Consider this hypothetical morning. A preschool teacher comforts a crying child while another knocks over a shelf. Her assistant is absent, a family needs a meeting, and assessments are due. She loves teaching but wonders whether she can continue.
The Facebook video shared from Bored Teachers brings together educators’ accounts of difficult behavior, strained relationships with families, inadequate administrative support, and expanding workloads (Bored Teachers, n.d.). These accounts deserve attention, although social media comments cannot establish how often these experiences occur across the profession. Early childhood encompasses birth through age 8, the span addressed in Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp’s (2009) edited volume on developmentally appropriate practice. NAEYC’s current guidance retains this scope (NAEYC 2020a). Teacher retention therefore concerns educators in infant care, preschool, kindergarten, and the primary grades.
Continuity matters for children. An infant learns a familiar caregiver’s routines; a preschooler relies on an adult who understands their play. NAEYC’s program guidance connects staff retention with stable relationships between children and teachers (NAEYC, 2020a).
One developmental span across two systems
This age span crosses two broad, overlapping systems: early care and education before kindergarten, including child care, Head Start, and prekindergarten; and elementary education within the K–12 system. Public prekindergarten can connect these systems. Walker and Wooleyhand (2022) urge school leaders to understand both systems and the developmental continuum they serve.
Different funding and qualification arrangements can produce different working conditions across settings. The National Academies’ workforce analysis describes fragmented preparation, oversight, and professional support across the continuum from birth through age 8 (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2015). Retention efforts should respond to those differences while building continuity for children and educators.
What burnout reveals about working conditions
Research supports examining the organization of teachers’ work. In a study using survey data from 320 childcare professionals collected before the pandemic, organizational and administrative challenges were associated with burnout. Burnout was also related to how difficult educators perceived responding to common challenging behaviors to be (Mondi et al., 2024). These associations do not establish which factor causes the other.
Financial pressure adds another burden. The Early Childhood Workforce Index 2024 reported a national median early educator wage of $13.07 per hour, using 2022 data (McLean et al., 2024). That historical figure describes early care and education workers, not the salaries of all teachers serving children through age 8.
School-based educators face pressure too. RAND’s 2024 survey found that roughly twice as many public K–12 teachers reported frequent job-related stress or burnout as comparable working adults (Doan et al., 2024). These findings describe K–12 teachers overall; they do not provide separate estimates for early childhood educators.
Children need guidance and teachers need protection
The video’s descriptions of aggression deserve a serious response. Teachers should be able to summon assistance, protect other children, and receive follow-up after an injury. Asking an overwhelmed educator to manage repeated unsafe behavior without additional support is an inadequate leadership response.
Early childhood practice also requires care in interpreting behavior. NAEYC’s standards emphasize understanding development in context and using teaching approaches responsive to individual children (NAEYC, 2020b). A toddler who bites and a second grader who argues need responses informed by their communication skills, developmental capacities, and circumstances.
Consider a hypothetical preschooler who hits during transitions. A team might observe when hitting occurs, shorten waiting periods, introduce a visual schedule, and teach the child how to request help. The teacher needs another adult available during the difficult transition and access to specialists when individualized support is needed.
An infant teacher may need help interpreting distress and organizing responsive routines. A primary teacher may need support teaching conflict resolution while maintaining instruction. Expectations should match children’s development, with clear boundaries and repeated opportunities to practice.
Co-regulation means adults help children manage feelings and actions while children develop those capacities. Teams should also examine whether expectations overlook a child’s disability, home language, or cultural experience. That examination should lead to practical adjustments and consistent teaching of safe behavior (NAEYC, 2020b).
Protecting teachers and supporting inclusion require coordinated action. Programs should establish a response plan with named responsibilities, communicate with families, and review whether the plan improves safety. The Center of Excellence for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation offers guidance for developing individualized support when persistent behavior exceeds what routine classroom strategies can address (Center of Excellence, n.d.).
Family partnership requires shared responsibility
Some educators in the video describe feeling blamed when children struggle. Such experiences can erode trust. Yet labeling families as uncaring can also prevent educators from understanding what is happening. A missed phone call may reflect a work schedule, language barrier, or an earlier experience of being dismissed. NAEYC’s guidance calls for relationships in which educators seek families’ knowledge and maintain communication that works for them (NAEYC, 2020a). Programs can support this by providing interpreters, flexible meeting times, and clear agreements about respectful communication.
When concerns arise, describe observable events and invite information. For example, a teacher might explain that a child pushed peers during cleanup, ask what helps with transitions at home, and agree with the family on a consistent response. Administrators should participate when conversations become hostile or repeatedly stall. They should hear families’ concerns, examine classroom conditions, and ensure teachers receive fair consideration. Shared responsibility includes adults following through on agreed actions and teaching children achievable ways to repair harm.
Administrative support must change the working day
Support becomes credible when educators can identify what changed after they requested help. Classroom coverage, accurate incident records, and dependable follow-up make that support visible. NAEYC’s recommendations for programs connect developmentally appropriate practice with mentoring, planning time, suitable staffing arrangements, and compensation that helps retain qualified educators (NAEYC, 2020a). Directors and principals should examine whether their schedules and budgets provide those conditions. Directors and principals can arrange shared coaching and transition planning while preserving developmentally appropriate expectations.
Daily working conditions also matter. Build schedules that provide bathroom access, meal breaks, and dependable relief. Review whether group size and staffing allow adults to respond to individual children throughout the day. In family child care homes, shared substitute networks and coaching partnerships can help providers manage these responsibilities. Coaching should occur within paid work time and address an educator’s actual classroom questions. A coach might observe a transition, model a strategy, and return to discuss the teacher’s observations. Reflective supervision can provide space to examine difficult interactions without assuming that asking for help signals incompetence.
Leaders also need support. Directors continually filling vacancies need administrative assistance, leadership preparation, and realistic workloads so they can coach staff.
Professional judgment needs time and room to operate
The transcript describes paperwork and testing that consume time without bringing additional resources. Leaders should examine every required record and ask what decision it informs. When several platforms require the same information, consolidation can release time for teaching and reflection. NAEYC’s assessment guidance emphasizes using information to improve children’s learning and cautions against excessive standardized assessment, particularly in kindergarten through third grade (NAEYC, 2020a). Useful documentation might capture how a child solves a problem, joins play, or applies a reading strategy.
Professional agency requires opportunities to explain instructional decisions. Teachers should discuss their learning goals, the observations informing an adjustment, and what children demonstrated afterward. NAEYC’s professionalism standard emphasizes reflective, intentional judgment and collaborative learning (NAEYC, 2020b). Programs can retain clear expectations while inviting educators to adapt materials, grouping, and pacing. Such decisions need protected planning time and feedback. Adding a requirement to individualize instruction without providing that time simply adds another demand.
Accountability can include reviewing children’s work together and discussing why a teaching strategy helped or failed. It should also include reviewing whether administrators supplied the promised support. When only the teacher’s performance is examined, problems in scheduling, resources, or leadership can remain untouched.
Fair compensation requires dependable investment
Better working conditions must include wages and benefits. Following California educators from 2020 to 2023, researchers identified inadequate wages as the leading reported driver of leaving early care and education jobs; job demands and work environments also mattered (Powell et al., 2024). These findings describe that study, not a national departure rate. Programs should publish compensation pathways that recognize responsibilities, experience, and preparation. Health coverage, paid leave, and retirement contributions should be part of the discussion. Infant and toddler teaching deserves recognition for its specialized demands. Review pay equity across race, gender, classroom age group, and employment setting annually.
Families cannot be expected to finance every improvement through higher tuition. The Workforce Index recommends sustained public funding that accounts for compensation and professional supports (McLean et al., 2024). Funding decisions should reflect the cost of delivering the quality that standards describe.
Retention requires visible follow through
A practical first step is to ask educators which conditions most interfere with their teaching. Within 30 days, leaders can select one change, assign responsibility, provide resources, and establish a review date. Progress might mean fewer missed breaks, reliable planning coverage, or faster assistance during unsafe incidents.
Staff can then consider: Which expectations currently exceed available support? What have we learned from teachers who left? What evidence would show that staying has become more sustainable?
Teachers should see changes promptly, and leaders should explain unmet commitments. Educators deserve working conditions that allow them to carry out their responsibilities with skill and dignity.
References
Bored Teachers. (n.d.). Celebrating educators everyday [Video]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1KZ69yNhT8/
Center of Excellence for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation. (n.d.). Facilitating toolkit. https://www.iecmhc.org/resources/toolkits/facilitating-toolkit/
Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (Eds.). (2009). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8 (3rd ed.). National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Doan, S., Steiner, E. D., & Pandey, R. (2024). Teacher well-being and intentions to leave in 2024: Findings from the 2024 State of the American Teacher Survey (Report No. RR-A1108-12). RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA1108-12 RAND
Institute of Medicine & National Research Council. (2015). Transforming the workforce for children birth through age 8: A unifying foundation. The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/19401 nationalacademies.org
McLean, C., Austin, L. J. E., Powell, A., Jaggi, S., Kim, Y., Knight, J., Muñoz, S., & Schlieber, M. (2024). Early childhood workforce index—2024. Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley. https://cscce.berkeley.edu/workforce-index-2024/ CSCCE
Mondi, C. F., Magro, S. W., Rihal, T. K., & Carlson, E. A. (2024). Burnout and perceptions of child behavior among childcare professionals. Early Childhood Education Journal, 52(8), 1803–1814. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01518-3 Experts@Minnesota
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2020a). Developmentally appropriate practice [Position statement]. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap/contents
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2020b). Professional standards and competencies for early childhood educators [Position statement]. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/professional-standards-competencies
Powell, A., Muruvi, W., Austin, L. J. E., & Copeman Petig, A. (2024). “I could not afford to continue”: Job changes and exits in early care and education. Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley. https://cscce.berkeley.edu/publications/data-snapshot/california-job-changes/
Walker, J., & Wooleyhand, C. (2022, March/April). Leading for the early years. Principal, 101(4), 20–24. https://www.naesp.org/resource/leading-for-the-early-years/
About the Author
Victoria Long-Coleman, Ph.D., MBA is the Founder and Principal of Early Childhood Innovations. An early childhood educator, leadership, coach, author, speaker, she focuses on strengthening educators, developing leaders, and translating research into practical approaches that improve early childhood systems.
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