Send your child to school at six, or is it better to wait until seven? At what age do children more easily adapt to kindergarten? Many parents are looking for answers to these questions.
Psychologist Svetlana Royz answers these questions often, and even wrote a book “I’m going to kindergarten today.” She recently held a workshop on this topic. Edition “UP. Life ” offers readers an outline of the meeting.
The human brain has two hemispheres.
The right hemisphere is hyperactive in all children up to about 6.5 years of age. There is a lot of diverse information: all sounds, all touches, all aromas, everything that we feel from the outside world.
And this is all disordered, so the left hemisphere, which helps to organize this information, will fully engage in work only after 7 years.
Imagine there is a huge amount of stimuli in the right hemisphere, and the left one is not yet able to slow down and select only one important signal.
What do you think happens to the child at such moments? Tantrum, overload, because he cannot bear all these signals.
What does the cry of babies mean, and why can’t we ignore a baby who is crying?
When someone small is bad, when someone is crying nearby, our cortisol levels rise. Under its influence, we tense, get angry, or start to fuss.
That is why, when children get sick, parents start to quarrel among themselves.
When you feel the tension from a crying baby, tell yourself, “Everything is fine. My hormonal system is working great. I have the hormone cortisol. Breathe in and out. ”
To help the child in such moments, you need to name the emotions that he is experiencing: “Perhaps you are upset, perhaps you are angry.” Or just hug.
A child who is annoyed or stressed should be given a soft object in his left hand so that he can squeeze it. When we squeeze something in our left hand, we take control of what is happening in the right hemisphere of the brain.
When a small child drops objects on the floor, he trains his brain.
One way for the child to concentrate is rocking in the chair. So it filters out unnecessary brain signals.
To develop the brain, a child needs movement. Every time our children move, they develop their cerebellum. And the children themselves come up with the necessary movements: this is walking on the edge, where you need to balance, balls on which you can jump.
When your little child throws objects on the floor a huge number of times, they train their cerebellum.
If one of the teachers said that your child does not have the ability to do mathematics, then such a child just needs a little more sports activities to stimulate the parietal lobe of the brain. Sport is associated with the construction of movement, and our logical thinking is also associated with this.
Child development contours
Whatever recommendations you are given, there are no absolutely correct norms for your children. There are only ideal age norms for imaginary ideal children.
Now in psychology they are increasingly moving away from the concept of “norm” and come to “contours of development”, the boundaries in which the child develops.
The first circuit of a child’s development is called “physical”. It lasts approximately from birth to 2 years of age.
At this time, the child receives all information about himself through the attitude of adults to the needs of his body.
The look that the mother looks at the baby at this age then becomes his self-esteem.
If the first stage of development is solid, the child will feel safe among strangers.
The second circuit of development is called “personal” and lasts from 2 to 4 years. At this time, the child begins to talk about himself “I” and the word “no” appears in his vocabulary – the first word that helps to build his boundaries.
Parents of a child in the second stage of development often face aggression. This aggression does not arise because the child is aggressive in itself and not because he is poorly brought up – he just learns to define his boundaries.
When the child begins to talk about himself “I”, he is already able to control the process of defecation. That is, a baby who is being prepared to go to the potty will deliberately sit down to poop after he says “I” about himself.
Every time we touch a child, his brain receives a signal “I’m safe”.
The third circuit of development is called the “interpersonal circuit of communication” and lasts from 4 to 7 years. During this period, the child’s boundaries of “I” ripen.
Closer to 4 years is the ideal age to send a child to kindergarten. And if this must be done before the age of 4, then the child should be in a small group, where they show maximum respect for him.
Until the age of 7, children live in a game reality.
The closer to 7 years, the better the time to send your child to school. Only after 7 years old will the child feel like a part of a social group with its own rules and will be ready to be called by his last name.
Until the age of 7, children live in a game reality. The game develops the brain. The more the child has time to play before the age of 7, the more successful he will be in school.
What it means to be good enough parents
It is better for a child that the parents allow themselves some kind of imperfection, since the child does not develop next to ideal parents, they do not give him the opportunity to adapt to the outside world.
“Good enough parents,” in Donald Winnicott’s terminology, are parents who allow themselves to take care of themselves in the first place.
The task of an 8-month-old child, when attachments are formed, is to crawl along with dad and mom (mostly after mom), crawl to the toilet when mom is there, and scream under the door.
A rather good mother shouts from the toilet to the child: “I’m with you, now I will pee and come back to you.”
The ideal mom immediately opens the door and grabs the baby in her arms.
Bad mom does not react to this cry at all.
The best therapeutic words for a toddler are: “I am with you.”
Parents who are good enough show their children how they can stay in touch with them and at the same time take care of themselves.
The main task of parents is to teach children how to survive without them.
Good enough parents allow themselves to say no to their child.
Until a certain age, children look very cute.
Nature has taken care of the survival of humanity. There is such a phenomenon as baby shape. This is such a manipulation of nature: children look very cute so that their parents will not leave them while they are helpless.
When a child’s appearance becomes less sweet, this is a sign that he is ready to go somewhere to develop, to learn to live in the world on his own.
If each developmental stage is solid, the baby has an adequate supply of oxytocin to handle the important tasks in his life. Development steps can be completed at any age.
When parents find it difficult with a child, they should remember the magic words: “My love is so great that I can dissolve in it all your whims, and all your tantrums, and all your anger.”
