What happens at home, doesn't always stay at home

Even as an adult it's sometimes hard to leave the troubles of home there rather than bring them to work (and vice versa), children have the same problem. A lot the kids come in, either really excited for the day or sad and dragging, wanting to go home. Sometimes their parents can tell us what's bothering the child when they drop them off. The other day one girl was in a pretty foul mood because she was only allowed to have one flavor of yogurt instead of mixing all the containers together. Yep, that was it, yogurt. Yogurt led to an extremely scowley face and stomping feet.

Sometimes though we don't get to know what's up. This morning I shook hands with lots of happy children, a few who were even jumping they were so excited to be back at school (yeah, my job's usually pretty nice huh?). But there was one hand I didn't get to shake and I didn't even realize it until about halfway through the morning. Some kids get louder, act out or cling to adults when they're feeling off; this girl clammed up and kept to herself all morning. It was such a change from her normal, chatty demeanor that I flat out asked her if she was feeling ok, thinking that she must be sick. A lackluster nod didn't make me feel much better so I invited her over to the conversation area, hoping I might be able to figure out what was bothering her.

Unfortunately I didn't find out anything. We chatted about the other children's bins, discovered that almost all the pictures on them were things you could ride, etc. Not really any helpful hints for me, especially since this is usually a very verbal child with lots to share. So I let invited her to work with me and we practiced identifying and tracing the sandpaper numbers. She perked up a bit and was really eager to try writing the numbers on a chalkboard.

I wish I could say that cured her for the rest of the day, but it didn't. She was pretty reserved at lunch, entirely missed recess because she couldn't focus enough to get dressed, and repeated this lethargy through snack and afternoon recess-even with a 2 hour nap! Sometimes you just can't push the right buttons to get the child perked up, and just hope that tomorrow will be better.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was another girl who is usually so hyper she can't contain herself, gets in trouble for it, and then gets upset. Today she came in laughing and eager to work, and though we teachers had to remind her a few times to slow down or quit bothering her classmates she had a relatively calm morning. But most amazingly at recess she managed to sit quietly on the bench when asked. The bench is somewhere that is sort of like a time-out area, but we don't call it that and really only direct the children over there if they really need to calm down. Usually when she's sent there this girl will whimper, whine, bounce and constantly ask when she can get up. Today she sat so quietly that I almost forgot she was there and actually ended up thanking her for doing so.

Who knows why these two girls were so contrary to their normal behavior today. I don't know what they did over the weekend, how much sleep they got, what they had for breakfast, if the snow on the ground disturbed them. All I know is that each day they're going to be a little bit different.