Stress On The ECE Profession

Group Members:
Aileen Monsale, Anju Jha, Jennie Amaya, Judith Chachanidze, Taeko
Mizukami, and Ishrat Jahan
Our issue is stress on the ECE profession, and we advocate for their well-being by
providing strategies to manage their stressors toward delivering the best
practices to children, families,and community.
Stakeholders related to the stress are first of all, ECEs are under stress physically,
mentally, and financially to handle many things at work. It affects on their professional
performances to children and families. Children will perform better when they are in
well-organized environments and with warm and caring adults. Moreover, it impacts on
those around ECEs when they are not at work such as their families and friends. Workers
emotions are contagious, and stress impacts on the quality of their interactions with
others. When they manage their difficulties,they will affect others around them
positively. Moreover, if the warning signs of work stress not to be addressed, it may lead
to bigger problems.
1.

As rewarding as the ECE role is, stressors and anxiety does tend to follow for the
duty. According to AN EXAMINATION OF STRESS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
TEACHERS (2013), “Stress is often conceptualized in terms of the conditions that
create stress as well as the negative impacts of those stresses on the individual.
Often, stress is created by a complex of factors and conditions occurring within an
individual’s personal or professional life. For example, the workplace environment
can be a major source of stress for many individuals, and a number of
occupations are considered stressful.” Many of the factors including time
pressures, illness/sick days, shift work, after hours of paperwork, salary and
wages, family/staff relationships, etc.”
 2.What are the common symptoms of stress?
Mental Symptoms
·
● Memory problem
● Inability to concentrate
● Poor judgment
● Seeing only the negative
side
● Anxious or reacting
thoughts
● Constant worrying
Physical Symptoms
● Aches and pain
● Diarrhea or constipation
● Nausea or dizziness
● Chest pain or rapid
heartbeat
● Frequent cold
● Exhaustion
Behavioural Symptoms
● Eating more or less
● ·Sleeping too much or too
little
● Isolated yourself from
others
● Procrastinating or
neglecting responsibilities
● Using alcohol, cigarettes
or drugs to relax
● Nervous habits
3.How does the stress impact on the children, families and coworkers in ECE’s professional life?

· Early childhood educator has certain types of stress that negatively disturb mental and
physical health. Preschool and school age teachers face high loads stress, such as managing
upsetting kids, disruptive classroom manners, finishing mandatory paperwork, and making sure
that children are both socially and developmentally prepare. Wages are lower than other
professionals with comparable education levels and also long sift.
· The effects due to extensive stress sometimes create lots of diseases like heart disease,
sugar, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, disability and sometime life threatening.
· When child don’t get ideal development from their educator and environment, negative
thinking and poor judgments right away impact the parents because of their child’s well-being.
· ECE could not focused in her/his work, coworkers also experience stress because of
excessive workload, high target achievement, stress from children and their parents, and pressures
by supervisor or manager.
 4.How does stress impact on ECEs Personal life?
· Teaching has long been known as a stressful occupation.
· Accountability pressures, budget cuts, rising employments, more strict curricular expectations and heavier workloads
have made teaching more stressful than ever.
· ECE professionals in supervisorial positions, low incomes were mentioned as one of the main stressors of their job
(Caulfield, & Kataoka-Yahiro, 2001).
· Teacher to child ratios, administrative issues, long working hours and have also been known as sources of stress for
early educators.
· Regardless of its cause, stress can lead to many physical and emotional moments for educators.
· Stress can also create negative impacts for teachers; including turnover and burnout depersonalization, lack of a
sense of personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion have all been connected to teacher burnout (Grayson &
Alvarez, 2007).
· Working in early childhood education is demanding, but certain types of stress can negatively disturb mental and
physical health.
· According to AN EXAMINATION OF STRESS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS (2013), “Stress is often
conceptualized in terms of the conditions that create stress as well as the negative impacts of those stresses on the
individual. Often, stress is created by a complex of factors and conditions occurring within an individual’s personal or
professional life.
Stress Management Strategies -
5. What are strategies to support ECEs to reduce their stress levels and prevent them from further stressors?

❖ Physical/behavioural strategies
❏ Physical activities (Regularly)
Before implementing any
● Walking/ Swimming /Playing sports/ Yoga/ Tai Chi/ Qi
strategies it is important to
Gong/Stretching/ Breathing
❏ Obtaining some rest and adequate nutrients
● Accept you are in
● Adequate sleep at night
stress
● Power nap (15-30 minutes during the day)
● Identify the stress
● Balanced meal (Less junk and fast food)
factors
● Adequate amount of water intake per day (around 3 litters)
● Identify and
● Drinking Green tea instead of Coffee
understand your
❏ Modifying your behaviours
personal coping style
● Arrive at the program earlier or prior enough of the time
● Writing down things that they need to do and remember
● Making a schedule
● Do not procrastinating things /doing it at the last minutes
Stress Management Strategies
❖ Mental/ cognitive boosting strategies
● Foster a positive outlook and attract
● Being realistic (Do not overthinking)
● Setting a short-term SMART goal
● Meditation
● Mindfulness
● Guided Imagery
● Autogenic Training
● Express your feelings out (Laughing/Screaming /Crying
● Laughing (Watching comedy shows or/and movies)
● Spending in nature (Getting some fresh air)
● Plan outside activities/field trip with the class
❖ Social/environmental strategies
● Taking to someone (other family
members/ friends/ co-workers or/and
agency supervisors/principals)
● Anything that you enjoy out of work
(Hobbies/ Trips/Leisure)
● Appropriate physical touch (Hugging/
Kissing/ Patting or Tapping /Massages-)
6. What possible support ECE gets to deal with stress? (“The Empowered Educator” website )

“Seek out support groups and networking forums on Facebook, twitter and other networking social media channels to
lessen isolation and increase professional development and support in your role. Talk with others and be open to new ideas
and ways of doing things.”
“Use blogs, online articles, training and other forms of professional development to explore more efficient systems of
paperwork, programming and documentation. Make sure you feel comfortable and fully understand the professional
development options you choose. Seek further clarification if you need to, especially if you have paid for a service.”
“Focus on quality mentorship, coaching and counselling. Many other high pressure professions do this well and also allocate
funds to their staff to ensure they have someone impartial to speak to each month, set goals and work through issues and
concerns.”
“Increase the number of sick days for early childhood educators – yes seriously. There are a lot of bugs floating around this
working environment on a daily basis which means a higher incidence of time off work. Don’t make them feel guilty about it.”
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