Advice from one Childcare worker to another

Hello, I’ve worked with kids for about a year now, but as of right now, I started a new job in a before/after school program. For the most part my method with children is pretty solid. I always open communication with a child on their emotions, I build understanding through demonstrating respect, and discipline will only be given as a last resort. My main issue is these methods can only go so far if a parent is not very collaborative with our program. A big part of nurturing a child’s growth is being able to know who they are, and a lot of that process comes from communicating with both the child, but also with their parents. I’ve noticed that some of the best results we’ve had with behavioral and emotional development also involves a parent that is cooperative about speaking with us about their child’s emotional needs and daily behavioral regulations that are effective.

An issue I can never seem to tackle alongside a dismissive parent, is a child that is disrespectful. Children make mistakes, but disrespect for me is talking back, blatantly disregarding established rules, lying, and so on. To be more particular with my current situation, I have two students that display this kind of behavior. I could actively watch them do something they know they aren’t supposed to, and they look at me, laugh, and continue to do it anyway. They are wonderful kids when they’re separate, but together, they continue to bounce off each other in this way till I’m nearly burnt out. Once again, my methods only go so far without a collaborative parent, and theres only so much reaching out we can do to get a parent to speak with us about their child, so I’m left in the dark here. These two kids are not very communicative, so even though I demonstrate that I will always be here to listen to their feelings and struggles, and making a point of opening communication first, I’m usually hit with “I don’t care” or “I don’t want to talk to you”. I will never force a child to speak with me about something personal, but I always encourage that if they have something thats bothering them, its better to talk about it with someone they trust, than to take it out on other people. As a last resort, I’ve had to try time outs where the two are separate, which worked for a little while until they realized I can’t force them to sit apart or to stop doing something when I ask, so it then just becomes a chaos of rule breaking that I have a very difficult time controlling. To avoid having this post be any longer, I’m just gonna say that I’ve preached and displayed values and good morals at every angle in my book, and I continue to hit a wall. I just want whats best for all my kids, and it breaks my heart every time I have to leave work knowing I haven’t even made a dent on how to help these kids :(