The first day
It’s time to start school. For kids at their first year, it is the beginning of an entirely new period of their lives. Images of crying children, anxious parents and stressed teachers come to our minds.
The memories of our first day of school are of course varied: mine is about a hectic and confusing day.
I recall when my mom took my hand to bring me to my new school. The premises were close to our home, therefore the road was known, nothing worth of special interest, a routine walk around the neighborhood. When we got to school I noticed that there were many children like me, some others were a bit older. Everything fine so far.
After a quick chat with the teacher my mum said goodbye to me, announced me that this place was my school, that I would make many friends and that she will be back later on.
It was at that very moment that anguish ran through my body: I was afraid, I did not want to stay, I clearly remember that I grabbed her leg as hard as I could. The end result was that my mom decided to take me back home with her, trying to calm me as we walked away from school. I had one clear idea about school: I won’t return there.
Asking people to describe their first day of school, for many, their stories are not that different from mine.
While some lived it as a natural continuation of the nursery, for many others it involved a bigger challenge.
That is why lately some schools have introduced the so called Induction (or Adaptation) Period. In this article we will try to understand together, which changes that a scholar must face when starting his/her student life and how the induction process can support in giving more control to the kid and improve self-esteem. Let’s figure out that somebody leads us to a place we have been rarely, or never before. Here we are with other kids like us, some scared others start to play immediately. There are also adults around who we don’t know and who speak to us. At a certain point, our parents tell us that we’ll see them again soon. Many thoughts arise: «They will forget about me,» «Why are the leaving me here alone now?» «I do not know any person here», etc. These are usually triggers for an uncontrollable crying which, day after day, is repeated.
The induction process during the preoperational stage
Now let’s step back and analyze what happens to a child of three/four years from an evolutionary point of view. Only the cognitive changes are considered in this article.
According to Piaget, children aged 2 to 7 pass through the preoperational stage. They begin to use symbols or representations of the world, which allow them to pretend they are doing something and describe an action through the use of language.
Their game is symbolic: they are able to use some other object to imagine wrists being people, teddy bear acting as pet, a box flying as a spaceship, etc. As they grow farther, that is, when they approach the end of this stage, the other children will join and play certain roles in this game, representing a role: mom, doctor, hairdresser, policeman, etc.
Children at this age do not yet have the logic skills of an adult, therefore, draw their conclusions based on separate and isolated information received from the environment. This feature is referred to as Transductive Reasoning. This feature is also related to syncretism, the tendency to draw conclusions making connections between information that are unrelated. For example: «I misbehaved” and ‘My dad fell” can be associated; whenever the child misbehaves, he will think that dad is going to get hurt.
Another characteristic of this age is the egocentric thinking, i.e. the view of the world in relation to himself: everything that happens is by and for him. Children do not understand that other people think differently than them. Every phenomenon directly relates to themselves, therefore if a separation or divorce occur, children at this age commonly think they are to blame for the problems of their parents.
During this stage self-esteem, perception of control over their environment and self-confidence also develop. This phase is critical for the relationship the child has with his environment and the type of responses that it has to his needs and achievements.
Learned helpness
Seligman (2000) proposed this concept to explain a type of learning that occurs when human beings are subjected to uncontrollable stimuli, meaning that despite our attempts to give an answer, the stimulus disappears. Thus, we learn that our efforts are insufficient and that we are not able to change a situation. The consequence of this learning is deep: we feel helpless and develop motivational, cognitive and emotional symptoms.
– Motivational: decrease of the motivation to respond voluntarily and try to control environmental stimuli.
– Cognitive: generation of a negative cognitive disposition, a difficulty to learn that responses are effective; resulting in low self-esteem, negative view of himself and his abilities.
– Emotional: the helplessness increased emotionality occurs, generating anxiety and depression.
How does the learned helplessness relate to school induction? The school entrance itself is a stimulus that the child receives, who with their still developing cognitive resources have greater difficulty understanding why their parents insist on their education. In addition, the school must also face uncontrollable stimuli, for example, being in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people (young and old) of whom do not know what kind of response to expect. This important step in the life of a child is both a source of situations that predispose him feel helpless.
A good induction program can prevent helplessness. A program that guides parents and teachers to help the child to have some control over this new situation.
In practice
The first recommendation is to give our children full information on every important event that will live, and in this case inform him about the school entrance. This information should be as clear and simple as possible: note that simple does not mean hiding information but adapt it so to be understandable.
The preparation for the first day is very important. By accompanying the child to become familiar with the facilities and the staff, we will let him know where he is going and who he will find there. He will identify people who provide security, decreasing anxiety about the unknown.
As adults, we have already reached the cognitive maturity; always seek information about the place where we go especially if it is new, we feel insecure if someone takes us to somewhere without asking and without knowing exactly where it is. If it is relevant for adults to know, just imagine how much that can be important for a child!
A second tip is to give the opportunity to contact their parents when necessary. That option will make them feel safer and the experience says that only rarely scholars will call parents.
Third: comply with the agreements, i.e. be punctual when picking preschool children; if we have a setback phoning the school and ask to speak with our child can be a good idea.
Finally, we can let our child choose an object that gives comfort: a handkerchief or another personal object to be carried can help to increase your confidence that we will be back.
Most important: strengthening the relationship with our children is the best way to give them the security they need. This can be done by organizing special activities with them. We can create together a calendar including school hours and family activities that we are going to do after classes. If the calendar is kept in a place where it can be easily seen by the child, it will help him to feel part of the process.
The school entry does not have to be painful. As described, there are alternatives and strategies, together with the support of the school, which allow our children to have a nice experience, not just to have good school memories and avoid moments of sadness and fear, but to develop strong self-confidence and a more positive vision of the surrounding world.
References
Seligman, M. (2000). Helplessness. Barcelona: Editorial Debate.
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