So I am about to enrol in the teaching course for next year and I am very apprehensive. I feel as though my fight-or-flight response will be activated almost all of the time, so I’m praying I make it into OT should this job destroy my mental health more than I’m expecting it will. When tutoring, I had no idea what to say to kids sometimes, so I’m going to start a word document with things I could say in certain situations. Those certain situations:

• a kid calls me a cunt or a bitch or “rapeable” or says whatever the new inappropriate slang term is, like “GYAT” (my dad said to threaten them with him going after them and punching their heads in)

• talking over me

• bullying other kids

• more annoying tiktok slang

• questions about connecting on social media (they told us to prepare a response for this)

• questions about personal life (when I was in high school, someone asked the substitute teacher we had if she was a virgin and she just froze)

• refusal to follow instructions (this happened in tutoring with this one kid who refused to do any work and was disrespectful)

Also, wrong answers only for what you would do in these situations :p