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Leadership Skills For Child Care Professionals

End With A Smile
Julie Bartkus

“One of the things that keeps me motivated to stay in the teaching profession is all the humorous moments I encounter through the day.  When my workday comes to an end, I reflect on all the funny stuff.  Then I laugh and end my day with a huge smile on my face and I bring home a smile and share my humorous moments with my family so they can all end their day with a smile.”   -  Teacher

Wow!  What a great thing – to end your day with, a smile.  Not utter exhaustion and stress limits pushed to the max, but a smile to relish in and share with our loved ones.  Smiles and laughter - two things that children naturally share and pass on to others.  And boy, don’t we love it when they do! 

We also posses the ability to relish in a smile and have a few laughs at the end of the day.  And as leaders, we also have the ability to help our team members end their day with a smile, have a few laughs, and even more important – return with a smile.  How fabulous would that be?  Stress levels would be reduced, work would become more fun, team members would be more positive and look forward to coming to work, team members would connect with each other through sharing a few laughs, and overall - your entire team would enjoy being a part of the child care profession.  

So what are some strategies you can implement to help your team end their day with a smile? 

Well, the key is simple!  Help your team focus on the humorous moments that have occurred throughout the day. 

Here’s how -  

1)   In the bathroom or staff lounge create a place (a poster, white board, etc.) where team members can write down their most humorous moments for others to read.  Perhaps they’ll share a story about how a child, while eating breakfast, got a raison stuck between his/her eyes and didn’t even know it.

2)   Create a “Share the Funny” box and place in a convenient location for staff to share their most humorous moment through writing it down and depositing it in the box.  Then, before your next staff meeting read through the stories and pick out the top 5 or so to share at your staff meeting.  If your time is limited – create a “funny stuff” task force that select staff can be on.  Their mission - find the funny!

3)   Create a book filled with funny stories.  Joanne shared with me how one child actually brought a live kitty to school.  The teachers thought the child was joking until they heard “meow”.  The child opened her bag, and sure enough, she was not joking.  After the situation was dealt with appropriately, their team shared a laugh and ended up creating a book based on a little girl who brought her kitty to school.

4)   Create a most humorous moment award.  Have team members share their most humorous moments at a staff meeting, then, allow team members to vote on the most humorous moment and give that person an award.  Or make someone a judge and they can determine which moment gets the most laughs and then they can award the prize.

5)   Create a Share the Funny Day.  On this day the mission of each team member is to share their funniest child care/teaching moment with one other team member.

6)   Before the day ends, visit each classroom and ask team members to tell you about the most humorous moment they experienced today. 

 Again, the key is to help your team focus on the funny and end the day with a smile – you’ll be certain to end your day with a smile as well!  And remember you can assign a task force to help you with this mission - it’s not something you have to do alone.

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