Crying Mom, Dad, Me !? We Go To Kindergarten

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Yes, our parental psyche is sometimes so delicate that not only the child, but often also the mother needs to help out from tears during separation in kindergarten. And lately, there are also especially touching dads. But what if compassionate grandparents join this team?

Recently, the issue of adaptation to the kindergarten has become one of the most difficult, and, if not strangely controversial. They argue not about what to choose - to cry or not to cry for the child during this period, in other words, to suffer or not to suffer. Of course, everyone understands and everyone wants the child not to cry and suffer, but this is how to achieve this, this is the question. Here, both parents and educators stumble upon a stumbling block. I would say that two different approaches to the educational process come across the same stone.

This article is also interesting in that it describes my actions when I did not yet have a psychological education. And, nevertheless, it was love for my child, attention to him and to my feelings and experiences that gave me many correct hints.

Faced with this question during the adaptation of my child, and having lived through a difficult situation in kindergarten, I also went to my position in this regard. I confess that my intuition, or even, I would say, maternal instinct, helped me in this matter, since I did not have a lot of knowledge and experience in this topic at that time. Someone will say that it is really possible to rely on feelings only in such a serious matter. I agree, you can't! But you know, that very motherly feeling helped me out very often. There was a case when the same diagnosis was made by three doctors to my 4-month-old child, maternal feeling turned out to be on top, it did not disappoint even then, it made me read, look for answers, try to figure it out myself. It is it pushed me to disagree! It said - take into account everything that the doctors say, but do not stop, look for the answer yourself. And you know, it turned out to be right again. The situation was not so difficult, but the same diagnosis by three doctors turned out to be wrong!

Of course, in the matter of adapting a child to kindergarten without maternal feelings, and if dad takes an active part in this matter, one cannot do without paternal feelings. Moreover, if the child adapts difficultly, cries, is capricious, listen to your feeling, what will it tell you? Is it just a whim?

I will only try to help you by analyzing the situation that happened to my child. The situation is very typical in our time, and I think many parents will see themselves in it.

So, my child went to kindergarten at the age of two and a half. When choosing a kindergarten, I relied on very good recommendations from friends, and I made a mistake in this. As I will write in the article "The case of a kindergarten, or the choice of a kindergarten", on all issues related to this institution, from the parents your personal opinion must be added.

In our case, my daughter heard about the kindergarten only from the lips of her parents, and I also visually introduced her to the kindergarten when I came to talk with the head. The first day we spent about an hour only on the playground with the children and the teacher, where I was allowed to be with the child. We certainly had a wonderful time with my baby and the new kids. The next day I was advised to bring the child to the group and leave him there for one hour. This is where our adaptation epic began. The cry of my daughter, who realized that I was leaving, very quickly turned hysterical, she was immediately taken away from me, and was urged to leave. I left. In a state of shock, I approached home. I walked and thought, and this is the normal adaptation of the child, and this is that laudatory approach to children, about which there were opinions around this kindergarten? Not only was the child in shock, but I was also in this state. An hour later, when I returned to pick her up, seeing my mother, the child rushed to me, bursting into tears again.

The next day, a motherly feeling forced me to take matters into my own hands. The idea that something in this garden is not happening as they say about it, began to be confirmed by events that developed further. On the second day, with me and the child, they tried to do the same. Only this time, I calmly and politely, but firmly enough, said that I would not leave without confirming that everything was fine with the child, and most importantly, without saying goodbye. I stayed. To which a sea of accusations poured in my direction, that I was doing wrong, that I interfere with the normal kindergarten process, that the teacher has been working in kindergarten for more than 25 years and this is not the first child who does not want to break away from his parents. And, most importantly, while the child is not crying, you need to leave him and quickly leave so that he does not see the parents leave.

Now let's trace the features of the kindergarten approach to the adaptation of the child, which we described above, let's try to analyze what this approach gives. I'll call this approach like this:

Approach of DIRECT NOT PARTICIPATION or the least involvement of parents in the process of adapting the child to stay in the garden. Its basic principles:

Principle 1. The child stays in the kindergarten group for the first time. The child must independently get used to a new stranger - a caregiver. To this principle, I will include those situations when parents are allowed to be present in the group for no more than an hour and for one or two days, then the child must adapt himself.

Principle 2. With the help of the educator, the child must cope with the new environment - a new room, new adults and peers, a new system of relationships. The parent should not take part in this process so as not to delay the adaptation process. Or the participation of a parent in this process is undesirable.

Principle 3: A parent must quickly go unnoticed until the baby cries. If the child still does not want to leave and cries, but the educators managed to distract him for a while, then parent, without saying goodbye, should leave quickly, i.e. in other words “ sneak away … This will prevent the development of hysterical behavior in the child.

Now, let's dream a little. You are unexpectedly stranded on a desert island. On it you meet the local quite friendly population. However, you do not know their language, customs, you eat food that is unusual for you, do not sleep in your bed, and, most importantly, you have absolutely no idea whether you will ever be able to return home, see your loved ones, etc. What are your feelings? Creepy and somehow unpleasant? Maybe scary?

This is exactly what you begin to feel, having finally realized all the hopelessness of your situation, the child feels when he is left alone for the first time in a kindergarten group using the method of the above approach. Especially the child who was left without warning that they would return for him, in fact, simply disappearing from his life. Only if you find yourself in such a situation as an adult, you do not panic right away, you have many necessary skills to adapt, and the child simply does not have such skills yet, so the panic starts right away. At the same time, such fears are activated: fear of everything completely new, fear of the unknown, what will happen to him next, fear of getting lost, of being left without mom and dad, why they disappeared so unexpectedly, fear of a new unfamiliar environment, fear of communicating, albeit with friendly, but completely new adults, fear that a child cannot change anything, fear of hopelessness, fear of loneliness. Tell me, do you really want your child to be in all these fears?

As a result, all the child's feelings will mix into one continuous fear or constant anxiety throughout such a day.

Thus, what is the essence of the above approach. The child must experience and experience fear, and the fear is intentionally created by the external environment. There is no other way out. So he goes through a kind of "hardening" of the psyche. Otherwise, he will in no way cope with his experiences and will never be able to adapt to kindergarten. However, is it so?

Now let's turn to research in the field of developmental psychology. It is scientifically proven that each period of growing up is characterized by its own fears, this is natural and there is no getting away from it. Those. there are so-called age-related fears, which, with the right attitude towards the child, quickly survive and do not have a particularly strong effect on the psyche. The main reasons for the development of age-related fears are - a meeting with a new world, a child's living fantasy and still lack of knowledge about the real picture of the world.

Let's highlight the main and most common age-related fears that kindergarten children have:

Often parents think that if a child is afraid of something, it is:

1) firstly - bad;

2) secondly, it is imperative to help the child get rid of his fears.

Since we learned that there are age-related fears, it becomes clear that experiencing these fears is not bad, it is just normal and inherent in us by nature. And, if your child cries and wants to move away from objects of concern, this indicates that your child is developing completely normally. However, what parents think about secondly is absolutely true, the child needs help to get rid of these fears.

Now let's explain why. Fear - is an emotion that, on the one hand, performs the functions of protection. It's good that jumping from the second floor is scary. But, if we are in a state of fear for a long time, this emotion becomes dangerous for the human psyche.

What is the danger of the emotion of fear?

1) At the biological level, fear causes a stressful state of the body, the latter is rebuilt and works in a new unusual mode. In this mode, the body cannot work for a long time.

2) If the stress is prolonged or the fear does not go away, dysfunction of the body occurs - fatigue, absent-mindedness, further weakening of the body and the development of various diseases. Fear often slows down or develops a slowdown in thinking functions.

3) At the psychological level, fear manifests itself in increased anxiety, sensitivity and irritability. Often fears move to the subconscious - and manifest themselves in terrible dreams.

4) In addition, they can contribute to the development of neuropsychiatric diseases, the onset of symptoms of which often manifests itself in increased aggressiveness, in tics, stuttering, urinary incontinence, enuresis, etc.

5) Strong emotion of fear, experienced only once – can stay for life.

6) Proven, what fears experienced in childhood can lead to mental changes, which will manifest itself already in adulthood.

So I have a question, why amplify this emotion? As I wrote above, there is such an approach that a child, left alone with his fear, as if “tempered”, becomes stronger. Exactly, on the contrary. The child is characterized by even greater immersion in anxiety and experiences, since the child still takes everything literally, he does not yet have knowledge of the real picture of the world.

Now I would highlight one point that is overlooked when using the above approach to adaptation. The main goal of the approach is for the child to first stop crying and calm down, which is really very good. However, does such a calmness of the child indicate that he has ceased to be afraid? This is precisely the point that is missed in this approach. Outward calmness is not equivalent to the disappearance of fear.

So, for example, my daughter also calmed down on the first day relatively quickly after I left, but when I returned and she saw me, she burst into tears instantly, and thus released her unresolved emotion - fear!

Well, now a question for you: " Dear parents, do you think your presence in the group with the child helps to cope with this fear? "

At the moment of parting, the child will not let you go, ask you to sit with him, cry, hug him tightly (my daughter held me so tightly that I had never felt such strength in her arms before), just so that you would not leave. What is the first thing the child experiences at this moment? Fear. So, coping with this basic emotion in a situation with a completely new environment, in which your child will find himself for the first time, can help. only the parent. The educator, no matter how good and educated he is, remains a new and unfamiliar person for the child, before which he naturally has one of the standard childhood fears - the fear of strangers.

It seems to me that we are gradually coming to the logical conclusion of our analysis - only a parent can help a child to cope with a new environment, because it is he who is the only object that does not cause anxiety in the child. therefore during the period of adaptation of the child to any new environment, the presence and assistance of a parent should not just be welcomed, but must be mandatory! It is on this issue that teachers and educators continue to debate.