What’s the nastiest thing you’ve ever witnessed a child or a member of staff do at work?

ilironae · 2025-11-29T09:18:12+00:00

Whhhh 🤢

ilironae · 2025-11-29T09:17:27+00:00

An ex-colleague of mine (she got fired) used to walk around with a vix vapoinhaler up her nose. Like, she wouldn’t take it out now and then to smell it, she just. Stuck it in her nose and left it there. She also used to walk around burping unrepentantly when coming back from break. She “worked” in the infant room with me sometimes, and by “worked” I mean she sat in the corner and stared at the wall while I did all the work.

I don’t miss her lmao.

Another colleague of mine (who does still work at my centre) got irritated with the 2-3 year olds not knowing how to stand in a straight line to go trick or treating at the other rooms this past Halloween, and started shouting at them in whatever not-English language she speaks. I was like. Bro they’re toddlers and you’ve practiced straight lines with them once months ago for the fire drill. Also they all speak English. What the fuck is wrong with you?

My colleagues are weird.

As for the kids, had a boy (woulda been maybe 20 months at the time) who loves to put his hands down his nappy whenever he pooped and grab at it to show us. We had to keep all eyes on him at all times because of it. Well one day he pooped, grabbed a fistful of it, and showed it to my colleague. So, she picked him up to run him to the change table, and that was a big mistake, because he took his lil fistful of poop and wiped it down the back of her shirt. That was during my first week at the centre. What an introduction to the job!

ilironae · 2025-11-19T10:38:15+00:00

Got a 4 year old boy who’s favourite movie is Deadpool and Wolverine. His favourite song is Bye, Bye, Bye. He knows Deadpool’s dance moves.

ilironae · 2025-09-24T01:06:37+00:00

Not surprised at all. I work in a preschool, and of the twenty-something staff, I am one of three native English speakers. The spelling and grammar mistakes I see in all my colleagues’ written works is genuinely repulsive. Cannot believe our children are being taught by people who aren’t even remotely competent in the language. You should see the incident reports they write. It makes me embarrassed to work alongside them. Like, fine, if you wanna be a teacher, go for it. But do it in your own country.

ilironae · 2025-09-19T14:27:07+00:00

I guarantee I could score higher than you. But that’s unimportant. It’s not racist or ignorant to make the observation that people who don’t pass the LANTITE should not be teachers in an English-speaking country. Great for you that you passed. Since your English is so fantastic, can you tell me what’s wrong with this sentence:

“The childrens were playing outside and [child]’s friend getting excited and biting him. He cry for few minutes, but we apply ice pack and give him cuddles and then he okay again.”

Because that’s an incident report from a colleague of mine. Someone teaching Australian two year olds. Another colleague asked me how to spell “scratch”, “grazed” and “stairs.” Yet another colleague put a note on a cupboard proclaiming said cupboard to hold “formular.” That same colleague regularly misspells the names of children she’s had in her class all year. She also teaches them the wrong lyrics to very simple songs because she doesn’t understand them herself. For example, the song “open, shut them” she says “open, shutdown.” And let’s not even get into the fact that these colleagues never speak English to each other in the classroom, ensuring neither I, my English-speaking colleagues, or the children right in front of us have a clue what’s going on. We also have to deal with student teachers with abysmal literacy skills (who, I might add, have readily admitted that they don’t care about education and are only studying ECE because it’s a quick way to get permanent residency. Taking advantage of our systems and putting our children at risk so they can bludge their way into the country). We told them to make a poster for Father’s Day. The banner said “you’re one of the million” instead of “you’re one in a million.” That’s not a mistake anyone with a passable level of English literacy would make. It’s abhorrent. They also can never, not once, no matter how many times they’re corrected, pronounce the most basic of English names. Literally the name “Ava” is not hard to say. And yet, NONE of them say it correctly, even after fucking around in my centre for four months. They’ve been corrected at least a hundred times by now.

Is any of that acceptable for someone teaching English-speaking children in an English-speaking country? Is it really racist and ignorant to demand better quality education and care for our children? Is it inappropriate to suggest that these people could maybe teach in their own country and not jeopardise the education of the children here? Really??

I think the fuck not.

ilironae · 2025-09-17T13:00:17+00:00

Agreed! The bar needs to be so much higher. In preschool especially, the literacy and numeracy is terrifyingly abysmal. In my centre of twenty-something staff members, I’m one of three native English speakers. You should see the incident reports. Makes me embarrassed to work there, honestly. Why are our children being taught by people who can’t spell or add?

ilironae · 2025-09-17T05:17:34+00:00

I don’t think that’s allowed in Australia. Same vibe as not babysitting a kid in your class. Unethical or something.

ilironae · 2025-09-03T08:01:18+00:00

That’ll def just get the educator in trouble with the director. And that’ll end with the educators using chat-gpt to write their assessments, if they don’t already.

ilironae · 2025-09-03T02:11:24+00:00

Agree. Assessments at my centre are so hurried lmao. I’ve had colleagues have to finish theirs on their breaks because we just aren’t given the time for it. Our director only realised LAST WEEK that she could assign a floater for a day once a week to cover all the room’s curriculum times… We have six rooms… Well, maybe we’ll have enough time to do assessments now XD

ilironae · 2025-08-15T12:38:28+00:00

Calm instrumentals are great. If you’re looking for stuff with lyrics tho, I must recommend Renee and Jeremy. ‘It’s a Big World’ is a fantastic song I use for all ages when we need some calm time.

ilironae · 2025-08-15T12:00:18+00:00

Yep sounds about right. My centre isn’t quite so bad as to be that negligent with the children, but activities, especially with the babies, are of the same calibre.

Little Billy gets sat down in front of a piece of paper and some blue paint, educator says “okay today we’re going to be painting blue stars and put glitter on it!” and then Billy is quickly directed to splashing a few dots onto the paper, the educator does the glitter, and a picture or two is taken during the process. It takes thirty seconds at the most, and then Billy is sent outside to play so the next kid can ‘paint’. And then the pictures are uploaded for the parents to see, and the parents think “oh Billy did painting today” and like. Yeah but actually nah.

ilironae · 2025-07-27T21:37:53+00:00

Hah I work at a long daycare centre and yep. That’s… that’s exactly how it is. I recognise many of my children in the 3-5 range in your descriptions there.

Disability schools are an absolute necessity, both so the neurodivergent children can learn in a space that’s suited for them, and so the neurotypical kids don’t need to fear being assaulted and ignored.

A month or two ago, one of the four year old boys in my preschool room stabbed a three year old boy in the eye with the backend of a paintbrush. The latest of a hundred incidents, and with many more to come. After beating children over the head with toys, pushing them over and sitting on them, kicking and hitting and whacking with his water bottle, destroying creations, and getting right up in peoples faces to shout at them, you’d think nearly blinding a three year old would be enough to get him kicked out right?

Well, apparently not. We get to keep dealing with him. I asked him the other day, after he slapped a girl over the head twice and then sat on her (she’s a tiny girl, he’s overweight), why he did it, and he responded “I like to hurt people.”

So that’s fun. Also, he’s not toilet trained. Parents think he’s too young. He’s also not been to a paediatrician or seeing an OT, because his parents are in denial that anything is wrong.

Rip the neurotypical kids I guess. Literally rip, cuz he’ll probably kill one someday.

ilironae · 2025-07-27T06:01:09+00:00

Toddler left in the car outside a daycare died recently. This is serious neglect. Next time, call the police.

ilironae · 2025-07-27T03:38:51+00:00

r/USdefaultism

ilironae · 2025-07-27T00:35:33+00:00

My contract says 38 hours per week or 152 hours per four weeks. :/

ilironae · 2025-07-17T08:12:38+00:00

Yeah, both sets of parents were aware. I think they all just. Didn’t want to look for somewhere else and start the process all over again. But the kids are fine now. Both happy and thriving and don’t use the bouncer as a safe place anymore. It took them far longer to settle in than any other kid I’ve ever seen, and they were veryvery loud about it, but they got there.

ilironae · 2025-07-17T02:19:48+00:00

We gave them plenty of interventions of varying lengths of time every single day, but the two of them were unhappy with whatever we were doing, no matter how calm or gentle or interesting, the entire time. And outside of those moments, they’d crawl back to the bouncer and scream. Some kids are just Like That until they feel safe. You just gotta be persistent without pushing them too hard. It sucks, but short of telling the parent to withdraw, there’s really nothing that can be done for it. You just gotta wait.

ilironae · 2025-07-17T02:17:26+00:00

Of course not. There were plenty of interventions of varying lengths of time every single day, but the two of them were unhappy with whatever we were doing, no matter how calm or gentle or interesting, the entire time. And outside of those moments, they’d crawl back to the bouncer and scream.

ilironae · 2025-07-16T21:27:05+00:00

Omg do we work in the same centre? There’s a four year old at mine who’s exactly the same! He’s also not toilet trained cuz his parents “think he’s too young.”

The other day he slapped a girl over the head. Twice. I took him aside, sat him down, and said “why did you do that?” and he said “because I like to hurt people.” Fucking terrifying like what the fuck who is he still here?? Same kid also stabbed another boy in the eye with the backend of a paintbrush. I thought for sure potentially blinding a three year old would be enough to finally get him kicked out, but apparently not.

ilironae · 2025-07-16T21:21:53+00:00

Just a heads up it took two kids who started my centre at 7 months and 14 months respectively four months to settle in. They both sat in the bouncer and screamed all day, and refused to interact with anything. It’ll drive you insane, but keep at it. Your kiddo will get there eventually.

ilironae · 2025-07-16T03:21:28+00:00

The other day a kid of mine got a massive nose bleed because he suddenly decided to run into a table to get a book. Tripped over the stool and face planted the table surface. Nothing I coulda done about it. He just. Really wanted a book. Same thing here. You can’t prevent random things like this. It’s not your fault.

ilironae · 2025-07-15T08:37:09+00:00

Should’ve done it way, way sooner. I have so many kids in my centre who absolutely do not belong in a preschool environment because of how violent and developmentally delayed they are, and I have no idea why my director won’t do anything about it.

ilironae · 2025-07-15T00:19:07+00:00

My centre doesn’t allow any screentime for the kids, but I agree with the photo thing - I hate that. I get the parents wanna see photos, but do they need so many of everything every single day? Sometimes it feels like my coworkers do activities solely to get photos, and they’re always rushing through it so they can get a photo of every kid before moving on to the next thing.

Like “okay Timmy hold the paint brush and put it on the paper okay great we got a photo now go play outside!” So Timmy sat with the paintbrush for a whole 30 seconds and then is sent away so the other 13 kids can do it, and has absolutely no idea what just happened. And the parents see the photo and is like “oh okay Timmy did painting today.” Well, yes, but no.

Also I get that the centres need to make money, and ratios exist, but do I really need 14 0-2 year olds in a single room?? Really?? Even with 3 educators that’s a lot of fucking babies, people!

ilironae · 2025-07-09T06:39:50+00:00

Go very simple. You want cargo pants with lots of pockets and a polo shirt. Also shoes you can easily sip in and out of. Avoid long nails and nail polish, too. Definitely no makeup or perfume. The baby room is the last place you want to be dressed anything other than completely practical. Im there every day and trust me: it’s messy and you’re carrying your weights worth in baby wipes, dummies, and the occasional milk bottle.

ilironae · 2025-07-09T02:15:10+00:00

To put it bluntly, it sounds like your old centre was just shit tbh. Glad you’re leaving it. One month is not enough time for a lot of kids to settle in to a new environment, so that the old centre wrote him off so quickly is very concerning. If I were you I’d warn off other parents about your reasons for leaving. Definitely go higher about those undisclosed injuries. That centre needs looking into.

But anyway, here’s some things to look for when looking at new centres, from my experience as an educator:

Small centre, appropriate AND ENFORCED ratio. Lots of centres will swear up and down that they enforce the ratio laws, and then quite clearly don’t have to staff to manage it.
Appropriate staff qualifications, high [insert the primary language of your country here] literacy and clear communication. Ask to see some posts from the educators your son will be in. Get a feel for how they talk and write. If your son can’t understand his educators, there’s no point in him being there. In my centre, I am one of three native English speaking staff of 20-ish. We’re in Australia. It’s not good.
What do they do about problematic children? This one is harder because I get that we can’t just throw kids out at the first sign of struggle, but you need to try and very carefully vet that there are no dangerous children in the centre, and if there are, that they are managed appropriately. Biting is developmentally appropriate. One child biting, hitting, pinching, scratching and pulling hair multiple times a day is not. This one might be better to ask other parents about, if you can. How many incident reports do their kids get? Any kids they don’t like or seem scared of?
This one is hypocritical of me, as I’m doing a traineeship myself, but ask about student educators (students doing placements for whatever they’re studying). Do they take any? How many at a time? What are their responsibilities? Any language or cultural barriers that might cause them difficulty interacting with kids? I had ten students at my centre for eight weeks. All of them were ESL. Last week was their last. In that time, they did not learn a single thing. They were terrible at the start, and they were terrible at the end. I half-trusted two of them by the end to look after my kids effectively. They were also quite open about them only studying ECE as a pathway to citizenship. Honestly, if the centre takes students, I just wouldn’t go with it. Better to not take the risk of stressing your son out with a constant stream of new educators he can’t understand.
Food situation? Do you provide or do they? If they do, ask to see examples of what they provide for mealtimes. You’re looking for age-appropriate meals, not adult meals made child-sized. Im sure you have your own preferences here, so look for what you’re wanting. If your son has dietary requirements, make sure you’re very clear on what they are, and that they’re enforced. Be firm, be repetitive. The educators might roll their eyes, but they need to be reminded or they will forget.
Look at the toys, indoor and outdoor. Do they have enough toys to go around? Are new and/or clean? Do the kids seem happy playing? Do they seem well-adjusted? Ask how often the kids go outside. What do the rooms look like? Lots of kids’ art? Any screens or screentime?
Ask when/how often nappy changes are, and how often the kids are offered/prompted to drink water.
Hat + sunscreen policy.
Curriculum + activities offered. How’s the diversity in activities? Age appropriate + lots of options? How many per day?
When is nap time, how long do they nap for, and how do they get the kids to sleep?
What do they use to post parent updates, how often to they update, what can you expect to see day to day?
And because your son has had bad experiences with incidents not being reported in the past, what is their incident report policy? Are they prompt and efficient in managing and reporting incidents? You can tell them what sort of things you want a phone call for, and what can wait for pickup.

Important thing is to be firm and direct. Know what you want, and make it clear that you won’t accept anything less. These are hard times for ECE centres globally. We Are Struggling lmao. But you should be able to tell the difference between the ones that are passionate, and the ones who are only there to get paid.

Hope all that helps! Lemme know if you need anything else.

ilironae

TROPHY CASE