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Kids can be very hurtful sometimes, but as adults, it is important to not let them get to you.
What would you do if you had a child who was in your after school care program who was always saying mean things to you, and then your manager asked if he should be kicked out of the program?
That is what happened to the person in this story, so she said that the kid should be kicked out, but some people think she was out of line.
While I think she is handling the kid poorly, in this case it seems like she didn’t do anything wrong by saying that kid should go. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.
AITA For getting a kid kicked out of my school’s after care program?
So for backstory, I am an after school care provider at a small, somewhat underprivileged elementary school in the South.
Kids can be a handful, that’s for sure.
I have been having issues with one of my students, let’s call him Nash.
Nash persistently acts out, and recently he has been directing this behavior at me personally.
Wow, this kid is very rude.
For context, I am on the heavier side, and am also female, and as such struggle with body image issues. Every day after school when I give the kids their snack Nash would always have a nasty remark prepared.
He would take his snack and say something like “Ms. Nasty Quibbits you’re too FAT for snacks”, or another remark relating to my appearance.
You can’t let kids get to you like this, especially if you work around them.
It has seriously affected me both mentally and emotionally to the point where I dreaded going to work and I dreaded snack time even more.
Flash forward to a few days ago when I was approached by a superior who wanted to talk about Nash’s behavior after school.
The school is making some budget cuts.
The gist of the conversation was that the school was making budget cuts, and would need to cut a portion of the kids using the school-subsidized after care program.
Nash was one of these kids, and my supervisor basically wanted to know how I felt about cutting him and if he was a disruption to the point of bothering the other children.
If some kids have to be cut, it may as well be the ones causing trouble.
I inquired as to why he was asking (it seemed odd to give him special attention, why not just cut him?) and he said that Nash’s father had recently been sentenced to a lengthy prison stay and his mother had begged not to be cut.
After thinking about it for a moment I said yes, and in retrospect his behavior with other children generally wasn’t much of an issue, however I decided that he was making me uncomfortable to the point of hindering my job performance and that it was putting the other children at risk.
She does need to stop blaming the child for how she feels about herself.
When I told my mother, though, she insisted I had abandoned the child and was behaving callously towards a child in need.
I tried to explain to her that it was affecting my job performance (she KNOWS how I feel about my weight), and that I would be doing the other children a disservice if I wasn’t at my best.
Mom seems a bit harsh.
But she just slammed the door in my face as if I was some sort of child abuser.
Personally, I don’t think the personal lives of these children are my concern, and it is there responsibility not to bring that attitude on school grounds.
AITA?
It isn’t like she went out of her way to get this kid kicked out. Some kids had to be cut, so why not cut the troublemakers? In the end, it was the boss’s decision, anyway.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.
Yeah, this kid needs help, and now he won’t get it.
This commenter doesn’t think she is cut out to work with kids, though.
Kids can be mean, no doubt about that.
Here is someone who says that she was way out of line.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a renter who receives a text saying his landlord has passed and asking for checks to go to a different account, but he’s not sure it’s real.
This commenter is exactly right.
Maybe kicking this kid out of class was the right move, but she was handling the situation poorly.
If you want to work with kids, you can’t let them get to you like that.
