Second Year SPED IA Advice

I am in my second year as a SPED Instructional Assistant in my district. I work for a k-5 elementary school. Last year, my job was incredible. I was fortunate to spend about 95% of my day with one 4th-grade class and spent other blocks with another 4th-grade teacher. Both classroom teachers were extremely supportive of me. I have a more introverted personality, but their support and the way the students appreciated and respected the help I provided, gave me a level of confidence that I was so grateful for and needed at the time.

I studied Elementary Education as an undergrad, so I know that a lot of my day is going to focus on behavior management. Feeling supported by colleagues helped me find my voice and not be afraid to redirect kids or advocate for them or myself throughout the day. Over the past couple of months, I have noticed a shift. The behavior of some of the students and classes I am with during the day feels drastically different from last year. Some students just continue to be disrespectful. I am understanding of things at the beginning of the year, as everyone transitions to dealing with a new teacher and new classmates, but this is now the second half of the year. Certain kids that I worked with last year seem to be much more disrespectful. One of my biggest problems is that I will internalize things too deeply. I know I won't be able to reach every student I work with, but I feel like I am constantly reflecting to see ways I can improve or different approaches I can take. Even if I feel like I am struggling with a student, I don't ever want it to seem like I am giving up on them.

This year I work with several classes of 3rd-5th graders. To summarize my biggest challenges student-wise, a 4th grader that I work with rarely accomplishes the task that his teacher assigns. This is one of the teachers that I worked with last year. I feel like I have tried to have more patience with him because she has grown more frustrated. I don't want to be responsible for him feeling like adults are giving up on him with behavior or academics, but every staff member who works with him is aware of the problems. Part of the problem is I believe he did not receive services until this year, so his 3rd-grade teacher faced a lot of difficulties. Today, I was with him for 30 minutes for social studies. In that entire time, he typed one sentence for a project they were completing and that's with me supporting him. I know without someone there, he maybe wouldn't even get that done. In another 4th-grade class, yesterday, a student told me she didn't need help when I walked in the room. A few seconds later, I noticed her name was written on the board under people who wanted "help". I asked her why she didn't want help from me when she seemed stuck. She told me she wanted her teacher to help, but I told her that she was busy helping someone else, but I was available.

TLDR: I am feeling a level of concern in my second year as a SPED Instructional Assistant. I feel like the kids I'm working with are either not putting forth effort or there is a level of helplessness/lack of independence until a teacher comes to help them. They also seem to be more disrespectful and are not very responsive to any type of redirect when it comes to inappropriate behaviors, whether it comes from me or their teacher. I have had direct conversations with the teachers of the students I am concerned about. I think my biggest concern is that I frequently get thanked by the teachers whose classrooms I come into, but I sometimes walk out of there feeling like I didn't accomplish enough. I am in my head for some reason that I am letting them and possibly the students down. I am still enjoying my job overall, but how do I let go of some of the tougher moments to recapture the level of confidence I felt last year?