Board 8 > Another topic about teaching small children

(+) Yeah! (+)

How am I supposed to do anything about a kids behavior in a 40 minute class they are paying for. I cant time out or send them home for bad behavior can I? On the other hand it is basiclaly ruining the class for the kther kids who have also paid. I nearly cried and ended the class 5 minutes early. I just feel totally useless.
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You can certainly time them out, provided they're still supervised unless the laws got ridiculous. Sometimes you've just gotta get them into an area where they can calm down and not affect others. Sorry it's taking its toll on ya.
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Did you play the card of threatening to tell the parents?

Are you a private teacher? Assuming you're a contractor and this is your business (like a private music instructor or something), then maybe you can draft a contract that stipulates your right to "time-out" kids who are misbehaving and negatively impacting the learning environment for other students, whether their parents paid for it or not.

Though I have no idea if that's something you can do. Perhaps you can provide us some more info?
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Time out or send them home
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Ready for the Whisky yet?
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Are you my kid's yoga teacher?

If so I am so sorry.
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When I taught in South Korea, I had this problem too. If you try in any way to discipline or punish the kid, you risk losing their business (and angering your boss) so you have to try to think of clever workarounds...I don't know what you are doing in class, but I would usually play games with the kids in the last 5-15 minutes in class. So I would bribe them that they need to behave so that we can all get through the lesson/work and get to game time. It doesn't always work, but the kids tended to blame the kid acting out instead of the teacher so at least there is that. You can also devise a system of rewards for good behavior, like stickers or candy or something. I usually did a three strike system where either losing them all means no reward or each strike means losing some of the reward. In addition, if you are new at this, it just kind of takes time for some of the kids to warm up to you and treat you with respect. It will get way easier (though its never EASY, kids are tough)

It's a preschool music class the entire thing is basically games and movement, coloring, and keyboard time with very minimal instruction that is super tactile and visually stimulating.

In the earlier topic I mentioned one child who was not responsive to me or her mother being present in the room and she quit. I'm a subcontractor so I am trying to not lose any more business but either the bad kid is going to get pulled like the first kid or maybe the good kids parents will say forget the class next time they cant control the kids while my kid wants to learn.
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Do you have a supervisor at all who you can ask for advice? It seems like you need to talk to the kid's parents about the kid's behavior. I would definitely try some of the things the previous user suggested, though. Pre-K music doesn't mean no discipline! You gotta lay down the law a little bit. Believe me though. Kids are HARD. Don't feel bad for crying, okay? I cried after a bad day when I was student teaching last semester. It's rough. The /r/teachers reddit tends to be very responsive and incredibly helpful. Maybe make a post there!
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My wife teaches paid swim lessons to little kids, and she told me once about this one kid who had autism and he was straight up trying to drown another kid. The grandmother of the kid was the caretaker and she was trying her damnedest to defend her grandchild, but at the end of the day they decided to ban him from swim lessons unless he got help, not because he was autistic, but because of what you said, the fact that it was ruining the class for everyone else. Special exceptions can only go so far. Paying for the lessons doesn't mean **** either, people in high school get sent home all the time for breaking rules, paying anything doesn't make you immune to punishment, and you shouldn't let that keep you from utilizing discipline if the nice teacher approach isn't working. Think of it like this: If you make one family mad because of your discipline and they withdraw, you aren't risking all the other families who have done nothing wrong getting mad and withdrawing. If that one family doesn't like it that's their own fault, not yours. It's their fault for having such an uncontrollable child, that's part of the price they have to pay. In my wife's case, the kid's grandmother wasn't happy, but it prevented a potentially dangerous situation even though it sucked. I know this may not be to that level, but it speaks to the fact that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, even if someone's going to get unreasonably upset

Tl;dr if you can't make everyone happy, try to make the most people happy. Don't let one bad apple ruin the entire harvest.
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Thanks, people. One more week and then it's summer. I'm going to be working on some ground rules and parent info for next years classes with my boss.
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