Managing Mayhem: A True Early Years Tale

During my first term as an early career teacher, there was one particular child who was very difficult to manage, he might have only been five but goodness me, he was a piece of work.

One wet afternoon, after staying inside for too long, he decided to make up a new game. It didn’t matter that this game involved flushing other children’s work down the toilets- and the more the children cried, the more pieces of paper he decided to put in the toilet.

After managing to put an end to the act of vandalism, I encouraged the boy to take a time out. Naturally, he refused. That suggestion quickly turned into an instruction and the young lad was placed on the time out chair.

As soon as I turned to work with another child, he started wailing. And I mean, wailing. The kind of sound that is impossible to drown out, even in the cacophony of an Early Years classroom. It was like a wild animal that had lost its mother. The other children didn’t know what to make of this Jekyll and Hyde like character and looked at me for the answer, it was unfortunate that I was looking back at them, equally searching for the answer. I told the boy that he needed to take time out because he had made a lot of the class upset. I then spent all of two minutes with another child and suddenly the wailing had stopped. Thinking that the young perpetrator had had a moment of realisation and was remorseful for his actions, I turned around to see the lightbulb moment unfold.

I should have known better.

Instead, I turned around and saw that he had found my TA’s stamper from her phonics box and decided to cover his face with the ‘Superstar’ stamp. And I mean, cover it. It was like he had broken out into some strange skin condition that caused his face to turn blue.

The children looked at the young Smurf in their classroom and then looked at me. I, too, was playing eyeball tennis going from child to child, still hoping someone would know what to do.

One brave soul said, “Miss, how do you move someone from a time out chair when they have been in naughty in the time out chair?”

That my dear, is a very good question.

The lesson?

Never, ever, turn your back on someone in the time out chair. The chances are they will be plotting their revenge whilst you think everything is under control.