Non Violent Communication and Conflict Management

This week I was getting really frustrated and overwhelmed with my teaching assistant. She wasn't being responsive with the children, assisting me as usual, and was just in an overall bad mood. It was creating a thick cloud in the room because I was becoming irritable and so were the children. I made a few statements in the air about attitudes in reference to the children. However, by Wednesday's assignment I had read over the principles of nonviolent communication and 3 R's and thought maybe I should try a little "compassion". Afterall she had just come back off of maternity leave and was adjusting to the new group of children, changes I had made in the program, and new school policies. I could see how all of those things combined would be overwhelming. Thinking of all the changes she was going through helped me calm down some internally but there was still the problem of her needing to be able to perform her job duties. I struggle with this because while I want to have compassion I do need to be direct in saying what I want her to do and not focus on what she's not doing as discussed this week. So, I began talking with her during naptime about how she felt coming back to work and the adjustment. She got to talk about her feelings and I got a better perspective of her emotional state. However, all the compassion in the world doesn't help if the person /recipient isn't willing to share some responsibility in solving the problem.


　
I'm wondering is there a tactful way to communicate to a co-worker that their postpartum issues are effecting their job performance. I know that is a touchy period and I feel like I'm tready on thin ice because I don't want to be cold and I also don't want my kindness to be abused.