The child is going to a new class and needs help finding his way. The phrase “Third “G” along the corridor to the left” will not be enough here. At a crucial moment for the family, try to isolate from the family your cousin from a distant suburb, who always talks about how he beat newcomers and excellent students as a child, and stop humming the song: “Who's on the new guy? Take away what’s ready!” More valuable advice from Inna Pribora and psychologist Inna Belyaeva are shared below.
For those preparing for the main school exam
Why does a child need help?
Finding yourself in an unfamiliar team and working in it is very stressful for any person, especially a small one. The main reasons for concern: how you will be received, how they will evaluate you, and what they will think about the briefcase with a sewn-on portrait of the plush Minister of Education. The main parental role now is to support the student, and not to buzz about the soiled shirt collar. The support of a teacher can be irreplaceable, especially if he has sympathy for the child and you, but you can’t always count on it.
To fit into any team, you need to take a close look at it and evaluate how these guys in the “Serve Satan” T-shirts live here.
Find out what the norms, rules, values are here. Should I crouch and bow to the headman, throw a wet sponge, or shake my head to the beat of the biology teacher’s recitative? Consider what dangers a child might face in this company and work out a way to integrate.
The child’s integration should be helped by his skills, strengths and your support. The parent’s task is precisely to help the child understand the new environment and develop an appropriate strategy through gentle conversations about children, about class routine, and about relationships in the classroom. At the same time, conversations about class routine should not be devoted to lessons and grades (“How? Troyban in liter?” - not the most favorable start for an encouraging conversation). Of course, these exciting issues can be discussed, but talking about grades will not contribute to adaptation.
What to do?
1. We must remember that teachers’ relationship with a child begins with the “teacher-parent” relationship.
According to respected psychologist Gordon Neufeld, this is called “attachment transfer.” The essence of the technique is that the parent must go and make friends with the teacher. You probably shouldn’t show up with a box of beer at Elena Albertovna’s house, but you can always come to school and tell them that you are very interested in the problems of the school, Elena Albertovna and all the children of the world, that you are writing a scientific monograph, an article about responsible teachers , study the wintering conditions of the head teachers, draw portraits of women with glasses, or even want to offer your help, mostly moral. But you can move this aquarium too.
2. The second point, in the apt expression of the same Neufeld, is called “matchmaking.”
The process is two-way: you match the child with the teacher, and then the child gets a teacher at home. It would be useful for the teacher to know how your student is worried, asking questions about the teacher, waiting for the special day, choosing daisies. Tell her that you are a sensitive mother, and your child is a vulnerable person, and will not tolerate the usual tradition at their school of rolling new students in a basin from the stairs. Reassure the child too: “I told Elena Albertovna about your interest in newts and frogs. She is waiting for you with trepidation and has even prepared the best place in the back rows.”
3. Try to negotiate with the teacher to give you the opportunity to introduce your child to the class.
Sometimes teachers themselves ask a new student to tell him about himself or try to tell the class something else about a person other than his last name and initials. But you will definitely do better. During matchmaking, say that you yourself are a wonderful professional, an honorable advertiser, and if you manage to sell electric cotton swabs to simpletons, then you will be able to present the child in the most favorable light.
For parents of an extroverted type, it will be easy to speak in front of the class with a story about the family, common interests and hobbies of the child.
Introverts and those who are still afraid to answer at the board can collect several items that will tell about the child (a tennis ball, a magnet with the Serpukhov coat of arms and a piece of buffalo skin), or make a presentation at Power Point.
4. The new guy went to study. Take time to discuss school life together.
Don’t interrogate, but be sincerely interested in all the important details: what did you eat? Did you laugh at school? and over what? was there anything upsetting? There is such a game: take a list of classmates and go through the last names with your child: what do you think, which one is which? Who's an excellent student? Who's the bully? Who's the joke? Who is friends with whom? Guess who you will make friends with? Do not forget, of course, to communicate that this is the first impression, and everything will change later. It will be interesting to see how the situation actually turns out.
Don’t forget to really look and pay attention to the fact that a boy with the last name Shkuroderov will turn out to be a shy violinist and your daughter’s best friend
If you have photos of classmates (online, for example), try to combine the names with the photos. This will help your child remember other children better, give him the feeling that they know each other, and will also force him to pay attention to his classmates, notice character traits, and think, what are they like? In general, it will distract you from the painful thoughts of “can it be seen from the outside that one of my ears is sticking out.”
While you chat about school every day, tell your stories, or remember the plots of books and movies. Pay attention to the heroes that are relevant to the child.
5. During school adaptation, create an atmosphere of complete acceptance at home.
Eliminate pressure, strict moralizing conversations and a critical approach to order in the children's room. Let only love and admiration for the child reign in all the rooms of the apartment.
Show more involvement with your child and implement stress-relieving activities.
Go on long family walks, ride on carousels, catch Pokemon in your arms, read slowly out loud, wrapped in a blanket with the whole family, and somehow hold a cup of aromatic tea, eat ice cream, buried in a pile of yellow leaves. In general, it makes sense to behave as stupidly as the smiling people from the motivators on the Facebook feed. Praise your child, give him positive feedback, even when the ice cream fell into the tea and the tea into the blanket, you just smile and don’t yell.
6. When a child goes to school, do not forget to give him some kind of artifact that gives strength.
A small souvenir that reminds you of you, a family trip, or something important for a child. Put in his backpack a note with encouraging words, a music box, a figurine of a double-headed eagle, a “thanks to grandfather for the victory” sticker, and a dried snake head. In addition to a behavioral strategy, a person must have a resource to rely on. Home, family, culture, books read, favorite stories, poems and songs - this is a good support that a child carries with him in any incomprehensible situation.
Hello, my dear readers! Probably each of us has had to change our place of residence at least once. More often within the region, sometimes within the hometown, but it also happens within the country, and even further. It’s good if, when moving, you don’t have to look for another job for yourself, or another school for your child.
But alas, some children sometimes get a new school team. And here some difficulties begin, as the young student faces adaptation to a new school.
We, parents, approaching this moment, begin to “shake” together with the child: who will teach him there, what kind of children are there, and will a daughter or son be able to join the new team and become part of it, and how to help so that the change school went smoothly and painlessly for the children's psyche. There are many questions. Let's look for answers to them.
Lesson plan:
Another school - a disaster or not?
It's no secret that changing circumstances and something new, unknown are always scary and associated with initial uncertainty. And not only for children. For us adults, the same job change is also an experience. After all, it’s not immediately clear how an established team accepts newcomers. So in any case, the first days, not even the weeks, of studying at a new school will be the most difficult.
Psychologists identify various difficulties in adaptation due to a change in place of study:
- So, if a child is forced to change schools because he is too smart, and he is simply cramped in a regular class, transferring him to another educational institution for the sake of studying subjects more deeply is the easiest situation to “digest”, because the lifestyle, hometown, loved ones, even if they are already ex-classmates, everything is “at hand”,
- It is much more difficult for a child’s psyche to endure a forced move to another area, when they have to get used not only to a new school staff, but also to a new environment - foreign streets, unfamiliar faces, unusual infrastructure.
Whether the transition to new walls will be easy and whether relationships with new classmates and teachers will become a real tragedy for the student directly depends on the character of the child.
And those who are free to make contact will quickly join the team, find friends and become part of school life. It will take much longer to get used to.
Therefore, first of all, psychologists advise: if the need to change the place of study is not urgent, it is worth measuring seven times in order to cut once. Is it necessary to test the strength of a child’s psyche just because parents want to see their child among the students of the most elite school in the city, having finally won a free place there?
Preparing the sleigh
If the decision to change educational institution has finally reached a conclusion and changes cannot be avoided, the very first advice of a psychologist is to prepare for this in advance. What kind of straw can be laid down so that adaptation goes off without a hitch?
What do newbies face?
The difficult task of becoming part of a new class is often associated with the need to solve some adaptation difficulties.
No contact
This happens quite often. Established groups of guys are often not ready to take anyone else into their circle, so newcomers often get lost and withdrawn. Or it happens that the interest, on the contrary, is too high, but rather specific - in the form of teases.
Advice from psychologists: talk more often at home, making it clear that from the first day no one mistakes “strangers” for their own, you will have to build relationships and prove that it can also be interesting to be with you, gaining trust day after day. How? Common hobbies and interests always unite. Joint outings and informal communication outside of school always bring us closer together.
In the fight for the place of leader
A newcomer, especially one who is accustomed to being in his class, will try to win his “place in the sun” here too. And here's the problem: he will probably meet with a worthy rebuff. After all, during his studies, the leader has already “settled down” and, apparently, is not ready to give up the palm just like that.
And if among elementary school students leadership can be won exclusively by excellent studies, then a teenager’s authority is formed due to the attitude of his classmates towards him, far from academic achievements.
Psychologist's advice: in an effort to become the leader of the class, kids will have to prove that they can lead themselves “in word and deed.”
The best trick for a new teenager in the first days is to join in gradually, without crossing the path of others, but only on the terms of a compromise, not to jump out, but to try on the role of a friendly observer who does not aim to join the ranks of the first and “pumps up rights”, but is always ready to come to the rescue. help and participate everywhere.
These were all problems. And now the advantage. The great advantage of starting a new school life is the opportunity to write your school novel from scratch. This gives the child a chance to show himself from a completely different side, not to step on the rake already left at another school and to build relationships with classmates and teachers, taking into account the mistakes made.
What can parents do?
In a situation with adaptation, parents must be fully aware that it depends on them how quickly the child will get used to new conditions. What can you and I do?
Provide rear support
This does not mean at all that you need to run to school with or without reason. The child will not receive anything other than hurled ridicule about “mama’s boy” and similar things from such “care.” In this case, the most useful will be parental warmth and “weather in the house”, when the created psychological comfort will help to survive adaptation, feeling supported.
When everyone is together, then all the difficulties are nothing!
Share life experience
Stories about your school life and how you previously managed to overcome difficulties will become real proof for your child that you can cope with everything and find a way out of every situation.
Be interested in school life
Over a cup of evening tea, you need to ask your child not only about what grades he received today. At the stage of adaptation to a new school, academic performance is important, but not as important as relationships with classmates and teachers become. Timely advice on how to behave in a given situation can provide real assistance when joining an unfamiliar team, and sometimes prevent conflict.
As psychologists say, on average, a child’s adaptation to a new environment lasts two to three months. I am sure that with the right choice of parents, becoming a friend and helper to their child with the intention of sharing both grief and joy, this period can be significantly shortened, and if possible, you won’t even notice how the new school has become your home.
Do you have experience changing educational institutions? Please advise how to quickly get used to it. Share your stories and opinions in the comments.
And now, in order to defuse the situation, let’s watch “Jumble.” Just on our topic today, about something new)
All the best in your studies!
You transferred your child to a new school and are worried about his mental state during adaptation to the new team - 10 simple rules will help the student adapt faster.
Rule #1 – Preparation
Before going to a new school, find out what grade you will be in and find your future classmates on social networks. Communication will help you find out their interests and find common points of intersection. You will be able to decide with whom you can quickly make friends, and who needs a special approach. Virtual communication is easier than real communication, so even if you are a shy and uncommunicative person, this will not prevent you from finding new friends and meeting most of your future classmates in absentia.
Adaptation of a pre-teen child to a new school will be faster if parents meet the class teacher in advance and tell him about the child. The teacher will be able to prepare the class for the arrival of a new student and will appoint suitable children to mentor the newcomer, taking into account his interests and character traits.
Rule No. 2 – Naturalness
Be yourself and don't waste time on ostentatious friendships. Give preference to communicating with people who are interesting to you and with whom you feel at ease. Don't try to look better than you are. All people have flaws that you may or may not accept.
Rule #3 – Consistency
Don't break contact with former classmates. You've spent a lot of time with them, you know them well, and they know you. These are the people who will support you during the difficult days of adaptation to a new school. It will be easier for you to get used to your new environment if you tell your old friends about the differences from your old school.
Rule #4 – New life
Moving to a new school gives you the opportunity to start over with a fresh start. You can cross out old shortcomings and behave in a new way. Nobody knows what you were like in the old school - this is an opportunity to become better and get rid of inhibitions.
Rule No. 7 – Addressing classmates
Remember the guys' names and address them by name. This kind of treatment puts you at ease and puts you in a friendly mood.
In elementary grades, to quickly remember names, children wear name badges on their uniforms. When a new student arrives, the teacher asks the children to say their name when communicating with him, so that he remembers it faster than anyone else.
Rule #8 – Jump to conclusions
Don't rush to draw conclusions about your classmates. They may try to look better than they really are in order to interest you. Give them time to prove themselves, observe from the outside and silently draw conclusions. The first week at a new school is considered the most difficult.
Rule #9 – Personal Dignity
Don't let yourself be humiliated. Each class has an informal leader who will certainly test your strength. Do not give in to provocations and do not lose your sense of personal dignity. Try to be independent in judgment, have a personal opinion and not accept imposed thoughts or actions that you do not like.
Rule #10 – No fear
Don't be afraid of change. Any change is an experience. A new school will give you new friends, a new understanding of yourself, a strategy for behavior in a new team that will be useful to you in adulthood.
Adaptation of a teenager to a new school is more difficult than for a primary or secondary school student. The psyche of a teenage child is in the process of transformation. This difficult period of transition from childhood to adolescence, accompanied by hormonal instability, provokes the emergence of a number of complexes and dissatisfaction with oneself, especially in girls. During this period, the opinions of others are important. Criticism and rejection by the team is acutely perceived.
PHOTO GettyImages
- Adaptation to school begins a few weeks before the official September 1st. Before moving to a new place, talk to your child. Charge him with optimism! Remind them that this time will undoubtedly go well. True, at first, he may have to be patient. But no drama!
- Make sure he comes to class a little earlier, so to speak, to “scout the situation.” Explain that a child in a new class should behave calmly, but at the same time remain himself and not be afraid to start a conversation and take the initiative if necessary.
- Activities outside the school curriculum, clubs and sections help faster integration. What would he like to do? Music, programming, dancing, or maybe becoming a goalkeeper in a football team?
Establish contact with the parents of classmates - at children's birthdays or simply when leaving school. Participate in social activities and organize holidays, collaborate with teachers. Remember that you are trying at this moment for the sake of your children.
Be prepared for the fact that the grades will be lower at first: a different methodology, class attention and the fact that the child may be angry with the changes taking place and the parents will certainly affect their studies. Don't give up and encourage him every day.
Have a serious conversation at home, explain that we all encounter obstacles along the way in life, and this is absolutely normal. Find the positive aspects and change the focus of perception: “You’ll see how lucky you are!” At the same time, never impose your opinion or put pressure (phrases like “make friends with that boy over there” - put aside!).
How to adapt to a new school. The matter is not limited to lessons and changes; to speed up the process, invite his new friends home, let them spend more time in an informal setting. Just let him choose his guests himself.
For an adult and independent person, changing the environment is a stressful situation. And for a teenager, unfamiliar faces, a change in social circles, differences in teaching and assessment standards can become an overwhelming challenge, because the child not only faces changes, but also yearns for the team left behind at the old school.
The task of parents is to make the adjustment process as easy as possible, but many do not know how to help their child adapt to a new school and simply leave the situation to chance, citing the fact that “he’s not little anymore, he’ll figure it out on his own.” Such negligence often leads to stress and psychological problems.
Surprisingly, our almost adult children cope much worse with the problem called “new school” than kids, because they, unlike middle and junior school students, willingly accept newcomers into their ranks. And the point here is far from being the character of your teenager, because it is not uncommon for cases when, having arrived in a new team, the leader and leader never found a place for himself, finding himself at the very bottom of the school hierarchy. And even more so, quiet and modest people cannot do without parental support.
There can be many reasons for moving to a new school, from choosing a more prestigious educational institution to moving to another city or region. But, be that as it may, try to organize the transfer in such a way that the child goes to the new school from the beginning of the school year. In this case, not only will your child have to adapt to the school rhythm, his future classmates will also be slightly confused after the long holidays, and in such conditions it will become much easier to join the team.
The topic of transition is not taboo
Under no circumstances should you make your upcoming change of educational institution a secret. This topic should be open and discussed. Despite the fact that transferring to another school is a common occurrence, according to statistics approximately every third child encounters it; resistance and negativity on his part are also a regularity. So if your child is starting a new school, the best thing you can do is prepare him for the change.
Try to involve your child as much as possible in the process of choosing a new school. If we are talking about moving to another region or city and your needs are satisfied by several educational institutions, then, especially if we are talking about a teenager, the most optimal solution would be to allow him to independently choose his future place of study. To do this, make a list of available schools, discuss together the features of each of them, weigh the pros and cons. This will make your almost adult child much happier, because the awareness that you are taken into account, your opinion and needs are taken into account is extremely important.
Here are some tips to help you come to terms with the transition:
Discuss the need for transition in advance;
present information exclusively in a positive way;
Ask your child to write three lists: with his expectations, needs and fears related to the new school.
Discussing the upcoming school change and allowing your child to express their concerns and negative feelings can help you see the situation through their eyes. By showing your own attitude to the issue of moving, you will reassure him and give him the opportunity to get used to the changes.
Probe the soil
Collect as much information as possible about the chosen educational institution, especially since in the age of digital technology this is not at all difficult to do. Most educational institutions have their own websites, groups on social networks, which allow you to study the general educational concept, programs and training plans, information about ongoing events, such as Open Day. Most often, on these resources you can find not only the names of the school’s management staff and teachers, but also their photographs and short biography. You will agree that this information will not be superfluous before your actual visit.
The subject of your mini-research should also be the upcoming route your child will take to get to school; choose the most optimal one for him.
It is not necessary to scour the sites alone; the child will also be interested in learning more about the upcoming place of study, looking at photographs, video materials from open lessons, school extracurricular and sporting events.
Visit the school of your choice with your child
Be sure to meet the school principal and future class teacher. If possible, discuss the possibility of further meetings with them within the first few weeks of the start of the school year so that you can find out how things are going. Some schools are developing an adaptation strategy for newcomers; check if it is available.
Be sure to check the need to purchase textbooks, school and sports uniforms. In many educational institutions these issues are strictly regulated.
If the students’ clothing is loose, discuss with the class teacher how students usually dress. Agree that the first impression means a lot; a child in a new school, where most students wear sneakers and jeans, will look strange in a formal suit. His appearance should not be a reason for ridicule.
Your child’s adaptation to a new school will be easier if you and him study its territory and layout. This will help you find out the location of important facilities such as the gym, canteen, medical office, library and the like. The first day is often accompanied by neurosis and confusion; such an excursion will help you avoid unpleasant situations and give you self-confidence.
If your child has special needs, discuss existing support programs with school officials. If the language of instruction is not the child's native language, discuss the availability of programs and services to facilitate adaptation. If possible, obtain a class schedule so you can monitor your progress and stay up to date.
Discuss with your child how he will get to school and home. Show where you will pick it up from, where the nearest public transport stop is, and what types of transport are suitable. If it is planned that the child will get to school on his own, it would not be a bad idea to make a “test flight”. Find out about the availability of extracurricular clubs and sections that your child can attend.
Help form a social circle
When a child moves to a new school, it is very important for parents to help him form a new social circle. To do this, if possible, even before the start of the school year, enroll your child in a school summer camp, nearby sections or clubs. Having met familiar faces at their desks, the teenager will feel more confident.
According to psychologists, you should do your best to support your child’s communication with former classmates; if you just changed the area, then offer to invite them to visit, go to the cinema or for a walk together. When changing a city or country, remind your child not to forget to leave his contacts on social networks and instant messengers, and his mailing address to his friends. This way, it will be much easier to accept the situation with a change of school, because only the team will change, and the same social circle will remain.
Encourage communication with new classmates in every possible way, allow them to invite the guys to visit, perhaps even throw a small party or pizza party in honor of meeting you. However, such an event should in no case look like an attempt to buy friendship and attention.
If, for example, your class has an established tradition of going to the cinema every weekend or organizing outings, then encourage your child to attend these events. A planned visit to grandma or a trip to the country may well be postponed to another day. True, we recommend supporting only traditions of a positive orientation, if in the class it is customary, for example, to regularly skip physical education, and instead drink beer on a bench in a nearby yard, suppress such communication in every possible way, even to the point of meeting with the class teacher and school management.
Be a support, but don’t suffocate with guardianship
When your child is at a new school, your support and care can help him adapt in most cases. Let the family become that bay of peace and balance in which you can hide from problems and adversity.
At first, avoid pressure; this requirement applies to all areas of life, from academic performance to household chores. There should be support and understanding on your part, and not constant reproaches, nagging and lectures. Show that you yourself are 100% sure that everything will work out for your child, but not because you are indifferent to his fate, but because you do not doubt his strengths and abilities.
Don’t forget to remind your children of other “firsts” they have already successfully completed. For example, about the first trip to a pioneer camp, perhaps the child remembers his first day in kindergarten. A reminder of such successes will help in understanding the fact that changing schools is the first step towards meeting new friends or acquiring new skills. This position will build trust and remind the child that taking the risk of change will definitely pay off.
Your child’s adaptation to a new school will be easier if you don’t go behind his back. Even if you have the best intentions, don’t discuss him with your classmates; the fame of a “mama’s boy” has never helped anyone win many new friends. Of course, there are times when your intervention is necessary, but first, carefully weigh the pros and cons.
Set mode
A new school almost always means a change in the usual routine, which includes morning routines, the journey to school and the return home. Establishing a daily routine will help in establishing stable family relationships. It is this feeling that a well-established daily routine gives children.
A student’s day should begin with a nutritious breakfast, with enough time left for getting ready and getting to school, because rushing increases stress and nervousness during this already difficult period. Allocate a certain block of time to do homework, this will reduce fatigue in the evenings and psychological stress. Do not allow your child to stay late in the evenings; he should have enough time to sleep.
Make sure that your child has his own alarm clock set, and during the first few days, supervise his preparations so that he goes to school with the necessary set of stationery, textbooks, and uniform for sports activities. If necessary, provide help with homework.
Collaborate with your class teacher
A child’s academic performance is a clear indicator of how his adaptation is going. Of course, it is not entirely reasonable to expect excellent grades literally in the first days at a new school. However, if a former excellent student suddenly turns into a “deaf” C student and the situation does not improve over time, do not let the process take its course. This may happen due to a more serious level of teaching the material in the new educational institution, then perhaps the child needs additional classes or a tutor. Or your child has decided that he doesn’t want to stand out from the crowd and deliberately “grabs” bad grades so as not to be branded a nerd, then only a serious conversation will help to explain the unreasonableness of such behavior.
If you cannot resolve the situation on your own, do not hesitate to contact your class teacher. Monitoring the psychological climate in the classroom is part of his job responsibilities. Most likely, the teacher has some experience on how a child can adapt to a new school. Believe in your child, support, help and everything will work out!