What
do I think of when I think of Chaos? I think of two-year olds!
I
used to work at a daycare in a room of two-year olds. It was a hectic and crazy
job but I loved it. The kids were wonderful but if left to their own devices,
chaos would break out. I remember one particular day when I was heading to
work. I was still in high school at the time so it was late afternoon when I
got there. I walked in the door and could hear the roar of crazy little
children. I clocked in and started walking to my classroom. As I was passing
the other classrooms there was much noise coming from them. As I continued on I
realized that most of that uproar was coming from my class room of hyper
two-year olds. I wondered what the other teacher could be doing with them to
rile them up so much. As I opened the door a couple of them ran up to greet but
the rest were making messes, yelling at each other, biting each other and more.
Where in the world was the other teacher?
I
looked around for the teacher and found her sitting in the corner reading to
one of the kids. I could tell she had, had a very long day and had given up at
trying to control the wild two-year olds. I immediately got to work. I split up
the kids that were attempting to bite one another or just yelling at one
another and occupied them with different toys or books. I picked up to soothe
those who’s feelings had been hurt and were crying. I started cleaning up as I
walked along so the room didn’t feel so cluttered. I sang songs to calm the
children down and read a few books to the ones who were feeling tired. After a
while the other teacher looked at me and almost with a grasp breathed the
words. Thank you.
Toddlers aren't the best at recognizing who is in charge, but in this situation they didn't really need to know. The other teacher who has authority over the class gave up and things broke out into utter chaos but when I got there being another authority figure in this situation was able to distract the kids and entertain them without them even realizing it.
Toddlers aren't the best at recognizing who is in charge, but in this situation they didn't really need to know. The other teacher who has authority over the class gave up and things broke out into utter chaos but when I got there being another authority figure in this situation was able to distract the kids and entertain them without them even realizing it.
I think your post is a good example of when proper authority is present, but not exercised. It goes to show that Thomas Hobbes was right when he said that we need a sovereign authority to keep us in check. This is an interesting example too, because I feel like that most often people who are in positions of authority tend to err on the side of domination rather than the lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteTotally understand this situation! Children respond when you respond to them. From a church perspective, those two-year-olds haven't quite reached the age of accountability yet. They still have agency of course, but they don't know right from wrong in all cases. If that's the type of chaos that can occur, I think I'll keep my agency!
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