Tosha, a 27-year-old single mother and early childhood educator, was at her breaking point. “I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” she confessed to her college advisor. Overwhelmed with managing a classroom of toddlers alone for two weeks, working 12-hour days, studying full-time, and caring for her three-year-old son, Tosha felt pushed to her limit. “I’m exhausted, I’m done, and I want out!”

This scenario is real and affects early childhood educators worldwide.

The demands on Early Childhood Educators

Early childhood educators are usually the first port of call for parents as they transition their children from home to socializing and learning with others. Good early childhood educators are a dedicated group of professionals who take their responsibilities seriously. There has always been a big paperwork load to record progress, comply with regulations, follow frameworks, align with professional bodies, continue with professional development, and more. That’s before we even look at interacting with the children, planning learning experiences, documenting learning, and developing relationships – all of the things that quality educators do each day. Things that those not in the profession wouldn’t see.

In recent times, these demands have increased. Stories like Tosha’s are becoming more common. Children’s behaviour is becoming more erratic and challenging, parental expectations are becoming more demanding, paperwork, social distancing rules, child-adult ratios, space limits, illness, worry, and concern have all been added into what was already a demanding job.

Simple things like having a bathroom break can be problematic, so educators don’t drink a lot or have to wait until another adult can supervise while they step out of the classroom. Understaffing makes this harder. The constant difficulty of finding early childhood staff is the other pandemic that is sweeping the world. Some centers feel they have no choice but to hire someone who is not remotely interested in children just to keep the center doors open. The comparatively low wages don’t help the situation either when educators compare income from a less stressful job to working in an early childhood center. What does this mean for the quality of education and care that is available in the centers?

The statistics before the pandemic, tell us that in America:

42% of degree-qualified educators leave the profession in the first 5 years. At least 66% of experienced educators think about leaving and at any given time 36% are likely to find another career path to follow. Educators leave the profession due to many reasons, such as dissatisfaction with the job (55%), family or personal reasons (43%), are at retirement age (32%), finding a better job (32%), or financial reasons (18%). There is no space here to look into what is included in each of these reasons, but the point is that over half leave teaching because they are generally dissatisfied that the job is not what they signed up for.

Teacher burnout and trauma are real. It’s the other pandemic that we have to monitor, find a way to immunize our quality early childhood professionals use treatments so that they aren’t pushed to the breaking point like Tosha.

Demands on the Administrator

Administrators are stressed, can be overwhelmed with paperwork, the needs of families, and then must make ethical and professional decisions to hire people just to fill the staffing gaps. There is clear evidence about the importance of quality educators but sometimes there is no opportunity to choose high-quality staff. Sometimes the administrator must work in a classroom because of the ratio limits and being short-staffed AND continue with their administrative work too. This puts administrators and other staff members in the position of surviving – not thriving. In some cases, administrators and staff members are forced to make decisions that are morally and ethically uncomfortable.

The demands on the brain

When we feel stressed, the body floods the brain with the cortisol hormone. This is a survival technique cleverly used by the body to keep us safe. Cortisol triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response that puts us on high alert constantly. The brain is looking for danger so that it can move us out of harm (flight), help us defend ourselves (fight), or become invisible by not doing anything (freeze). The high level of cortisol during stressful situations means we end up with a foggy brain – hard to think, remember, make decisions – and it’s exhausting.

Educators and many others have been living in a state of high alert for many months. A small amount of stress and cortisol can be motivating in the short term, but long term, it causes serious physical and mental health concerns. Educators can feel overwhelmed trying to manage their personal and professional lives. They may experience ‘compassion fatigue’, a secondary trauma that occurs when ‘adults become overwhelmed by the suffering and pain of those in their care’ (Nicholson, Perez, Kurtz. 2019).

Ethical responsibilities

As a professional, we have ethical responsibilities to ourselves, colleagues, children, families, the community, school boards, and government agencies. The NAEYC Code of Ethics is utilized by many educators across the world to guide good decisions when we find ourselves in a situation where we must determine the best possible outcome for everyone concerned.

What is your ethical responsibility to colleagues if you know they are struggling as we saw with Tosha at the beginning of this article?
What is the responsibility of the administrator to notice and care for staff?
Who is going to care for you?

It comes down to self-care first, followed by caring for others. Noticing the small signs within yourself and others as the pressure mounts. Not waiting until the stress and burnout signs are obvious before making some changes.

Self-Care responsibilities

What can we do to mediate the effects on educators and administrators?

There are many strategies that will support self-management and self-care. Here are a few to get you thinking:

• Self-awareness – Take some time to reflect on how you are feeling – pause, take a breath and notice your emotions. Be honest and it’s ok to cry, get angry, feel sad.
• Feelings – Recognize and acknowledge the feelings that come up for you and know that having these emotions does not make you weak – it is a strength to honestly reflect and put steps in place to change the feelings or situation.
• Coping – Think about some big life events that were hard to get through at the time. Try to identify the coping mechanism you used then. Perhaps talking to a friend of relative to normalize your feelings, taking a break from the situation, or losing yourself in a novel to give your brain a break.
• Start to cut – Write down what you could cut from your day or week to reduce the load you carry. It’s important to write down or draw your obligations to get them out of your head, see them clearly, then start cutting. You’ll find it liberating. Remember this is about your survival and not about making other people happy.
• Take care of yourself first – Take a walk, have a Friday evening long bath with candles and music, listen to gentle music, download a meditation app and do this when you get into bed or in the morning. Start and end your day in a peaceful way.

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References

Nicholson, J., Perez., L, and Kurtz, J. (2019). Trauma Informed Practices for Early Childhood Educators. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-138-30639-4.

Campbell, J. (2020). Teacher burnout statistics.

©Dr Kathryn Murray and Dr Sharon Little, 2021.

Dr. Kathryn Murray is an early childhood pedagogical expert and creator of the Brain-SET Formula© for Classroom Design. She is the CEO of Future Strong Education – a global early childhood consultancy organization based in Australia. Kathryn supports educators and parents to give children the best possible start in life. Find Dr. Kathryn Murray at futurestrongeducation.com or connect with her through kathy@futurestrongeducation.com

Dr. Sharon Little is an early childhood program lead and faculty in North Carolina. She is also a project coach, trainer, private early education consultant, speaker, and strong advocate for early childhood education. Sharon supports early educators, the community, and other early childhood professionals in trauma informed, developmentally appropriate practices, diversity, and higher education subject matter. Find Dr. Sharon Little on LinkedIn.