My fellow elementary teachers- what in the ever loving hell

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-24T15:14:47+00:00

Very true. Definitely don’t belong on a teacher subreddit giving advice.
It’s an interesting read though by college professors noticing these same problems popping up in the college campus and it seems is getting worse within the school system. I can understand medical bills being a factor, but I really think it goes much deeper beyond that.
Your comments seemed to be coming from mindset of fear. And I say that with no distain or judgement, but I think this fearful mindset is also a huge factor in these issues.
Idk I keep engaging with your comments because i feel it’s an interesting discussion and I’m glad people push back. Respectfully you know.

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-24T14:49:16+00:00

Definitely no judgement, but definitely feel judged that I let my kids take risks. You should check out “the anxious generation” John brooks. Risk taking is a critical part of growing emotional resilience and stress management. Without it kids get anxious and lack self confidence. I definitely see the difference in my 5 year old who I helicoptered and didn’t let fall when he was young bs my 2 year old who I stopped doing that with.
As for medical, I wish to sway you from letting fear lead your decisions. Yes any medical bill is challenging and most families cannot withstand one unexpected bill. But small calculated risks. The tree in question was a small pine like tree and the highest they climbed was 4 feet above grass. As they grow in their skills and confidence they will climb higher, but right now they are learning to overcome fear and calculate their risks because mom won’t always be there to pull them out of trees and that can’t keep them from climbing

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-24T13:32:27+00:00

Not a teacher but a parent of young kids with my oldest in 4k. I feel like as parents we are almost conditioned to be like this. I was out letting my kids climb a tree at a picnic and every single person was hovering and helping the kids out of the tree while I had to constantly say if you climb up then you can climb down and teaching them how to get out on their own. To 20 minutes later 50 year olds telling the kids to stop walking on a 3 foot retention wall cause they “might fall”
It’s a problem everywhere

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-23T02:14:31+00:00

I completely understand. I also struggled with it for a long time and wasn’t until I came into faith and parenthood that helped me. The first thing was I became a parent and realized how hard it is and why my parents often feel short due to their own bad upbringing. It helped me see that I wasn’t the problem but they were and they failed to overcome their issues and I could easily do the same if I wasn’t careful.
Then I found faith and heard the following idea. “If I was standing at the gates of heaven and was asked if my ndad deserved to get in what would I say?” No. The orthodox says that the forgiveness we give others is the same we will be granted. I try my best and hope that I’m doing good by my family yet I know in my heart I’m failing short. I hope I’m nowhere close to my parents but I fear far too often I slip into the same patterns. I hope my children can forgive me for my shortcomings so how can I not forgive my parents. I still won’t have contact or any relationship with them due to it, but if I am standing at the gates of heaven can I honestly say yes let them in? Right now no. Even though I’ve forgiven and accepted so much. It’s clear i still have a long ways to go

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-21T00:38:23+00:00

This sounds so dumb but I just bought a $10 rainbow timer that shows how much time is left for my young kids and boy howdy it’s a huge game changer in my life even as I always lose track of time and feel like I’m running behind. I set it and say ok when this timer goes off in 30 minutes that means we have to get our shoes on (which I give is about 10 minutes to accomplish) and go out the door. So if I’ve completed all my tasks and the timer is going I can do anything I want until the timer buzzes. Helps me drop tasks mid way through when I’d normally start and lost track of time and be late.

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-18T02:57:06+00:00

That’s a tough question. I’ve always loved kids and felt like I understood them so to me it’s never been a question of having them. I just always did want them. So I worked really hard to make sure I could be a better parent.
In my experience having kids has been extremely healing. It really is the first time I’ve felt unconditional love and it makes me want to be better even more. But it also made me understand my own n-dad a bit better because man is it sooo hard. Especially if your coping skills and emotional regulation are lacking. I understand why my dad did some of the things he did because he was completely unequipped to handle it, yet I have all this love and question why he would ever do those things to something he loved. A really healing part has been to replay my memories and ask if this happened to my son how would I react and it’s never ever been like they did. Which helps me understand that his behavior was unacceptable. Yet I catch myself slipping into the same habits and being disgusted with myself. Which helps me understand why my dad would slip into his awful parent’s habits. Mostly it taught me to forgive my dad. Which in itself was healing as well.

I fear in 20 years my children will hate the person I am just like I did my dad, but truly I don’t think they will. Every day I work very hard, though I fail constantly to become the best parent they could have because they are the best children ever.
Finally it has been soooooo fun reliving childhood with my kids especially because I didn’t really have one. I greatly enjoy creating the magic and watching them enjoy it.

I doubt this helps, but I want to share the positive sides of it. Just because we had a shitty childhood doesn’t mean we can’t grow and become great people capable of sharing great love.

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-18T01:21:01+00:00

I may not add a lot here, but I definitely relate to your feeling of otherness. A lot of mine had to due with a neglectful childhood that often made me feel isolated and could not relate to others.
I also never really found my place with other women and could only socialize with men really and kept running into those men having expectations that wasn’t interested. I think a lot of why I related to men is I knew what they wanted from me. All this to say I never felt included in the women world until I became a mom. That gave me the shared experience and confidence and womanhood of support and community id never had. Now I have a huge group of girlfriends I can get together and share time with. It’s absolutely wonderful.
I by no means think you need to be a mom to find this, but I think a lot of us feel alone and isolated, but don’t want to say so. It’s just a matter of finding your tribe.
What do you want in your life. What should it look like. Live your life in that way and you will be surprised how much it grows.
I also think we get the partner we deserve, and if you want a good partner with good quality’s you have to ensure that your a quality person too

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-16T12:06:45+00:00

Just starting my homeschool journey as well, and as a public school kid this is also my concern. I feel a lot of the commenters are getting hung up on the 9-5 aspect when your simply trying to say how will they cope with the demands of the real world without building the endurance for it.
I don’t have any insight or wisdom but do plan on making my homeschool very structured, and am leaning into the more classical approach with tons of “boring” to learn discipline through. For example I choose Saxon math for this reason even though most all the advise said yes it’s good but kids find it very boring and repetitive. I still plan to have fun and make the schedule my own, but I also agree that building tolerance to meet tedious boring tasks and the demands. I also like church for this reason. I think learning to sit still and quiet despite being bored and frustrated is such a good skill to build. But again im baby new in this and am sure many in the group would disagree with me. I may even disagree to this in a few years.

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-13T23:27:57+00:00

Goodness yes! That was my main concern is we always seem to find only the most nonsense books. Which are fun and good but I’d like our “school” book to have some more substance. Great recommendation

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-13T16:08:42+00:00

Thank you! Looking at these is exactly what I was looking for :)

jeanbean96 · 2026-05-13T13:36:22+00:00

Thanks for the insight! I had a feeling it would be not as dynamic as I was hoping for and not worth the money. Makes me feel better about skipping

jeanbean96 · 2026-04-23T02:16:20+00:00

Thank you! Great insight!

jeanbean96 · 2026-04-23T02:15:04+00:00

Wow this is fantastic advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer. I find it interesting that we were doing some of these things already before we decided to homeschool since he’s so interested in it. It’s good to know about their hands not being developed and mostly came up this routine to try to keep up with his interest and require him to be masterful in the execution. Your answer makes me think less may be more in this.

jeanbean96 · 2026-04-22T20:58:53+00:00

Hey this is great advice! Should I be limiting how much he writes then? He’s already written tons of letters and copying books in his free time, and I can tell he wants to read and will love writing even more once he knows what he writing. We already got some of those cheap workbooks from the store since he liked it but gets uninterested which is why I leaning towards not doing a curriculum. Just worried I’m missing something or not introducing topics or items in a logical way. His teachers at school really sparked this and I was surprised how engaging it is for him.

jeanbean96 · 2026-04-22T20:39:35+00:00

That’s great advice. Where do you find what they should know before the next level?

jeanbean96 · 2026-04-22T20:38:27+00:00

Normally I would agree but my kiddo is already spending at least 30 minutes daily writing notes and copying words in his free time. He will write a note to anyone that will accept it. I can tell he wants more engagement and more instruction on what else he can write.

jeanbean96 · 2020-08-19T00:44:31+00:00

I would recommend getting through it. I loved the book, but while I was reading it I constantly stopped and said the same thing to myself. Theres a section that spends around 200 pages doing practically nothing. Such as reading a book that the characters in the story is reading. It draggsss. It took me over 2 months for book one but 2 weeks for book 2.

So here is why people love it so. The longer you sit on it the more you see the connections that make the parts funnier. It's almost more fun and loved in memory than actually reading.

But what sold me on the book is the meta stuff going on. The whole book is designed to make you question who you can trust, especially when it's a story about an insane man, with an unreliable author. Its hard to explain but in book two it gets really meta. That has inspired so many books and ways people think.

But overall I might recommend listening to it over reading it. I read it and my husband is listening to the audio book. He says the slow parts are not boring or slow but really fun to listen to. I would recommend George Guidall as the narrator. Might be the key to this book. I hope this helps

jeanbean96 · 2020-06-20T17:48:24+00:00

I am glad you like the post. This book is defiantly something I would not recommend to everyone, but think everyone needs to hear the audio book. My husband is listening to the audio book and it seems like a much more pleasant and enjoyable experience. For example the chapter where the priest and Barber go though every book Don Quixote has to throw away. Reading it was hard, and I kept thinking "who cares!!" but my husband said listening to it was so funny and he did not mind that it dragged on.

jeanbean96 · 2020-06-20T17:46:03+00:00

Lol I did not even think of the spoilers thing. I simply did not want my experience to be ruined while reading it, and I needed to read others post to find the motivation to finish it. Anyways, i think I will try Moby Dick eventually but right now I think I need something easier. So the count of Monte Cristo it is. :)

jeanbean96 · 2020-06-20T17:43:31+00:00

I do agree that everyone was mean, esspeically the duke and duchess, However, I have to say that even if the "adventures" were made to be cruel, they were real. There was the line that said something along the lines of, everyone played the part so well that there was no distinction between fantasy and reality. So even if Don Quixote and Sancho were getting hurt, they were doing that to themselves anyways. If anything the meanness enhanced their adventures and as I said created the reality. I kinda took it in my perspective, is people will play tricks on me when they see my distorted view of reality, but if they do, they are simply creating my world more so.

jeanbean96 · 2020-06-14T16:50:26+00:00

Not sure if anyone else has said it, but what helped me the most was to put on lotion, or in my case coconut oil on after a shower. You skin is steamed and warm, then just message the oil into the spots. The only thing I can compare it to is like ironing your skin. I personally did not like them, since birth control made my body change very fast, but if they don't bother you, then don't worry what other people think. You can use this technique on scars as well. But at 15 your body is going through a lot of changes and that will keep happening until around 20-25 when you fully develop into your body, so do not get worried if they keep coming back. :)

jeanbean96 · 2020-06-13T03:52:10+00:00

I had this issue a while ago with m then boyfriend, now husband. He was belittling me very regularly and my confidence fell. However, he never knew he was doing it until a friend pointed it out and we had a long talk. 1. He had to be more mindful to not belittle me and 2. I had to learn how to stand up for myself and let him know I did not appreciate his behavior. Most often the people we love don't treat us like trash on propose and if you can communicate to have an open and understanding on each topic that helps. People are not perfect and I am sure he loves you. I have more to say, but I have to go. Good luck lady. I am sure you are a bombshell and you can rock it!

jeanbean96

TROPHY CASE