Im worries that they will treat me different

[Jasminelfue]

Hello everybody, I hope I'm not asking a ridiculous question. When I was 18 I was working as a cna and I always got treated differently or I felt like I was babied and not taken seriously. There was a lot of older cnas and nurses that treated me like their child . I know it is a young adult age but i had a baby at 17 moved out of my house at 17 so mentally I am more mature than what people would think. ( with a lot more to learn) no matter what age you mature daily. I went to nursing school and now I am an lpn I recently passed my nclex. Even in nursing school I was the youngest student nd my classmates and even some clinical instructors treated me the same way. It may be due to my petite figure I'm 5 feet 110 Pounds that makes me look even younger. I am 22 now and I have another baby I just had her 3 months ago. I am now applying for jobs and I'm concerned that as a nurse my staff will not think I'm capable of running a floor. Will it impact my chances on getting a job? How can I set my foot down to control or handle situations where someone another nurse or a cna is trying to take advantage ? I feel that because of my age the cnas will be to lax with me ! Any advice?

[pomegranate]

Don't tell anybody how old you are. I became a nurse only weeks after my 20th birthday. I hit the floor and people would make comments about how I was so young to be a nurse and ask how old I was, and I didn't ever tell anybody until my 21st birthday was approaching, a year after I started working there. They didn't believe me til I pulled my driver's license. Of course now my nickname is "Little one" at work, but they had already learned to respect me as a nurse, so my age doesn't really ever come up except when talking about stuff like old tv shows :) . One thing that's helpful is to be assertive and use a low voice--I had the habit of speaking in a high pitched voice due to trying to be nice/polite and also out of nervousness, but people will take you more seriously if you don't do that. But you've got kids and experience as a CNA. You're not green, you're grown, and you shouldn't feel bad responding to questions about your age with non-answers like "Old enough" "I'm grown" "85" etc. Or play it off like "And how old are youuu?"

[amoLucia]

I'm a bit older than all you youngun's, but I have had the same problem. No Mr. or any little ones in my life so I figure that made the difference. I guess I should be flattered and thankful!!!

Inevitably, some young testosterone-driven specimen would press me for my age. My stock answer to them would be "I'm legal, but how old do you want me to be so I can do the arithmetic for the dates". Eventually, I just made it easy for myself and concocted a faux birthday year and plotted out my 'school year dates'. Even now, I still have to stop and clarify my age at times with some.

There's an old saying that 'you're only as old as you feel'. Just feel adult-lucky and hope that youthfulness follows you. For practical purposes, stay professional with all your associates and in your behavior/activities while at work. You'll earn respect.

[T-Bird78]

Just work and prove yourself and they'll respect your authority. Of course, it will take time with any new job, especially being new out of school, but do what you know you can do and do it well. As a former CNA you can relate to them very well and make sure you keep a healthy level of respect for CNAs--they do sooooo much for so little! Keep the faith and you'll be fine! When you're working and it's a busy day and everything's going on, nobody's going to care how old you are (or look) just as long as you're able to get the job done right!

[Jasminelfue]

Thank you guess I'm just nervous. A lot of nurses I've worked with were ..... Umm. Well they had high standards lets put it that way. Are any of you from Boston ?