There are things that can make it less difficult for our children to enter the primary school.
In this article I have included the 5 steps to:
- encourage the transition from kindergarten to primary school
- avoid crying and seizures at school, first gradeanxiety and anxiety before entering the classroom
- how to behavewith children with the arrival of the first grade
- know why children sometimes don’t want to go to school
- find out why sometimes children already in elementary school do not want to do their homework
With the arrival of the first grade the situation compared to the previous placement is a bit different because, most likely, our son already has a few years of school experience behind him , the years of kindergarten and, growing up, he also has a different reasoning skills :
He begins to think about things, he begins to be more and more aware of his feelings, of what he feels and what he feels.
He is much more aware at six or seven of the relationships he has with others than when he was a few months old and had to go to the nursery.
How can we prepare ourselves so that the transition from kindergarten to primary school is as harmonious as possible?
Transition to primary school: how to better manage placement and avoid difficulties
Let’s see the 5 steps that can help you with your child.
1. The experience of previous years with the inclusion in the nursery and kindergarten
It may seem strange, but even in this case we put our roots with the children in previous years. If for example:
1️⃣ we respected his needs as a child
2️⃣ if we have avoided anticipating the times and telling him at two years old “you are great, you are great, you are great”
3️⃣ if we respected his early childhood need to be with us, to play a lot, to live carefree
then it is very likely that he has structured that inner strength necessary to face this phase of life, this important passage in elementary school.
If in previous years we have chosen for our child a right environment for him in kindergarten, we have the probability that this step will be even easier because we do not have a difficult experience behind us, as can be a kindergarten experience gone very badly, problems with comrades, problems with teachers.
The ideal is that the situation in which he did not want to go to school did not arise and we still brought him without accepting him and without resolving the reason. And maybe adding to the dose by saying “that’s your job, you have to go” .
Or, for example, the very schooled primary / kindergarten realities do not help much, where children arrive at the nursery and cannot play carefree, certainly do educational activities based on play .
Maybe they have to sit already like in school for a long time compared to what their physique their mind can support and endure. They may have to do prescription work which is often challenging and boring for children of that age. Perhaps different games could be made to bring them closer to writing more dynamic, more creative …
In these cases we arrive in September, if not already in the summer before the first grade, that the children are exasperated and obviously (and also rightly) they tell you:
I don’t want to see school anymore, not even on postcards!
The choices we make a few years earlier and what your child has experienced therefore already prepare the ground for inclusion in primary school.
2. The choice of primary school
Here, too, is the same as for the nursery and as for the nursery school: whenever possible we choose school carefully .
Today the school has many difficulties, it should be restructured a little bit, but despite this, among the various choices we have before us, we can try to identify the one that best meets the needs of the child, the one that is closest to the nature of the child himself.
Maybe a school not too crowded, not too big.
Let’s try to talk to the teachers: even if they change from year to year, maybe we can refer to the director who probably won’t change, or to the didactic director.
We can for example:
- attend the school the previous year, go to visit it, inform us about the didactic plans
- investigate how they cope with difficulties, how they try to aggregate the class and make friends among their peers.
- ask questions to find out if they give the marks or not and by what criteria
- if the school has any guidelines it follows
- what times are made
- if there is a garden or a forest nearby, what physical activities are done
- if when he wants to pee he can go pee or not …
So let’s try to understand how it works. If possible, we try to plan this choice as far as possible.
Let’s not get tired of going to look for schools that maybe are in the neighboring town, they are in the other neighborhood, which require us to wake up a few minutes earlier to do an extra piece in the car, but which can then give much more to our children.
We must not be afraid of these things, because then the children in school have to spend many years and if they immediately receive a good first impression, this will help a lot.
3. Enthusiasm and preparation before entering elementary school
There are also other things we can do at this stage to make our children love school. First of all, avoid terrorism as much as possible , for example phrases like: “it’s your job, it’s your job, you have to go and be good. You must listen, you must you must you must … “
It is clear that it is good for a child to be polite, it is good for him to be respectful towards the teachers, of course, only that the way in which we expect this passage must be as happy and peaceful as possible.
Mum and dad first, with sincerity, should have their mouth watering, conveying the passion for the arrival of elementary school, conveying the message with their stories and tales:
You’re finally going to school. You will learn to read. You will learn to write like mom and dad.
Finally you will learn a lot of things about where we live, how plants live, how animals live.
Fantastic. You will discover wonderful new things. Operations, reading accounts, answering questions… You will do a lot of beautiful things. I’m so happy. I can not wait!!
Only in this way can we make it come to them too.
Also for the choice of the backpack, the pen holder, the school material it is useful to create the corner at home where we can put the comfortable books and notebooks together.
I remember when I was in elementary school. The moment to line the books, to buy the necessary was a mystical moment because it was a moment of great value. It was almost the most religious time of the year, because all the material through which I would learn had to be prepared.
I spent an entire afternoon, together with my godfather, lining the notebooks and books, measuring with the ruler so that the cover would fit perfectly all year round and would not flake off after two months. And I did everything with maniacal precision because that book and those notebooks were essential.
It is true that I had to like the folder, but it didn’t matter if it was the one from the advertising or if it was the one my friend had, or my other friend still, or if it was my favorite superhero. It was important that it supported the full weight of my culture, it was important that once full it was comfortable on my shoulders.
I believe that these things, these values, we have lost sight of them, we have forgotten them a little and, taken by haste, we find it hard to create this aura of wonder around learning , which is instead needed.
4. Compliance with the rules cannot be learned in one day
Yet another aspect that can help you, your child and the teachers is compliance with the rules .
The teachers, with all the difficulties involved, do everything and even more to make things go well, but they certainly find it difficult when they have a seven / six year old child in the class who struggles to respect the rules.
But a child of this age does not learn to respect the rules, to respect others, to ask and to communicate, the day he enters the first grade.
The attitude towards the rules, respect for adults, the fact of knowing how to be with others is something that we build in previous years.
Because knowing how to be with your classmates, being able to manage some teasing, maybe having the courage to say to the teacher “I don’t understand, I’m bored, this is difficult” is also linked to the example that a child received in the previous years.
If I have faith in myself I am not afraid to ask “I don’t understand” , I have trusted mum and dad who bring me here and they know it is the right environment for me. I was lucky enough to find a particularly empathetic teacher, I’m not afraid, as soon as a difficulty I say:
“I have teased. I do not understand. Look, I’m getting bored ”.
If you want to learn more about how to manage the rules you can read the article: Does your child not listen? Find out why he doesn’t accept the rules and yours doesn’t
5. Pay attention to the first few days
It is useful to try to keep the antennas straight to capture what happens in the first times during and after the first few days of insertion .
We must not be afraid to ask to be able to speak to the teacher in the first week, because I have to know immediately how to fix the shot , where to intervene from home.
If possible, we avoid waiting for the problems to escalate and reach the end of the first year, the middle of the first year or the second grade. At that point I will no longer know how to resolve my child’s hatred of school or the fact that they have taken it as a disturbing element of the class. Or I won’t know how to find a solution to the fact that they can’t get out of their minds the idea that my daughter for the whole previous year, whenever she had a problem she didn’t ask, she closed in on herself.
If perhaps we had read all the children’s signals together , if we had coordinated each other, including my son, maybe we could have resolved immediately at the beginning , catching it right from his gaze, from his mood, from what he tells us, how the situation was going. .
If we build a good relationship with our children, when the children do not feel listened to, if the teacher has been nervous, they come home and tell us “look there is something wrong” .
Then we can intervene, not to insult the teacher and be a nuisance parent or tell her she can’t do her job, God forbid. But it is our right to be able to go to the teacher and say:
“Look, luckily my daughter came home and told me about this difficulty. I want to point it out because, having the program to run, other children, maybe my daughter doesn’t speak much, comes home and talks to me about it. Maybe together we can find the situation. What can I tell you from home? When it happens we answer her like this, maybe you can do it here at school too “.
With dialogue and good communication, solutions are found.
The invitation is: pay attention to the first weeks, the first days. Because it is much easier to be able to fix the little things that are wrong right now, in these first few bars.
And then, when the children are small, it is important to start thinking that what we do today interacts and forms the basis of his years in the future. And also the relationship with the school, which will have a few years from now, can be thought and built before it begins.
Prevention is always better, even for entering the first grade
It is always better to intervene immediately than not having to then run for cover, hoping that someone will solve things for us, when perhaps then the problems have already magnified because months have passed or because the whole year has already passed.
At this point I can only wish you a good placement in elementary school. I hope these tips will help you to convey the passion and love for learning that unfortunately children and young people sometimes lose.
If you want to know more about why children sometimes don’t want to study, don’t want to read or why they even hate school, you can read: Does your child hate homework and school? Maybe he has a good reason …