Before I begin my reply, I know that even though I do not have any children of my own (praise the Lord that some girl wasn't dumb enough to get knocked up by me of all people), but I have been a child care provider for almost a year now, so I believe I do have some valuable insight and experience on working with kids.

Dragoon, I don't think that what you're doing is wrong by saying that you want things to not get messy, I completely understand that. While at work, I am the same way; I don't want children to go home all dirty to their parents and at the same time I don't want to go back to work after dropping off my client/having client get picked up just to clean up after a child. Obviously, I do what I can to keep a child clean, but if a client is having a blast, playing with others in a positive manner, or just generally having a good day and is getting a bit dirty, I'm not gonna put the kibosh to their fun, lol. But in the same token, I make sure that the kids that I work with are doing what their supposed to be doing if their goal is to stay clean or whatnot. A client that I work with several times a week, his goal is to pick up after himself. Granted, to many people this seems like an easy goal, but the child is an 8 year old happy go lucky kid that happens to have autism and ADHD, so obviously some conflicts can occur, but I try my best to stay consistant as possible.

One such example of this is when I worked with my regular client that I discussed earlier. The first thing we normally do when he gets off the bus is we go to the classroom in the center and hang up our coats and backpacks. When I first started working with my client, he would become very upset to the point of crying whenever we put our things away, and it took him dozens of prompts just to get him to finally hang his stuff up. He would scream, cry, curse (like a sailor I might add), and throw himself on the floor, but I held my ground and stood infront of the door to the classroom until he would do what he was told. Nowadays, he has gotten a lot better in that aspect, and requires few prompts to hang up his stuff. In fact I worked with him earlier today and I didn't even have to prompt him once; the two of us just talked about how school went while we walked down the hall and he hung up his stuff by himself, then we went to the gym to play.

On the topic of discipline, yes, it is necessary at times, but from my experience I have noticed that it is all about how you administer the discipline instead of what you decide to do. One of my trademark moves I use is called the "laser beam stare", where I get the client's attention by calling out their name, and once they see me, I bow my a head a tiny bit and give them a stern look of disapproval. Usually for most of my clients, this is a big enough warning to them to stop being naughty. If the shenanigans continue, then I will drop what I'm doing (sometimes I'll drop my clipboard a little harder then normal just to get their attention) and slowly walk towards them. Not only do I have their attention, the slow walk gives time for the clients to de-escalate themselves and the situation at hand. If the situation continues, I will ask the client what they are doing and if they want to stay where they are or try another activity. If they want to stay in the room, then I tell them they need to behave otherwise we're going to do something else. This gets them to settle down and an incentive to continue their activity while being good. Usually I will try to stay away from using force, but there have been times when a client has attempted to hurt property and other clients, so I had no other choice but to restrain a client physically. It's never a good feeling to do so and I feel like I was a terrible staff member afterwards, but it was the only way to keep the client from injuring his self and others. Also, the whole discipline thing thing is very frustrating to me in regards to other staff members as well. Although compared to other staff, I am above average in being stern, but I've had clients that don't know how to cooperate any other way, so it was out of necessity moreso than anything, so occasionally I will have another staff member making a comment about me being "mean". I'm like, "are you serious?" Even though everyone goes through training before working at my job, you can always seperate the "good" workers over the "other" ones, simply through their interactions with other clients and through what kind of schedule of clients they have during the week. When I have a staff that tells me that I am mean, I simply scoff it off, because they have never had to deal with clients that can escalate to situations of violence and resistance like the flip of a switch. I may sound mean, but I do it to protect my client, like out of love, not because I want to.

But back to the first question, do qualities show up in children through their parents? Oh yeah, both good and bad. You can always tell which kids have had a good upbring vs kids that have not. It's very easy to pick out a kid who has always gotten their way, and you can always tell what kind of television that a child is watching just by listening onto their conversation while playing. And not only do qualities show up from parents, they can also show up from their brothers and sisters as well. I have a client that has 8 brothers and sisters. Even under normal circumstances, he is a handful at home because it is a struggle for him to get one on one attention for him and his parents, but add in the fact that he has been accustomed to his household where "the loudest voice is heard" and the fact that he has mild M.R., he will try to get the attention of his parents through screaming, cursing, and kicking others. Now, whenever I work with him, I pick him up from his house and notice these tendancies, and as soon as we drive up to the center, his behavioral problems are completely eliminated; he is getting the attention that he needs, and he is acting in a positive manner. So yeah, that shows up as well.

As for the second question, I can't really answer that one because I have no children as of yet, but due to be being brought up to be polite and share with others, I try to instill that on other clients that I work with if I feel they are having troubles in that department. If a client asks me of something, I will usually give them a look or something, like I want them to say "please" and they most frequently pick up on that. Also, I try to have clients play with others in a group setting, because I feel that the children can learn from each other (yes this can be both good and bad lol) and it's always a great thing to share the imagination with someone.