30. How to Tell If You're a Teacher Who Needs to Set Boundaries

Do you feel like school and teaching just take over your life from August to May? Are you already feeling overwhelmed this school year, even though it's just getting started? It may be time for some boundaries. If you can check yes to any of these things mentioned in this episode, it may be time to stop and set some rules for yourself for where the school day ends and your personal life begins.

If you feel like this episode was like someone peeking over your shoulder into your life, there's still hope. Coming October 8: Teachaholic: The 7-Day MindSET Shift to Conquer Burnout, Build Life-Changing Boundaries, and Reignite Your Love for Teaching will be available in paperback and on Kindle on Amazon. It's how I overcame burnout and continue to teach full-time, without letting teaching consume my life. 

You can join the Teachaholic Launch Team here!

If you want to get a head start on the book, download the 20+ page Teachaholic Action Guide to begin your journey back from burnout here.

Learn more about the book at www.erinsponaugle.com/book

Get your copy of Teachaholic: The 7-Day MindSET Shift to Conquer Burnout, Build Life-Changing Boundaries, and Reignite Your Love for Teaching at www.erinsponaugle.com/book.

You can download the Teachaholic Action Guide to begin your journey back from burnout here.

Download your FREE checklist, The Great 88: Rules, Routines, and Expectations to Go Over and Over, and feel confident establishing classroom management.

For more resources on classroom management, time management, and preserving mental well-being to avoid teacher burnout, visit www.erinsponaugle.com.

Find more upper elementary classroom resources by visiting Next Chapter Press on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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Transcript

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Being a teacher isn't what it used to be. The good news is you don't have to figure it out on your own. If you're looking for truth, inspiration and tips for success in the classroom and beyond you're in the right place it's time to turn the page to the future of the profession this is the next chapter for teachers podcast Hello everyone, I'm Erin Spinaugel. Welcome back to the Next Chapter for Teachers podcast. We are gonna continue our discussion today about things we can do to make teaching a little more doable and a little less stressful so that we can prolong our time in the classroom. Last week, we talked about the five signs of teacher burnout and I introduced what's coming October 8th, my book, Teachaholic, which will cover all about burnout boundaries and creating a life where your classroom does not have to always be center stage. And today we're going to talk about the signs that make you realize that you need to set better boundaries as a teacher. So you might do some of these things I'm going to talk about. You might do one or two of these things, but even if you just do one of them, one of them is an issue. It can throw everything else off balance. And you as a teacher and as a person deserve better than that. You deserve to be able to have a life that you live outside of school and you deserve to enjoy your job and enjoy teaching. But if you don't have good boundaries and your job consumes your life, even if it's something you really enjoy, if your job is like a jobby job slash hobby and you, you know, you like doing certain things for fun, with teaching or creating things, it can become all-consuming and then you start to resent it. And that's no fun for anybody. That's not good for you. It's not good for your classroom. And we want to do things or come up with ways of processing or managing the things that are thrown at us or the expectations of the classroom so that they don't run our lives. So we're going to get right to it. Signs that you need boundaries or that you have an issue that you need to address so you can have a better life and you can not let teaching be everything to you in your spare time. So the first sign that might show you that you need to set better boundaries is... You're the last car in the parking lot. Now, there are times we are the last car in the parking lot because you have something that you do after school, certain days of the week, or it's conferences, or it's a special event. Those things are okay. I mean, we all have things that we enjoy. We have different responsibilities that we take on for extra pay, or because it's something that means a lot to us. I'm talking about if you are consistently late getting out of there every single day. Maybe you're not quite the last car, but it comes pretty close and you're dragging yourself across the parking lot to your vehicle and there's hardly anybody left except maybe the custodian. So why is this not a great thing? Well, there's a whole lot of life to be lived outside of school and you deserve to live it. And if you are always staying late, that prevents you from getting home and just having time to do the basic things like eat a good dinner or talk to your family or just do nothing for a little bit. That's allowed. You can just have a moment where you need to decompress and you just look at the TV or you look outside and nobody talks to you. Sometimes that's great. Sometimes I just like it to be quiet and sit in my car when I come home for a But if you're always the last car in the parking lot, you're really limiting the life you can live outside of the classroom. And you might say, but there's so much to do. I know there's gonna be a lot of but what abouts when I talk about these today. But there's so much to do. There's I can't get it all done. Sometimes you have to walk away. And it's a very hard thing to do when you want to do your best. And it's not saying that you won't do your best. You might actually surprise yourself when you do leave on time. or leave closer to the end of your contracted day than you would if you stayed and stayed and stayed and kept going at it to the point that you are so tired that when you get home, you can't function. That's no way to live. And we want to live. We don't just want to exist and go through the motions as teachers or as human beings. There's a lot of life that just deserves to be lived. So if you're the last car in the parking lot, You need to take a step back and do some serious thinking. All right. The next one. If you are grading or lesson planning late into the night, you might have a boundary problem. So I get it. All right. I taught fifth grade for 15 years. And before that I taught third and fourth grade. There's a lot to be graded. There's a lot to plan. There are a lot of heavy expectations that keep coming at you and often Grading and planning come on your time. And sometimes that means you're taking it home and you're doing it. Or actually, what am I? Who am I kidding here? You're taking it home a lot, aren't you? But if you're doing it up to the minute that you go to bed, that is, it's not fair to you. It's not fair to your family. And chances are, the later you go doing things, the more mistakes you're going to make because your reaction time is down, your brain's getting tired and fuzzy, and it's going to start skipping over things that you probably could have caught if you had enough sleep. But it's when you start doing that, or when or if you do that, greeting and planning kind of becomes your evening activities. And it'll eventually just kind of suck you dry as far as your excitement and motivation go. It's a very big cause of burnout. Just having to do that monotonous work into the evening. And I get it. I know it's got to get done. But there's got to be a better way of doing it. And there are some things that need to just be done at school. And if people see that those things don't get done during the school day, well, there needs to be some changes. And I know that there are things that are always added to our plates. But that doesn't mean that you have to keep taking it home with you. You need a break from it. So that's number two. Next one we're going to talk about. If you are answering emails and communications after school hours, you might have a problem with your boundaries. So I know that sometimes we don't have time during the day to answer emails, get back in touch with parents, but that doesn't mean that you are a 24 seven customer service line. Uh, If you are answering emails or sitting at your computer responding to people late at night, that's going into your personal time. And you would be much better off just answering those or taking care of it the following school day. What I would do or what I would do is if you have a lot to do during your planning period or your lunchtime or you don't want to be bothered during your lunchtime, reserve like the last five to ten minutes of that time, the end time, for a chance to answer emails or respond to phone calls or communications so that That doesn't take up your entire planning period or lunchtime because if you do it at the end, you will have to either be more concise with your responses or you will have to exit stage right of the conversation or the email because you'll need to go pick up your class or you'll need to get back to teaching. But those things shouldn't follow us home because you deserve to have a break just like that parent's job doesn't only Always follow them home. They get to go home and take care of their child and their life. Same thing goes with you. You should be able to get a break from it and not have to answer emails after you have gone home for the day. All right, the fourth thing, a sign you might need boundaries. You say yes to everything. And this is a big thing I talk about in my book, being able to say no or having the right to cut back on the things that you do. Let's talk about being a yes person or a yes teacher. Up front, it sounds like a great thing that you're giving and dedicated and you want to help. And you can be all of those things without saying yes all the time. If you say yes to everything, your yes means absolutely nothing. And people will start to think that, oh, you'll just say yes to everything. They'll just assume that this will be okay. But that's not good because your time is valuable. And it's a lot to just get through the school day. If you're having a school year where there's been so many extra things that have been added to your plate, you might be having a year that's causing you an enormous amount of stress. Saying yes to more things just to be nice isn't nice. It's not nice to you. And in the end, it won't be nice to your students or your class because you're going to be more tired and have more that you need to do. And that's going to be less time that you'll be able to give them the best quality self that you can during the And it's also not fair to your family for the same reasons, because if there's less of you to go around, then that's not fair to them. So if you say yes to everything, it's time to take a step back. And then the last one I'm going to mention for today that's a sign that you might need boundaries. If you have few interests or very little identity, self-identity, outside of teaching, you need to set boundaries. teaching can become very all-consuming especially when you are starting out and you are trying to learn the ropes you know you might have to spend more time doing things than other people that have taught for a while but that can snowball and you can just get wrapped up in the entire ecosystem in the entire day that is in the classroom and you can't break away from it and you your interests, your what things you think about, the things you aspire to do, even everything revolves around being a teacher. That's a recipe for burnout. And I know that because I've experienced it. There was a time in my life where I became all consumed with all things teaching. And I felt like I couldn't get a break from it. And it just about broke me. When I started I started having interest or learning about things, doing things that had nothing to do with the classroom. It really enriched my own life and it helped me be a better teacher because I had a different perspective on things because I wasn't so hyper-focused on... and the classroom and education and and and it just seemed to never ever stop which is way why I got to the point where I just burnt out so having hobbies having interest having other goals and ambitions that maybe have nothing to do with the classroom does not make you a bad teacher make you a less dedicated teacher it just makes you a full and complete human being and that's okay Okay, that's good. We need to be those things because we're human beings in addition to being teachers. So if any of these were an issue that when you heard me mention them, it's okay. There is hope. I had issues with all of these at some point in my teaching career and here I am still standing. It's going to be okay because I've got a boundary blueprint for you. And that boundary blueprint is is Teachaholic. My book will be available October 8th. We're going to talk about having a mindset shift, setting boundaries, finding ways that we can improve our practice so that we can love teaching without having it consume our everlasting last moment. So just as a review, here are some signs that you might need to set better boundaries between your life and your school life. You're the last car in the parking lot. You just can't get out of there on time, ever, or close to on time, nowhere near on time. If you are grading and planning late into the night, every night, your grade book or your laptop is attached to your, feels like it's attached to your body, you might have a boundary problem. If you are answering emails and other communications, after hours late into the night even you might need some boundaries saying yes to everything can't feel feel like you can't say no let's work on that and if you have very few interests or your identity is all wrapped up in teaching it's time for some boundaries because you deserve to be a complete whole and happy and healthy human being so next time we're going to talk a about having a mindset shift. And one more thing before I go, if you are interested in joining the Teachaholic launch team for the big release on October 8, you can go to my website, erinspinoggle.com book, and you can join the launch team there. The link is still up. If you want to get a head start on all things that will be covered in the Teachaholic book, you can also download at erinspinoggle.com dot com slash book the teachaholic action guide and get your workbook set up for the big day so I'll see you next time friends or at least I'll talk to you next time how's that okay bye that's all for this episode of the next chapter for teachers podcast if you like what you heard be sure to write subscribe and leave a review Join us next time when we turn the page to the future of the profession. Until then, remember to be different, but more importantly, be the difference. And I'll see you in the next chapter.