Watch out for the quiet ones

I work just a handful of hours during the week in a daycare setting.  We take care of kids from 6 weeks to 6 years old.  On days when we're "full," that is around 30 kids, it is definitely chaotic.  Anyone would expect as much.  What has taken me months to learn is that the quiet kids are the ones you have to be careful of.

It's easy to watch the loud ones closely; you're eyes follow them without even being aware of it.  "Joseph, get down off that chair...."  "Lora, stop throwing those blocks...."  "George, please, please stop yelling....!"  But the quiet ones, they can be treacherous without ever being noticed.

I could hardly believe my eyes the first time I saw an incident.  One darling little blond-haired toddler who I rarely heard speak slammed her open hand into an unassuming child nearby.  The poor kid went flying to the floor in utter bewilderment.  It didn't take long for the sobbing to begin, but all the while I was in shock at what I had seen.  If I hadn't witnessed it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.  And weeks later, I found this same precious toddler stabbing another girl in the head with a marker.  My coworkers were so shocked, they didn't even have the heart to tell the parent what had really happened.

And this little girl is definitely not the only one.  What surprises me is that the children who really are the most aggressive are the ones who are the least noticeable.  Is it their learned tactics?  Have they taught themselves to be quiet in order to be more stealthy in their mischievousness?  Or do these traits simply go hand-in-hand?  Or is it merely a coincidence?

It's hard to know the correlation, and it's equally as hard to teach yourself to pay attention to the ones who seem like they don't need it.  When you're in a room full of kids, you learn to prioritize.  When I first started working in this setting, keeping tabs on the reserved kids wasn't a top priority.  Now, I realize that it's even more important than keeping tabs on the boisterous ones.

*This picture is not from work.

I just thought it would be fitting to put a picture of a crying baby at the end of this post, since this event is the typical byproduct of the work of the quietly aggressive..... :) 

(This crying baby happens to be my 11 month old, at home.)