It’s almost time to start the 2017-2018 academic year. All beginnings are worrisome, for adults and children alike. As adults, we deal with innovations more easily because of our experiences. For children, coping with innovations is much more challenging, and the supportive attitudes of parents and other adults are of great importance in this process.
Especially when the process of starting pre-school education or primary school 1st grade is not handled appropriately for children, indirectly for parents and educators, it can turn into a chaotic situation. How the attitude is adopted in this process gains great importance in terms of the child’s development and coping skills.
The point of view that parents generally ‘not go if they don’t want to go’ or ‘we send them so they can linger’ for pre-school education both blunts the awareness of pre-school education and makes it difficult for the child to adapt to a regular-disciplined life.
The child is not competent enough to decide what is right and wrong for him/her in preschool period. This has nothing to do with the intelligence of our child.
No matter how high the capacity of a child in this developmental period is, he does not have competence periodically. For this reason, having the child make the school decision in the pre-school period interrupts the healthy development process of the child.
Should my child receive pre-school education?
City life and, in parallel, people living more closed by communicating less, the change in the understanding of entertainment in parallel with the widespread use of technology, the change in the perception of safe neighborhood environment and street games, busy work life and few children Many other reasons, such as having a child, make it difficult for us to contribute to the pre-school development of the child.
In this process, I think that pre-school education makes a very important contribution to the child so that his skills can develop in parallel with his age, maintain healthy peer relationships and have fun.
Does my child have trouble adjusting to school?
It is of course normal for the child, who has not been away from his parents until the pre-school period, to increase his anxiety level, cry and have difficulty separating from his parents in this new beginning process. In this process, a calm and supportive approach to the child is very important.
As always, it is essential to be honest and trust the child in this process. In other words, leaving the child at school and running away without informing, or the teacher closing the door in the family’s face and trying to speed up the separation process, of course, negatively affects the child’s search for security and the child cannot cope with his anxiety in an environment where he does not feel safe.
Angry, angry, sad may be acted, unstoppable crying may occur. The most critical point in this process is to show understanding to the child and give the message that ‘you are struggling, you are right, but we will overcome this problem with our help’. For this, it is very important to allow the mother to be in the environment for a while, to gradually remove the mother from the environment, to verbally appreciate and encourage the child in a positive way, to allow the child to cry and not to be silenced by force. Many variables affect the course of this process.
Anxious-protective parental attitude or authoritarian / imposing parental attitude, the lack of a regular, regular lifestyle or the high level of anxiety of the child will interrupt the process.
At this point, the solution is never to give up school. If the school is given up, we are giving the message that ‘you are right to be afraid, school is an environment to be afraid of, so it is better not to go’ to the child.
When the child receives this message, we also negatively affect the child’s perception of school. This perception negatively affects the process of getting used to school in the following years. For this reason, the healthiest attitude is to seek help from a child psychiatrist when the crisis is not resolved despite being handled appropriately.
My child is getting a mini mini one!
Difficulty getting used to school in the preschool period usually does not worry many families, since there is an alternative to not going to school.
However, it is obligatory for the child to get used to school during the period of starting primary school. For this reason, when the above-mentioned mistakes are made, the crisis continues and the first grader can not continue his education regularly due to fear of school, falls behind academically, cannot develop peer relationships, and causes a lack of self-confidence in the long run.
The process of getting used to primary school can be more difficult compared to pre-school due to reasons such as the school environment with toys and fun left behind, entering a more regular and disciplined environment, and the expectation of homework-responsibility. Again in this process, it is very important that the family and the classroom teacher show understanding and patience, not to get angry or offended by the child, not to punish or reward the child for this reason, and to ensure that the child continues to school despite the difficulties.
Families of children whose problems continue to increase in the process, whose anxiety level is very high and who have difficulties in coping, should definitely seek help from a child psychiatrist as soon as possible without disrupting the school process.
