Nursery/Babysitting with Aspergers

Several years ago, I was asked to do the choir practice nursery every Sunday. After a while I got burned out and gave it up for a few years. I have recently started doing it again, but this time I know about my Aspergers, and I am paying more attention to things that might trigger problems and burnout again and here are a few things that I have learned about myself in the last few weeks.

I am claustrophobic, both in small spaces and in places where there are too many people and especially when both of these are present. Some nurseries are very small and make me feel trapped and like I need to escape. Vaulted ceilings can help with me not feeling quite so claustrophobic, but floor space is also key. Sometimes there are too many people in the room and that also makes me feel like I need to get out so that I can breathe freely again.

I have also discovered that if there are other adults or even teenagers in the room it brings a social aspect to the situation and makes me second guess everything that I do because I am thinking about how they will judge me. From Sunday to Sunday, I didn't know who else would be joining me in the nursery. Sometimes I was the only adult with the kids and sometimes there are more adults than kids in the room. One Sunday it was just me and the kids (6 boys ages 4 and under) and that day was great and I felt very free. Yes, I had to chase the kids a little bit and break up a few fights, but I didn't have to worry about other adults judging me. My main goal was making sure the kids were safe and having fun. It doesn't bother me if I do something that they don't like while trying to keep them safe. They are kids and they will get over it and they will love me again. Adults, on the other hand, have the ability to judge your methods and I never know what they think of my methods. I become less attentive to the kids when there are adults in the room because I tend to become more worried about the social stuff with them than I am about watching each and every one of those kids all the time. I work better when the adult social stuff is taken out of the picture, and I can just focus on the kids. Now, I have a consistent partner in the nursery, and I don't feel judged by her. We each have our strengths and weaknesses, so we compensate for each other and work together very well.

My noise sensitivity and overload are also an issue. I can usually handle the kids' noise fine because they are kids, and I can tell them that they need to be quieter. But, if other adults in the room are loud it makes me want to get out of there fast. I don't feel the freedom to tell an adult that their voice is too loud and is bothering me, whereas I feel very free to tell kids that they don't need to yell or scream in order to get my attention. My mom was a very quiet and soft-spoken lady, and I learned a lot of my childcare skills from watching her raise all 7 of us kids all of my childhood. She never yelled at us, and we always knew that we needed to obey her. I tend to follow in her footsteps when it comes to dealing with kids. Sometimes people are loud without realizing it, whether it be due to loss of hearing or just because that is the volume that they are used to using. It is still hard to deal with the noise for too long of a time, no matter the reason that they have for being loud. It causes sensory overload for me and makes me want to get out of there as fast as I can. The loud noises take priority in my brain over most everything else and makes it hard for my mind to process other things that are happening, especially with the kids. For the safety of the children in my care, I need to not have loud adult voices to deal with.