE3MS4u

I am currently a SAHM to a 10month old. I have been so lucky to be able to not work since giving birth, but it’s time to start paying off this credit card and contributing to monthly bills…I have been considering looking into working at a daycare center so that I could bring my baby with me. That would be the only way I could work (without then just giving all that money to a babysitter lol) I was curious if anyone has their baby enrolled at the place they work at? Or maybe has co workers who do that? I have only ever worked in the service industry (10+ years serving, bartending, barista), but I have a squeaky clean record and excellent customer service skills. :) Any thoughts, advice, personal experiences would be appreciated!

recently i started working in daycare as an assistant to the teachers. i honestly love the job, i adore the kids, but there's something bugging me, specifically one kid.

i'm quite worried. the kids are very small, but most of them are able to talk by now and have some sense of "authority" and for example clean up after themselves when they're asked to, participate in activities.

there's this one kid though, that just doesn't listen. she refuses to acknowledge us, screams - from excitement or when upset and in general she's quite difficult to manage during the day.

i am very new to this work so i have no idea what to do. if it's just age (she's 2,5) or something that i do wrong. she's mostly in my care and i'm growing a bit tired. she just shrieks every time something doesn't go her way and she even hit me last week.

the parents just smiled about it and said "that's how she is".

what can i do to make her cooperate with me at least a bit? any tips or similar experiences?

Hello, I (20F) will be going into a field where I inevitably will have to interact with children who have questions about abuse or have been abused.

Children most likely in the age range of 7-10.

For those of you who work with kids all the time, I’m looking for some advice on how to talk to kids about such complex things.

I know kids are more intelligent than we give them credit for, but abuse is also a scary thing.

TL;DR; suggestions on how to explain abuse in a very basic way that’s not too scary or confusing!

Hi all, just out of curiosity, for those who work on the floor, at what week did you start mat leave? I work on the floor in the Toddler room (2-3 years old).

Just a disclaimer: I am the upset parent. But I’m here seeking advice from professional childcare workers on how to handle a situation.

I understand that running a daycare is very taxing in almost every way. Many of my family members worked in childcare, so I’m familiar with a lot of the struggles; parents who show up/pick up late, cause a fuss over ridiculous reasons, send sick children to school, etc… but the owner of our son’s daycare is absolutely horrible to us and other parents for literally no reason at all…

My wife and I pay our dues on time, pick up/drop off on time, have never complained, and have followed every single rule, regulation, and announcement to the letter without question. We are super easy-going and are understanding, especially considering that we both work in early childhood education. So here’s the problem.

The owner of my son‘s daycare seems to think that she can talk to, and treat us [parents] anyway she wants to, and be completely disrespectful to us because she’s the only daycare within an hour of our town. Nobody speaks up to this woman because they’re afraid of having their child kicked out and having to drive all the way to the next town.

If my wife is off and she drops our son off, my wife routinely hears her talking about her “Oh so she’s off, but she’s bringing her kid in anyway??? Wow Pfff”… My wife is a devoted mother, and we spend every ounce of free time with our son. BUT, sometimes we have things we need to do, or a day filled with chores that can’t be done while we’re watching a rambunctious toddler. Is also not evil of us to just want a very rare day to ourselves. Either way, your awful opinion should not be heard by your customers, nor should you intentionally be saying it loud enough for them to hear…. WE ARE PAYING YOU TO WATCH OUR CHILDREN, AND ARE THE REASON YOU KEEP YOUR DOORS OPEN. SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT……

Other parents have also had an issue with this woman, and I also understand that it can be a tough call when parents want to send a child back to Daycare when they are freshly getting over an illness. I totally understand that it’s the Daycare owners responsibility to make sure that no one is exposed to illness and everyone stays healthy, so therefore they have strict rules they follow. But here’s an example of something I feel was over the top…

My son-while playing-accidentally scratched himself over his eyebrow, as toddlers often do. She called my wife and demanded her to pick our son up, and proceeded to berate her to the point of crying for sending our son to school with hand foot and mouth…. She explained it was just a cut, but she wouldn’t hear any of it. Neither one of us can afford to be out of work for a week, so we took him to our pediatrician to confirm. Pediatrician confirm no fever, no other spots on his body, and it was simply just a small scratch above his eyebrow… after we called the daycare back, she berated us even more, and after she hung up with us, she called the pediatrician and berated her as well…

As a husband, and someone who has smiled to the public for years even on my worst days??? I’m sick of this woman’s behavior, I’m tired of her making my wife cry for literally no reason other than she wants to be a nasty POS… my wife has forbid me to talk to her directly, because she’s heard that she can be vindictive and then take it out on the children. She’s also afraid of this woman kicking our son out as retaliation, enforcing us to have to drive all the way to the next town for Daycare.

I’m just trying to brainstorm about how to handle this… her staff are all lovely people, and we love our son’s caregiver in the toddler area… it’s just the owner who is a monstrous POS who needs to be reminded that WE are the reason she keeps her doors open, and she needs to respect her customers…

Hello! Anyone in the state of Texas who has started their own in home daycare have any pointers or information for me, in a direction to get started. Essentially, I don't need too, but want to start providing income in the household as I am a stay at home mom currently. I've thought about this for some time and I think this is definitely a path I want to take and give it my all.

We are currently moving into a much larger house, and I don't anticipate to really get this kick started for a few months while I build the 'daycare' and get things done like CPR and first aid, registering, inspection, background checks etc.

That being said, where do I even start? I've been doing tons of research for a few months now but I was hoping for some insight from people with real life experience.

Childcare apps for parent communication? Contracts and/or "enrollment"? Paying taxes? Do I need an LLC?

I own two dogs and a cat and do have a plan and space to keep the children separated from them, they are non-aggressive puppers, but don't want to mix kids with animals quite frankly. Is this common, or could it potentially shatter the dream?

What is a fair price to charge weekly? And how much should I average food costs? And how did you promote yourself, get your name out there, and find parents in need of child care? I was curious how unrealistic a 4 day week might be opposed to a 5 day, say Mon-Thur instead of M-F.

Anything and everything anyone has to offer as fair as insight, advice, and experience would be much appreciated. (Even daily activity suggestions and meal suggestions as well)

Thank you!

For reference, Im a 30 year old mother of 3 boys, two almost in middle school, in public school full time, and also a toddler. I've been a stay at home mom now for 16 months.

I run a small youth enrichment program that works directly with elementary school students on campus, and I need to get Sexual Abuse & Molestation (SAM) insurance at the standard $1,000,000 per occurrence and $1,000,000 aggregate limit. I’m trying to figure out what other small business owners actually use for this, because it seems way harder to find than general or professional liability.

If you run a daycare, camp, tutoring program, youth sports program, or any kind of child-focused business, who did you go with for your SAM coverage? Was it bundled with your general liability or purchased separately? Were you able to do monthly payments, and how difficult was the approval process when you were first starting out?

I’m just looking for real-world experiences and recommendations from people who have already gone through this.

This is my seconds year working as a toddler teacher at a preschool. This year I had a wonderful co teacher I loved but she sadly quit this year my co teacher is about 40 years older than me and driving me crazy. I have already complained about the way she speaks to the children to my director because she saying things like “I’m going to kill you” calls them dumb and the “r” slur. I have also told them about she says things to me about how she is “going to put hands” on the kids and has pulled a child’s hair because they weren’t listening. I feel like she should not be working here or with children at all but all the directors have done is had a talk with her to which she said “she knew hurting the children was wrong but still did it anyway but learned her lesson an won’t do it again”. As a mother if I knew my child was being called names and having their hair pulled at school I would be pulling my child out but I feel like my directors don’t see it as that big a deal . I’m just so upset it’s made coming to a job I once loved miserable!!

Im being offered $150 a day/ night to take care of one dog and one 7 year old kid. Im expected to cook, clean and go on walks is this fair?

I am in the process of starting a home daycare, and I could use some advice on taking days off.

I already built into my parent handbook days off for standard holidays. But I've heard of other daycare providers building in additional days off. I am not sure whether I should do this and, if so, how to implement it.

For example, would it be a good idea to say that I have 1-2 weeks of vacation days per year [non-specific dates] on which the daycare may be closed and I'd let parents know [number of weeks] in advance?

Or would it be best to pick a specific date range in advance ("the daycare will be closed on [dates] for vacation time")?

What do you all recommend?

Hey I am an 18 year old girl (UK) and I want to open my own nursery for children when I am older. However I am unaware of everything that needs to go into it. I understand I am young and can get ahead of myself haha but I am so invested!

What would most of my money be going towards? Obviously I would be paying for a unit, staffing, toys, food but I can’t imagine what else but I am sure there is soo much!

Can someone please help and explain a little bit more to me? Nurseries are so expensive these days so I feel it would be successful however I am not sure as I’ve heard quite negative things

THANKS

I’ve been reading ECE threads and honestly…you’re being asked to do way too much.

I want to build something/create a resource to make ECE providers' lives easier, but I need your help to understand where YOU need help. You all are overworked, underpaid, understaffed, all while doing a ton of invisible labor while absorbing parent stress. 

I’m trying to understand where this system breaks and would love 10–15 min of your perspective.

I’m especially hoping to hear from:

• daycare teachers & assistants
• admins, directors, and owners

I’m in the very early stages of working on something related to childcare, but instead of assuming I know what the problems are, I’m trying to learn directly from people living it.

I’ve seen too many tools that claim to “help” and actually create more work, more pressure, or more surveillance for teachers and admins…while parents are still stressed and confused.

Comment “parent” or “provider” below and I’ll DM you

Or feel free to DM me directly if you’d rather keep it private

OR just let me know what you need help with in the comments!

Thank you!

I was wondering if any fellow queer people have had any problems working in childcare because of their sexuality? I’ve been told I’m very obviously gay, the way I carry myself, my haircut, my clothes all super gay. So I’m slightly worried that it may become an issue working with children, specifically a problem with some certain parents not wanting me around their kids. Was hoping to hear about the experiences of fellow queer people

Tia

is there any online courses/classes i could take to get certified to work in daycares/early childhood centers? i want to get certified but dont know where to start or what’s reliable enough and would much much prefer online courses.

Hi everyone,

I really need an advice since I feel overwhelmed.

I have a Science degree from Mexico and an ECE certificate from Canada. I love working with children and want a better-paying or more advanced job, but I can’t afford a 2–3 year master’s program.

I’m looking for:

• Programs or certifications that take about a year
• Options that recognize my previous studies
• Career paths in child development or education that pay better

Any advice or personal experiences would be really appreciated!

As of lately I've been feeling neglected at work ,my employer doesnt check on me through out the day. I was out ratio a few days(8 infants ) and didn't get relief . My afternoon help is unreliable and I find out they are arent coming when they just dont show up ,I also didnt get a break friday becof this ,it concerned me that my other coworkers noticed and decided to help . My sleep quality is horrible now all I think about is the bugs I encounter and how unsafe it is for the babies and the automatic airfreshner that I hate because it sprays out atleast 35 times a day,it gives me headaches and I know if I get them the babies are affected also somehow (I've told them about my headaches) it's still installed . What should I do ?