Teachers managing student behaviour

[Guest_84728806]

I feel like this is a taboo subject and can't find much about it. 

I'm suffering from PTSD from violent and aggressive behaviours from various students in a main stream primary school. I always felt that I was trying my best and unfortunately it wasn't the case with managing consistent aggressive behaviours. Staff were conflicted with managing this behaviour. 

I have now lost my ability to work with children due to the exposure for over 4 years. I feel lost as I have been deemed to have no capacity to work with any children due to the level of exposure of violence I have endured. 

I feel lost and neglected. 

[indigo22]

Hello,

Welcome and thank you for reaching out to us.

That sounds like an awful environment to work in and I am sorry to hear how much it has traumatised you. Unfortunately, it says a lot about the home environment if they are violent and aggressive in primary school, I shudder to think what they will be like at secondary school.

I just want to throw something out there for you to think about - what if teaching children is not the right path for you, but teaching adults is? Perhaps TAFE or University?

You could also think about doing talks on your experiences, keeping in mind that could either help with the PTSD or re-traumatise depending on your tolerance level.

You will always be welcome to share your thoughts here, this is a non-judgemental and very kind community so it may help to share some of your feelings with us.

Are you currently getting some help from a counsellor for your PTSD?

I am happy to continue this conversation if you wish.

Take good care of yourself,

indigo

[Guest_08712172]

It can be very tricky to not only manage the behaviour, but deal with it day in and day out - without it seeming to get any better or change anything.

I've been teaching for a few years, and my background before that is disability support for both children and adults. I now work in a mainstream school with some quite violent and challenging behaviours.

I would say there's a lot of teachers out there with PTSD from their career. I personally have been struggling lately - I have had 18 months of the same set of students, one of which is extremely violent. They have improved in that time, but it's been a very hard and stressful slog to get them to that point. And they still have violent outbursts sometimes. I also had a child staying with me at home who was very violent and aggressive as well. I feel like my body doesn't KNOW how to react normally to aggression now - I don't react at ALL. It's not fun.

If you have the capacity to seek some long-term counselling, I would strongly recommend it. Constant exposure to violence and stress takes its toll. You're not alone x

[Guest_73480585]

I’m a teacher and I get how you’re feeling. Teaching is a really tough job - kids are different to how they used to be and so are the families. I’ve been teaching for about 20 years and I’ve recently developed anxiety. For me, it’s the constant need for hyper vigilance and the lack of respect or understanding from some families. Someone suggested Tafe teaching - not a bad idea. What about online teaching to kids in international schools? One of my colleagues has been doing that this year and so think it’s going great. Your employment should have supported you better. If you worked in Public Eduction, you should report it to the incident report line. It’s not too late. There were some big reforms in recent years and they have become much better at supporting psychosocial workplace injuries. Take care.