Challenges Faced By Children In Starting School

Attachment issues in peer groups

What are the challenges that children face when they start school?

Based on the article by Liz Bayram, chief executive at the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years (PACEY), this paper is about the school going children and the other related factors. Childs are more likely to suffer several risks so the article is about a statistical study based on students and their parents, where Liz claimed that 66% of the parents are anxious about going schools of children. Now-a-days maximum numbers of schools are providing support to children and anticipate social, emotional and communication skills to help them become enthusiastic in learning. But yet there are some salient features that children face in their earlier grades. To attain fun at schools and enjoy course structure, children generally depend on their close friends and mates. As they arise from various different social, economical and geographical backgrounds, all the students at first can’t come forward to make new friends. In this paper the researcher tested the factors statistically that may affect children’s acceptability in a school( Plowmann & Stephen, 2003). There are several issues relating to the attachment of large peer group, chances of resilience and risks that might affect a student’s satisfaction and the development of children’s thinking process at the beginning of middle childhood. Growing children like to allocate themselves in peer groups and try to put in more times in their area of preferences. Failure in connecting with satisfying peer may result susceptibility and emotional problems in children further. Generally it is seen that children have an exposure to mental health problems that are caused due to the risks and resilience faced by them in the early stages of school life. One of the key situations is there that he/she might get rejected from the peer. These types of problems can be taken care by teaching social skills to them. Parents must focus on their personal lives as well to feel his child safe and lovable. Keeping a stress-free atmosphere in home is always necessary for a budding child. They should be engaged in a routine life. Rough times will come and go, but in school and also in houses, teachers and parents must teach children about hoping, keeping faith and look the radiant part of every situations, even in future circumstances. The childcare development homes conduct sessions for the parents as well as the teachers to support the children in their early years of school life. It is the duty and responsibility of the parents to take care of the emotional problems of their children (O’Keffee & Clarke-Pearson, 2011)

Risks and resilience

Peer groups consist of the members of respective work places and social life. A neighbor, classmate or an acquaintance relate to this. Research shows that 74% of new school going children tend to be in reciprocal friendships with respective peers. The percentage increases with time as peer provides companionship, intimacy, friendship and self defence, satisfaction too. Researchers found significant evidences that children who are not directly or closely involved to their peers, lately they are more likely o show incarnating symptoms. Personalizing difficulties were not subjected to poor peer acceptance but due to some teachers’ underreporting, lack of peer acceptance indicated these type of difficulties, by reducing the chance of an association with other variables of interest. But in several scientific studies in recent times clearly justify that complication in peer group is not responsible for low-level self worth at that time point (Reitz et al, 2012). In a study of the children aged between five to twelve years, results confirm both incarnating and personalizing problems do not contribute to any change in peer rejection. The children, who are prone to be problematic, unruly and intrusive, likely are separated from big peer group. Depressed children limit themselves to limited opportunities regarding the inclusion of large peer due to their gripe, weak social relation and lack of motivation in general child activities. So naturally childhood depression syndrome formulates less acceptance in peer. Friendships which are supportive play a critical role in children’s psychological arrangements as they provide positive affiliation, endurance and affection (Murname & Steele, 2007). Close friendship works as an emotional stress-buster leading to better psychological outcomes. Children with the syndrome of adjustment problem are unable to maintain supportive friendship. A recent study based on the students from fourth to sixth grade, supported by FDS of UCLA has done to test these features. Children’s self reports, gradation about selected students’ psychological adjustment informed by teachers and respective peer acceptance has also been taken into account. Data generated from two different time sources (fourth and sixth grade) were tested with hypotheses statistically. A large number of students generally from Caucasian population along with their parents were chosen as sample. As a measure of peer acceptance and psychological arrangements show they are correlated cross-sectionally. The self-reports by students and teacher report variables, whereas, show a higher range of correlation, indicating potential bias. Longitudinal associations between relations with peer group and four measures of student’s personalized arrangements were studied through multiple regression analysis. The researchers plotted all relevant interactions and between predictors and gender differences separately and reported their findings (Leventhal & Brook-gunn, 2000)

Acceptance in peer and close friendship as should be tested in sync, multiple regression models similar to explained variables are built. Acceptance by peer groups beholds as a relevant predictor of psychological adjustments. Less peer show more incarnating and personalizing symptoms. Results also indicate peer acceptance minimally depend on gender, that is less peer acceptance predict poor cognitive arrangements for both boys and girls. Many past researchers have used teacher’s reports to draw a relation between children’s peer acceptance and psychological adjustments, which indicates awareness of teachers has been increased in recent times (Sharp 2002). Interruptions relating to social networks have a larger mark on females’ self-evaluations. The overall study reveals that peer acceptance in childhood period shorten the chance of maladjustments in future period. As well as, problems in adjustments are liable to forecast difficulties in relations. Close friends’ support is necessary for depressive students in maintaining social skills and related acceptance.

Some children have an exposure to mental health problems that are caused due to the risks and resilience faced by them in the early stages of school life. Many children do flourish in spite of the risks faced by them in school. The capacity to cope with the change is a major component of mental health of the children. Risk also results to poor outcomes at times. There are few predisposing factors in families that can have an effect on the children. Some parents are more anxious and nervous than their children and that have a negative impact on the life of the children. Parents need to be supportive to help their children flourish in their respective fields. When children start attending school, they face numerous problems that have a negative impact on their lives. The exposure to a completely new world (from home to school) can affect them hugely (Aron & Loprest, 2012). They will have a completely different environment from that of home since there would be teachers and peers unknown to them. Sometimes the teachers may not be cooperative as they handle a number of students at a time and it becomes difficult for them to provide attention to individual students. They might face peer pressure, which can prevent them from attending school. This has an effect on their mental health and affects the process of learning. When parents themselves are caught in hostile, angry and tense battles with each other, it becomes very difficult for them to focus on the emotional needs of their children. Even the children get involved in the battles at times. They become very confused and frightened by the violence at their home. In these cases, the children become the victims of emotional abuse and it affects them mentally, which has a negative impact on their growth in school. The risks faced by the children can also be conquered only if proper care is taken (Berk 2012).

Various foundations and childcare development homes can guide the parents as well as the teachers to help the children cope up with their difficulties. They can conduct different individual sessions with the parents as well as the teachers and guide them to tackle the children at home and school respectively. The development centers teach them to understand the child psychology in their early years and help them face their childhood problems (Blatchfort 2012). This will further help the children to cope up with the daily problems and support them to become successful individuals. Helping children in their foundation years can boost them to have better future. Parents should spend more time with their children and find out about their complaints and matters to worry. They should keep a check on their children’s progress and focus on the development and learning processes of their children. This can be of much help to the children who are going to start their school (Farrington, Piquero and Jennings 2013).  They can overcome their weaknesses and carry on their daily school. We can point down the risk and resilience factors in the following way:

Risk	Resilience
Cognitive deficits like vocabulary, Social skills, direction following.	Parent and Cognitive skills training and Conducting Pre-school programs.
Poor parental skills.	Pre-natal parental training.
Poor School Involvement .	Effective education and behavioral management.
Rejection faced from the peers.	Teaching social skills.

For example, when a child goes to the school for the first time, he is very nervous and tensed. He is afraid of leaving his parents behind and facing a new world full of strangers. He needs support from his parents to face the outer world or else he will suffer from mental health problems (Griffine, Burns & Snow, 1998)

Middle childhood usually brings numerous changes in a child’s life. They are usually in the age group of 6-8 years. These years are the developmental milestones in their lives. By this time, the children know to dress themselves, tie their shoelaces and many more developments. Starting school has already taught them to deal with a larger world. Friendship becomes more important to them. The social, mental and physical skills develop swiftly in this period. They also develop confidence in different areas of their lives. They go through emotional and social changes (Heering, Rossion & Maurer 2012). They might show independence from their family and parents. They might also start thinking about their future. They pay more attention to friends and want to be accepted by them in return. Children of these age groups might show excellent mental and developmental skills. They learn to deal with the worldly changes. They also learn better techniques and ways to express their feelings and thoughts. They improve their communication skills and show confidence in every matter. Various advances in understanding and learning often mark this stage of growth in children. In this period, they acquire the fundamental skills like arithmetic and reading that are regarded to be important by their culture (Lee and Vagle 2012).

Self-awareness skills also develop at this stage. They find new strategies to study and practice new and creative things. They become capable to retrieve information to solve and cope with new situations and problems. They begin to coordinate actions, plan consciously, evaluate and rate their progress as well as modify their strategies and plans to improve in their fields. They learn to differentiate between the perspectives of others and them. They understand people’s behavior and react accordingly. They gather knowledge from almost everywhere and implement them in their own ways. They interact with more people consulting on various matters. This helps them to gain more knowledge about the outer world (Turner et al, 2012). They are more exposed to their peers at this stage. This stage helps to increase their skills of reasoning and questioning. Children become more curious about every matter and demands reason for everything. They become self-dependent and smart as they feel that they can deal with every problem they face. The middle childhood prevents children from spending time with their parents. They feel more comfortable under the supervision of the teachers and other coaches. The participation of the children in different formal and school programs exposes them to various ethnic and religious groups and broader personal styles. They watch and follow the adults performing different social roles and they start comparing themselves with the adults. They try to act like grown-ups and believe in solving their own problems. They try to judge everyone from their own perspective and take decisions (Trzaskowski et al, 2012). The major event that divides preschool and the middle childhood period is when a child enters into the level of elementary school. They experience individual freedom and are allowed to move around freely. Children are very optimistic while entering to the middle-childhood period. However, few factors affect their confidence level. Some of them face different situational problems that strives them to become more pessimistic. They become frustrated and hesitate to try out new experiments. When they lose confidence, they start neglecting their subjects of study. They might also face some problems from the peer groups that can have a negative impact to the course of development (Hornby 2011).

For example, a child aged six years is very confident and enthusiastic about the various activities of school. However, when a problem arises in his or her daily course, it affects him or her very badly and this is when pessimism comes in.   

As a summary analysis based on the above result we can say that these factors are important to look out while studying the challenges that children face in their early school days. Peer acceptance is the main criteria to take care of. Starting school for the children is very important relating so some factors. There are many homes and houses where there is not so much affectionate bond between father and mother (Thorell, Rydell & Bohlin, 2012). In this context a child face problem staying home when his father yelling o his mother. The children should not be involved in the family battles as that have a negative impact on the minds of the children. This also reduces their confidence level. So they search for their respective peers where they can interact with the people of the same mindset of theirs. They can grow, generate and keep budding in this type of environment. So it is reasonable for parents to teach child how to make new friends. They are also advisable to feel his/her fellow mate’s pain, grief with a sense of sympathy. Parents must encourage children to be a friend in order to get friend. For all these, a strong family background and support has to be implemented. Children have soft hearts, and sometimes they are introvert. So they should be handled with care. Parents must try to listen to any of their disappointments or wishes (Alaimo, Olson and Frongillo, 2001). At school, isolation from classroom, friends can be dangerous for a child. Connection building power with new persons should be nurtured from school. Many risks and resilience are present for a new school comer. Cognitive risk deficits like vocabulary, Social skills, direction following need some parent and Cognitive skills training and Conducting Pre-school programs. Poor parental skills can be reduced or overcame by pre-natal parental training. Sometimes there are poor involvements in school. Effective education and behavioral management can be the solutions of facing these types of difficulties. In some circumstances, a child may face some events which is painful. They should be helped by advising them to focus on the larger aspect and broad perspectives of that event. But some of them, are too immature and inexperienced that they are unable to acknowledge the brighter look by their own. In that case they should be assured that the bad incident is not constant and there is a future ahead of the ongoing situation and the future always have a good possibility ( Heering, Rossion, and Maurer, 2012).

Conclusions

In this particular essay, we have discussed about the psychology of children as well as of their parents and teachers when the children start going to school. We have also learnt about the risks of the children and their resiliencies to overcome the situations. When children join new schools, they face numerous problems and get disheartened at the very beginning. They fear peer pressure and exposure to a new world of strangers. It affects the mental health of the students and brings down their confidence level. They face more stress and refuse to attend school because of the peer pressure or non-cooperation from the teachers. However, these problems can be easily taken care of. The childcare development homes conduct sessions for the parents as well as the teachers to support the children in their early years of school life (Easterbrooks, Bureau, and Lyons-Ruth, 2012). It is the duty and responsibility of the parents to take care of the emotional problems of their children. They should understand their problems and help them to overcome those. The children should not be involved in the family battles as that have a negative impact on the minds of the children. This also reduces their confidence level. Various community problems also arise that have a toxic effect on the children. The parents and the teachers should work collectively in shaping a child’s future. It is the responsibility of the parents to have regular interactions with the teachers so that they are aware of the child’s progress. Local forums of schools can bring together the teachers and the parents to discuss about the betterment of the children (Waters 2012). On the other hand, it has also come to notice that the children undergo numerous changes when they enter into the period of middle childhood. The transition from early childhood to middle childhood is vast and brings many changes in the lives of the children. The transition is both positive and negative (Wang et al, 2012). They learn to question things and enquire about their existence. They develop new characteristics and try to participate in every discussion. It is very important for the schools to coordinate and collaborate with the providers of childcare to conduct out-of-school programs. The programs conducted outside school are very effective and contributes to the growth of the children. If the environmental and societal changes are considered accordingly, they can help the parents to shape their children’s future in a better way (McCuaig and Region, 2012).

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