A Moment with Dr. Moore

Me Time Matters: Work-Life Balance in the Early Learning Field

Do early childhood teachers have a good work-life balance? Not according to a new study from the University of Georgia. The study found that only 10 percent of teachers had enough time to complete their work while on the job. “Most of them are doing their planning and other work tasks during their personal time, which includes evenings and weekends,” said Erin Hamel, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor at the university’s Mary Frances Early College of Education. “That can be problematic because it encroaches on the teachers’ personal lives, which can lead to burnout and cause many to leave the early learning field. The loss of teachers only worsens the child care crisis as center directors struggle to meet the needs of the children and families they serve.

“Directors are between a rock and a hard place,” Hamel said. “If a center is short staffed and the director needs three teachers in a classroom to meet ratio requirements, it may mean sacrificing teachers’ planning time because most states do not require planning time for early childhood teachers. Meanwhile, ratio requirements are essential because they keep children safe and improve the quality of care. So, in the current context of teacher shortages, directors are forced to make difficult staffing decisions that may negatively impact teachers because it requires them to give up their planning or break times. Most teachers readily do this for the children, but it takes a toll,” as educators revealed in a prior study from Stonehill College in Massachusetts.

The study found that Head Start teachers generally worked 35 to 40 hours a week on site, plus additional hours doing work-related tasks without pay. One educator said, “I put in 25 extra hours a week with assessments, portfolios and lesson plans.” Another related that she, like many of her colleagues, had to work on her own time to meet all the demands of her job. “We’re not supposed to take files home,” the teacher explained, but she felt she had no choice since the center turned off the lights when the children napped. “I often need to do two to three hours of paperwork at night because it’s crazy busy around here,” not a climate suited to many tasks that staff had to do each day, as still another teacher pointed out. “It’s a lot of detailed paperwork and lesson plans that focus on specific goals for each child, which requires a lot of time, writing and thought.”

The long hours combined with low pay to make a serious dent in family life, as a Los Angeles Head Start teacher named Gloria pointed out. “My life changed completely when I started working at Head Start. I was a teacher, a professional in the world’s eyes, but my salary was not enough to support my four children. I could not afford to send them to a high-quality after school program. I was working so hard and seeing the benefits of education in front of my eyes but couldn’t afford it for my own children. I also struggled to be involved in their education and always had to beg their teachers to schedule parent conferences outside of my working hours,” she recalled. “I was often unable to participate in field trips or other events. And I felt guilty because I knew the importance of family engagement in their children’s education.”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to contend with the guilt of neglecting my own children because I hadn’t yet started a family back when I was a young educator at Head Start. Still, I found it difficult to unplug from my day-to-day work because the families I served had a lot of needs. There was always an issue I was trying to resolve or a resource I was trying to provide. So, there was never an opportunity for me to completely turn off from work, a struggle many educators face as they try to achieve a work-life balance.

I still face the same challenge as Council CEO. I can’t seem to ever completely turn off since there’s always someone who needs my attention, or there’s an email I need to respond to, or I have a good idea that I want to capture late at night. So, it’s hard to find a work-life balance whatever job you have. But it’s even harder when you’re an early childhood teacher, working in a low-wage, stressful environment and you’re passionate about what you do.

Still, there are ways to strike a balance, as I learned during my years at Head Start. It helps to have an accountability partner at your center and work together to make sure you’re both taking enough time off to relieve the stress of the job. Self-care is also important, as I learned from the colleagues with whom I worked. They always had their hair and nails done though most of the people they saw each day were young children. They always made sure to pamper themselves with a visit to the salon, and that was a me time in which they could relax and let their hair down.

Self-care like this should be a consistent practice, according to Ellen M. Drolette, a seasoned educator in Vermont and author of Overcoming Teacher Burnout in Early Childhood: Strategies for Change. “Setting boundaries and developing the ability to say no are two strategies that need to be practiced regularly in ECE,” she said. “As early educators, we are people pleasers. We are helpful and flexible, sometimes at the expense of our own well-being.” And that can be counterproductive. Making personal time to get some exercise, pursue hobbies or simply unwind is important for maintaining the patience, energy and resilience it takes for educators to perform their professional role.

There are also steps educators can take at work to find balance and prevent burning out. It helps to plan and prioritize tasks, so the most important parts of their work receive attention first. Educational technology can help streamline lesson planning, communication with parents and administrative tasks. Parent volunteers can provide aid in the classroom and shoulder at least some of the endless, routine paperwork that goes along with early childhood education. And educators should acknowledge their limits by routinely assessing their professional commitments, discussing their workload with supervisors or exploring ways to share responsibilities with colleagues. If educators face unrealistic expectations, they may need to speak up for change to maintain their well-being and stay effective in the classroom.

One educator recently shared her search for work-life balance on the social media platform Reddit. “I stopped taking my work home after my husband came to me and said that he had noticed a negative impact on my mental health and attitude, leading to changes and problems in our relationship,” she recalled. “He told me to stop burdening myself and our home with work,” words that took a while to sink in. “But I finally admitted he was right. Now, I refuse to plan anything outside of my allotted one hour per week at work,” a decision that didn’t affect the heart of her work, as she believed. “Setting and maintaining this boundary doesn’t make my passion for ECE any less, and it doesn’t make me a lesser educator,” she insisted. “It does, however, mean that I’m capable of working with less risk of burnout than before.”

So, what about that endless paperwork and planning for educators who are reluctant to take a strong stand? There may be hope on the horizon from the states. Currently only 16 states require some form of planning time at work, but more states are considering doing the same. They’re coming to realize that having enough me time matters for both educators and young learners, as Erin Hamel pointed out in her new study. “Teachers who are stressed tend to interact with children less sensitively, so adequate planning time can have an indirect impact on children’s educational experience,” she said. “Taking care of teachers is an important part of taking care of children.”

References

Boyd, Margaret. 2013. “I Love My Work But: The Professionalization of Early Childhood Education.” U.S. Department of Education, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1043494.pdf.

Hamel, Erin E. and Rachel E. Schachter. 2025. “Non-contact Time Implementation in Early Childhood Center-based Programs: A Mixed Method Study.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200625000432?via%3Dihub.

Vicente, Delia, Melanie Venegas and Alma Guerrero. 2024. “Turn-over and Retention Among Head Start Educators.” Early Childhood Education Quarterly, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380630034_Turn-over_and_Retention_Among_Head_Start_Educators.