For some reason, many adults believe that a six-seven-year-old child simply dreams of going to school, that this event should fill him with pride, because now he is not “just a child”, he has his own important business. Is it so? The opinion of the psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya.
Remember Agnia Barto’s touching poem about Petya, who does not sleep all night before the first of September?
Why is Petya today
Woke up ten times?
Because he is today
Enters first grade.
He’s not just a boy anymore
And now he’s a rookie.
He’s wearing a new jacket
Turndown collar.
He woke up in the dark night
It was only three o’clock.
He was terribly scared
That the lesson has already begun.
He got dressed in two minutes
He grabbed a pencil case from the table.
Papa ran after
I caught up with him at the door.
Behind the wall, the neighbors stood up,
The electricity was lit
Behind the wall, the neighbors stood up,
And then they lay down again.
He woke up the whole apartment,
I couldn’t sleep until morning.
Even my grandmother dreamed
What is her lesson.
Even grandpa dreamed
What is he standing at the blackboard
And he can not on the map
Find the Moscow River.
Why is Petya today
Woke up ten times?
Because he is today
Enters first grade.
According to the psychologist, in this situation there are already harbingers of school neurosisand passed down in the family from generation to generation. And in real life, more and more families are faced with the fact that the child does not want to go to school at all. Or even wants to, but at the same time he is so nervous that he loses peace and sleep. Children’s doctors know the syndrome of the third week of September — against the background of stress, almost half of the first-graders fall ill. It is normal to be anxious at the beginning of a new business, a new stage in life, but the level of anxiety of our first graders is clearly off scale. Why is that?
Our society has developed an idea of the school as a judge and evaluator of the child and family. School success becomes the main measure of the quality of education. Long before the age of seven, the child is told: “How will you be at school, so sloppy?” «Do you think anyone at school will like the way you act?» or they don’t tell him, but relatives and friends, with obvious fear: “I can’t imagine how she will study, with her character.”
Often children are given in advance to training groups, zeros. It would seem that it’s a good idea, let the children, in a less elaborate rhythm, little by little, get used to the class, the teacher, then it will be easier for them. But in reality, preparation often turns into additional stress. School discipline falls upon a child just a year earlier, he discovers a year earlier that he will be constantly evaluated at school (no asterisks and flags instead of points change anything here, an assessment is an assessment), and most importantly, he discovers that his success in classroom are super important for the family. Meeting children after classes, mothers and grandmothers literally pounce with questions: “What did you do today? Did you answer? Did you raise your hand? Did you answer? Has anyone else responded?» They approach the teacher, ask her: “Well, how is mine?” They carefully examine the prescriptions and react violently: “How beautifully you wrote!” or “Well, what is it, didn’t try at all, like a chicken paw.” Yes, I’m not just a boy now, the child understands. Not just my mother’s and father’s, grandmother’s and grandfather’s beloved Petenka. I’m the best-of-the-class boy now, or the best-of-the-class-boy, or even the-boy-who-doesn’t-pull. And for parents, this is very important. More important than anything else.
- My child is bored at school
Adult people, remembering their childhood, sometimes say: “My childhood ended when school started.” Or even like this: “When school started, I lost my parents. I no longer existed for them, they were only interested in how I study. And then there may be a story about an excellent student who was not allowed a single four, because «this is a disgrace to the family.» Or about a loser, who, as now, in hindsight, it’s clear, just needed special classes with a speech therapist in reading and writing, and then, many years ago, he suddenly turned from a beloved son into “my grief for my mother and into” impudent slacker for dad. These are, of course, extremes, but, one way or another, almost all children feel that they have entered into a very nervous game with the school and parents, in which a lot is expected of them, and the most valuable thing for the child is at stake — his relationship with loved ones.
The matter is aggravated by the fact that, as accurately noted in Barto’s poem, parents, and especially grandparents themselves, often have a very traumatic experience of the Soviet and Russian schools, in the traditions of which there is ordinary ignorance, so natural for a child (I could not find the river on the map) is equated with a crime, becomes the basis for a sentence: you are a loser, a loser, a general disappointment. Which of the current grandparents did not want to fall through the ground under the condemning. the withering gaze of the teacher? They so want to lay straws, protect their adored grandchildren from the painful experience — and without noticing, they drive the child into a trap. As a result, their grandchildren are afraid of school already in advance.
I would very much like this situation to change, and here a lot depends on the school itself, but it seems to me that it is necessary to start with the parents. It is important that it is they who remember that the school is an institution that exists on their taxes and for their children. Its goal is to create conditions for children to develop fully and joyfully, and not at all to evaluate the dignity of the child himself and his parents. If a child doesn’t know or can’t do something, that’s what the school is for, to help, suggest, teachand parents will join if needed. School success is not the goal of life, and certainly should not be allowed to break the relationship with the child and his self-image. In 20 years, it will not matter how smoothly your child wrote sticks, but if he was yelled at for mistakes, or he saw that his mother was very disappointed in him, this can seriously affect his self-confidence and future success. If you can’t stay calm and optimistic because your own experience of living in the school-child-parents triangle was painful, take care of yourself by asking for help1.
1 The training «School: Reloaded» will be held on September 19 at the Institute for the Development of Family Devices, for more details see the website irsu.info. A series of webinars by Lyudmila Petranovskaya “Children. Instructions for use «can be ordered on the website of the School of Conscious Parenthood» Ursa Major «.