A few months ago I was asked to take over the young nursery class at our church.  The class is composed of children between the ages of 18 mo. – 2 yrs. old. With my experience and education in the ECE field I was excited to see what I could offer the classroom.  Typically the classroom is staffed by volunteers who have little or no experience with children outside of their own.  It is not that there are not professionals within the church it is just that often, those of us who work with children for a living, are not sought out for Sunday child care, in effort to give us a break.   

 
The first week I was assigned to the classroom, the previous teachers were there so that I would have the opportunity to just observe and start the process of building relationships with the children.  One child in particular was having a difficult time that day.  Marie had just turned 18 months old and this was only her second time in the class.  Her mother stayed for an extended period of time in effort to help her assimilate.  This also gave us time to talk about Marie and for mom to give me some ideas on the kind of things she like, her personality and disposition and mom’s philosophy on discipline and guidance.  We had a great conversation and I felt that I had a pretty good jump start on getting to know this little girl. 

About half an hour before the end of the nursery time Marie’s mother said goodbye, handed her off to me and left the classroom.  At this point Marie began to cry and ask for her mom.   Both her mother and I knew that this would be a difficult few minutes with Marie but it would be an essential part of me building a relationship with her as well as teaching her that “mommy always comes back”.  While she continued to cry, I simply walked around the room with her, talking softly to her.  I asked her about different things in the classroom, what she would like to do or play with, validated her feelings and reminded her that her mom would be back.  Marie’s crying was loud and it was obvious that she was distressed.  A handful of people stuck their heads into the classroom to see what was going on and see if they could help.  I smiled and let them know we were fine and would get through this.  Towards the end of the class, Marie and I were sitting on the floor in the far corner of the classroom.  I continued to talk softly with her and validate her feelings.  While she was still crying and not wanting to be held close I noticed that she also did not want to let go of me.  She had a hold of my fingers or legs at all times.  With only five minutes left in class, a parent volunteer came up to us and without even asking about Marie she simply said “she is taking it out on you”, scooped her up and walked away with Marie in her arms.  This only intensified Marie’s behavior and quite honestly made me mad.  Here I had just put 30 minutes into trying to build a relationship of trust with Marie only to have someone wipe that away in one action.  This individual didn’t see the progress we had made.  She didn’t see that although Marie was still upset, she was beginning to attach to me as someone whom she could trust.  I was shocked by the incident and left speechless.  Being that we were at church, and the teachers and parents in the classroom were volunteers, I did not respond to this parent right away.  Within a few moments, Marie’s mother came back to get her.  I followed up with her and let her know about the time went and the progress I felt we had made.  However, I was still so frustrated at this parent volunteer. 

 

Looking at the principles of NVC and the 3 R’s there are a lot of methods I could use to defuse this situation and move forward with positive interactions between myself and this volunteer.  The first thing I could do would be to take the time to look at it from her perspective.  I’m sure that her intentions were not to undermine the relationship I had been working on with Marie.  My guess is that she was trying to help or save me from “going crazy with this screaming child by my side”.  Most individuals with little or no experience with other children are just trying to survive the moment.  They often will just give in and try to make it all better for the time being.  If I take into consideration that she doesn’t have all the training and experience that I do and is only going by what she knows, it becomes easier to realize that she didn’t see the importance of the ground work that was being laid.  I was looking at this interaction with Marie in the long term while she may have been looking at it in the here and now.  With this in mind I could take the opportunity to talk with her once all the children had been picked up and share with her my philosophy on early care and education.  I could share with her what I know about attachment theory and ask her about her experiences with the concept.  If I were to come at it from a spirit of getting to know one another and sharing what we have each experienced working with children rather than a “I’m a professional and you need to listen to what I have to say” attitude, I believe that it would  be a constructive conversation rather than a potential explosion.