What Is It Like To Be The Parent Of A First Grader

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

… And, looking at his receding back, covered with a brand new backpack, they swallowed a lump coming up to his throat. Unsuccessfully trying to understand when he managed to grow so quickly from small doll overalls into an almost adult full dress?

For many parents, this day, in addition to joyful excitement, which is understandable at the beginning of each new stage in life, gives rise to anxiety, the nature of which they themselves do not fully understand. This anxiety is trying to "identify" about something simple, obvious, something that can be easily improved and corrected. For the hundredth time, we critically examine our child for a shirt tucked into his pants, laces or bows tied, the integrity of the bouquet in his hands, the presence of a pencil case in a backpack. However, the excitement does not recede even if all these points are successfully implemented. There is no free exhalation, there is no feeling that the exam has been passed. Because it isn't. The exam is just beginning, and we know it.

The beginning of school life is really a kind of exam for parents. This period becomes a crisis in many families. This is the time when our wonderful child for the first time independently, without a buffer in the form of parents, comes into contact with society. And we are afraid of his failure, which will show our parental mistakes. After all, preparing a child for school is not just about sending him to preparatory classes, buying a uniform and waking him up at seven in the morning on the first of September.

School readiness is the result of the previous seven years of life.

• Is he healthy and physically strong enough to cope with the school load?
• Has he played enough role-playing games to successfully build social interactions now?
• Did we teach him the lessons about borders well enough so that he was now able to accept and follow the rules?
• Have we made sure that the teacher, whose traces of personality will be reflected in the entire life of the child, is the person we trust?
• Have we nourished him with our care, love and acceptance so much that possible conflicts with classmates will strengthen him, not break him?

Whether we realize it or not, the school, like a litmus test, will reveal the results of our parenting work

However, it is not at all necessary for the first class to become a doomsday extended for a year! This happens if we habitually continue to bear all responsibility for our child, without sharing it with him. When we speak and feel that it is "WE went to school." Seven years old, the beginning of school is the extreme point when it is very important to divide "WE" into "I" and "OH". Appropriate and so organic seven or six years ago "We ate", "We slept" is now becoming traumatic for both. It is HE who goes to school, and we see him off. This is the beginning (if we have not yet begun to do this earlier) of the stage when it is necessary to begin to gradually transfer to his little palms the proportionate responsibility for his life. Otherwise, all its difficulties will be perceived as our defeats. Any manifestation of his failure will drive us into guilt and shame … and ricochet back into the child with our displeasure and anger.

And the child, meanwhile, really needs parental support. It is very important for him to feel the support at home in order to be able to recover from everything that happens to him at school. Instead, there is often a coalition of school and parents, and the child is left alone with the feeling of being wrong. And now he becomes that buffer between parents and society, which shows the success or failure of both one and the other.

The paradox of the way out of this situation lies in the fact that only by separating one can stay together. Only by delimiting responsibility, it becomes possible to remain on the side of the child. Your child goes to school in order to solve his problems there. There a teacher is waiting for him, who must do his job. And our role is to be a reliable home front for the child, which provides him with opportunities to solve his problems. And only if everyone remains at their "workplace", harmonious development and real learning are possible. Otherwise, the school turns into a battlefield where it is impossible to win. And yes, most likely, we were not the ideal parent for our child in previous years, and our child is not perfect. He may be more successful in some ways, less successful in some ways. Something we are able to correct, for example, providing him with a clear rhythm of the day, adequate, healthy sleep and quality nutrition. Something is its feature that just needs to be taken into account. He grew up and goes to school. There comes a time when you need to let him go a tangible distance from himself, to allow him to walk on his own, with a sincere belief that he will cope.

The process of living growing up of their children is similar to flying a kite - gradually, sensitively catching the air flow, unwind the thread. And we can improve our skills as a pilot-guide, but the quality of his flight depends not only on us, but also on the design of the kite itself and on the wind that lifts it up. If, for fear of falling, you do not release the thread to the desired length, it will never take off as it could.

The best we can do for him and for ourselves is to be on the same side. Be ready to help get back into the air if a fall occurs. Be sensitive and attentive to weather conditions, and perhaps sometimes allow not to fly on a day when the weather is too inclement. Admire the beauty of his flight and sincerely admire his success.

I wish you sunny weather and a fair wind! Good luck!