Do you even LIKE kids???

I have the hardest time with people who don't like children.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean people who choose to be child free.  We have all had that crotchety family member who grumbled at holidays, or those friends who have chosen not to have children.  I'm not talking about these people.  

I am talking about people I have come across while teaching who SHOULD NOT be teachers.  Or parents for that matter.

I watch kids get benched every day.  I hear them getting yelled at.  I like discipline in my classroom as well, but there are other ways to go about it besides fear.  This is also how I parent, and it really is just who I am--and how I was raised.

I want to go up to some people here and ask point blank, "Do you even LIKE kids???"  

I've worked at other schools where I've seen teachers who should be in a nice quiet office, happily sipping coffee and tapping away at a keyboard.  I am not this person...I enjoy the messy projects, the walking around and the fun conversations I get to have with my classes.  It is cliche but oh so true that I learn more from them most years than they probably learn from me.

I posted on my facebook the other day that all kids want is to be heard, whether or not we feel we "have time" or what they say "is important."  Everything they say is important, even baby babble.  I'll be honest, there are a million times I don't particularly want to hear about something but I stop and give the child my full attention--because 9 times out of 10 the other teachers or their parents don't.

I saw a quote on Pinterest that a mom posted about how if we don't stop to listen to the little things, our children will stop talking and won't tell us the "big" things...because to them, everything was always big. 

<3 Jen