A six-year-old child enters the so-called school age, which lasts until the age of twelve. At this time, many significant changes take place in the life of a young person, which result from the beginning of proper school education and the beginning of puberty. School age can be treated as the first step into the adult world.
The child spends more and more time outside the home, acquires many new skills and takes on new social roles. The most important for this period are the processes of developing a sense of competence and shaping self-esteem. Success consisting in developing in a child the feeling that it is worth learning new things, having interests and deepening them, completing started work and using constructive criticism to improve their own achievements depends on experiences gained in previous stages of development and changes in the cognitive sphere, emotional and social issues occurring in school age. All areas of developmental changes interpenetrate and influence each other.
Schoolchildren are able to: depending on their own will concentrate their attention, begin to create their own memory strategies, acquire the ability to analyze, plan and predict the consequences of their own and other people’s actions. At this time, children are also able to rank and classify actually existing objects, so use such teaching aids that the child can touch and check how they work. has a positive effect on the effectiveness of teaching.
A young student, unlike a preschooler, thinks more often before he begins to act. Being able to reflect and analyze experiences allows the child, for example, to persevere until the end of the lesson, before talking to a colleague about impressions not necessarily related to learning. It is a peculiar ability to distance yourself from your own experiences in order to complete the task, which in this example was to stay focused until the end of the lesson. The child becomes aware of his emotional states, more and more often recognizes them and learns to express them in a controlled, socially acceptable way.
A developmental achievement for school age is also the “work attitude”, that is, persistence in carrying out the action taken and concern for the future result. The child more and more often feels satisfaction that he has managed to implement a plan and learns to enjoy its achieved result. At this stage of development, children learn most willingly and effectively through action, not just passive listening. With this in mind, it is worth involving them in household chores, such as watering flowers, dusting off the dust, setting the table. Children should be praised and rewarded for their efforts. At school, the task of teachers is to organize the teaching process in such a way that the acquisition of knowledge is a source of satisfaction for children, not only an obligation.
Going to school is an important step in loosening the bond between children and parents. Increasingly frequent and longer contact with peers and teachers changes the perception of the family as the whole world. Friendships and friendships are becoming more and more important. Peers are beginning to be a reference point for successes and failures, their opinion becomes more and more important. Parents are no longer the only people who influence their child’s choices. Students begin to identify with teachers who become authorities for them. Developing social contacts allow the child to see different points of view, to notice that people are different. The social development of a school-age child is visible in acquiring the ability to discuss, present one’s thoughts, listen to other people and work out common solutions. Hence, the best form of meeting the needs at this age is group work. The role of the guardians should be to provide the child with as many contacts as possible with peers outside school and at the same time to ensure that the child has a sense of closeness and support from the closest ones.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- Brzezińska, A., Hornowska, E. (eds.) (2004). Children and youth in the face of aggression and violence. Warsaw: Scholar Publishing House
- Bee, H. (2004). Psychology of human development. Poznań: Zysk i S-ka Publishing House
- Woititz, J.G. (2008). Dream childhood – how to raise a happy child avoiding the mistakes of our parents. Gdańsk: GWP