The start of school and lack of the desire of children for going to school

Basically, any kinds of changes and new and unknown positions can be stressful and fearful. Entering school is one of these cases. Fortunately, most of persons get along with new situations as soon as possible and their anxiety is removed. However, some persons cannot get along with and accept new situations and anxiety and fear remain them for a long time due to some psychological problems such as shy, depressed, sensitive children and inadaptable children. Most of children express their depression through refusal and lack of desire in going to school.

The first case:

Mahtab is seven years old and it is two months that he has started the second grade of elementary school. During this time, most of time, she groaned and would not like to go to school and would like to stay at home. When she was preparing to go to school, he often became bad-tempered and made excuses. That's why she missed the school bus; therefore, her mother, Setareh, had to take her school. She complained about stomachache, sore throat, and so forth most of time, so the sanitary consultant of school had to call her mother and her mother picked her up sooner. Most of time, when Mahtab came back home, her sadness and pain soothed and then she watched TV and played with her toys. When her mother could not pick her up soon, she tried to talk to her mother on the phone so that she could feel relaxed.

The second case:

Majid that is twelve years old entered the school at the end of the morning within three months that school had just started. He entered the class at the same time that his teacher entered the class. He always sat at the end of the class, rarely asked any questions in class, was not active in group work and most of time he stayed in class in break time and went to the library. Most of time, he was playing computer games in afternoons. He received his scores for three early months three days ago and he was punished because he had gained low scores in composition, history and math.

Point

Physical problems such as stomachache and headache that are due to anxiety are real and involuntary and children would not like to know its reasons why he or she feels headache. Only sign of these kinds of sadness is that the problem and sadness of a person are removed when stressful factor is removed. Physical and medical reason is not found out by physicians and specific experiments. In these cases, there are no serious factors such as fever, vomit, and weight loss.

Evolutionary changes and school

When a child enters school, he or she enters one of the most important stages of their life (social life). In this stage, the ability of the understanding of a child enters a new stage of logical and reasoning thoughts. And school is formed as the second home. The most important evolutionary changes are in this stage of changes and social mental evolution that includes the recognition of herself or himself as the exclusive features and abilities and different from others and the establishment of friendly relationship. Parents and teachers have important role so that children can pass this stage.

The role and position of parents

Parents should recognize the features of a child clearly and they should express them and show that each one has his or her own features and interests and persons are different from each other in most of areas. For example, you love pizza, but I love broth. Your favorite color is green, but the favorite color of your father is blue and so forth. Parents should spotlight on the positive features of their children and admire them; I am so happy that you are disciplined and put everything in its own place after play and I have more time to take care of affairs. …
Little by little, you should help your children so that they can recognize the features of others and understand the common points of themselves with others. Hence, he or she can establish friendly relationship with some persons that have common points and main similarities with them and he or she can play with others and cooperate and have a relationship with them through the acceptance of such differences. One of other necessities of this ability is training other conceptions such as sharing, the acceptance of role and responsibility, respecting the turns of each other and agreement.
Accept however your child is and should not have a lot of expectations from him or her.
You should recognize the features and abilities of your children and admire them.
You should understand differences among persons and teach them to your children.
Stop comparing and stop expecting that your child becomes the best student or he or she becomes a winner. You should compare your child with himself or herself such as asking the score of other his or her classmates and should encourage him or her to be the best one.
You should admire the progress and success of your child even small ones.
You should encourage the progress and success of your child even small ones.
You should lead your child to sport activity according to his or her interest and talent. Such activity and practice should be accompanied with fun, enjoyment and encouragement not in a boring way and by force and with punishment.

The role and position of teachers and instructors

Since the role of teachers and dominant atmosphere has more effect than parents in family on mental and social growth of children, paying attention to the following points can be useful in this path.
The recognition of themselves and others and the conception of relationship and friendship:
Teachers should create different situations so that children and their classmates can exchange their ideas. For example, groups and the sessions of discussion about abilities, interests and unique features provide a chance for children so that they can recognize themselves deeply. The presentation of matters such as the conception of friendship, differences, the request of rights, standing against enforcement, helping each other, cooperation in groups and presenting it in the whole class will have remarkable effects.

Adequacy and qualification

The most important part of mental and personality growth of children in these ages is the sense of ability, adequacy and qualification that are gained through making their attempts and jobs fruitful, lack of different failures and lack of criticism and humiliation. To achieve this purpose,
We should establish activities (such as paly, task, design and …) within the abilities of children and most of them can accomplish them and succeed. The kind of activities should be in the way that makes children think and try and foster and improve their skills.
Although value systems (scoring and symbols such as star and stick) can encourage children to study and to do their activities, they can have negative effects such as making children competitive, influencing their purpose, the conditioning of children, the weakening of self-confidence, problem in relationships among children and ….). If you have to use such a value system, you should inform children of their scores personally and they should not be declared in class and should not be stuck on the board.
Criticisms should be expressed personally and notifications should be done calmly and they should censure the inappropriate behavior of a child not his or her personality. For example, you can say to a child '' when you chew gum, you distract youself, me and other children.

Being accepted and being important

One of other aspects of self-esteem is the ability of organization and the control of the life and you should be accepted and confirmed by peers. Before children go to school, parents fostered the sense of assurance, safety and the sense of being loved and accepted in children and afterwards, peers, friends and teachers should do such things. Hence, their self-confidence highly promotes. To hasten and simplify this affair:
A teacher should pay attention to students equally not only special students as much as possible. A teacher should transfer such a message to hard students '' although I do not pay you special attention, you are considered as good students in my mind and think about you''.
A teacher should tell to students what behaviors are not acceptable and although some persons may behave wrongly, they are all good, honest and valuable. You should stop writing good and bad students on the blackboard.
The organization and planning of the class should be left to students as much as possible. Children should be encouraged to recognize the problems and matters of each other collaboratively and think and make decisions about their solutions and a teacher should have only the role of supervisor and leader. The group meetings should be hold at least one or two times during a week and the cooperation of all students will be effective and valuable in the selection of plans, the topics of studies, taking care of complaints and finding solutions in the ability of children for the control of the life.
Criticism should be done personally and notifications in public should be done softly and they should refer to inappropriate behaviors not to the personality of students.

Eradicating discrimination and false trains

A group of children from different tribes, skin colors and cultures attends schools in large cities. Children should understand that no one is better than the other one and all of them have equal rights. Moreover, they should respect the cultures of each other and they should not sneer at and humiliate each other.

The improvement of friendly relationship

Real conception belongs group and fame is formed in this period. Hence, a teacher should try to improve relationships among friends and the formation of similar groups through the presentation of activity and different trains along with class cooperation. For example, it is possible to use the words '' a guy'' or '' a person'' instead of using words '' city'' or '' tribe'' in jokes. We should eradicate the ugly habit of sneering at other tribes and races from culture and the society.

Training moral matters

Around the age of seven, moral conceptions and values become more conspicuous and the intention and motivation of persons for bad and good judgment of actions and behaviors will enter the mind and logic of children. The most important norm of moral values that should be trained to children includes equality, brotherhood, fairness, freedom, mutual respect.
A teacher can make children think about moral topics. For example, if a child breaks an expensive glass deliberately and a child breaks it during play accidentally, in your opinion, which one will be more responsible for his or her fault, whether they should be punished or not and which one should be more punished and why?
It is possible to discuss about moral real matters in daily life gradually and we want them to think and do research and express their opinions such as lack of obeying rules, murdering someone, the provision of the cost of surgery of one of dears in emergency times, freedom limitation and the conception of respect.
The purpose of such matters is to make children think, improve the talent of reasoning and moral logic and get familiar with differences. In most cases, maybe, there are no certain and right answers and questions and the duty of a teacher is to control discussion and to make children think without any judgments and gain a specific answer.

Getting familiar with important and common mental problems:

Children should have general familiarity with depression, lack of attention and concentration and autlsm Asperger syndrome.
Point: the teachers of high school should be familiar with ten kinds of personality problem.

Notification:

In the stage of elementary school studies, the confirmation and admiration of student by teachers have more role than parents in the improvement of self-confidence and it should be expressed that teachers determine the condition of social mental health of the future generation in each society.

Preparing a child for school

Entering a new place, communicating with new persons and changing daily plan will be stressful for a person. This matter will be stronger and more common in shy students, elementary students of the first grade and the replacement of school. The following points can be useful to decrease stress and preparing children for entering school:

Paying attention to the age of children:

You should consider the stage of the growth of child and their mind worries.

Getting children to be familiar with the environment of school:

Before few days or two weeks of the start of school, take him or her to school with previous informing. It will be so good that an older child that studies at the same school accompanies him or her and shows him or her the different parts of school such as class, rest room, buffet, the room of assistant and manager of school, library and the place that he or she is picked up and dropped off. If school has morning program, he or she should be explained about the way that programs are performed briefly. They should visit school two or three times, spending their time there for a while will be so useful in the establishment of comfort and they feel they belong school.

Visiting teacher

If it is possible, you should go to school along with your child and visit his or her teacher few days before the start of school. And in the presence of your child, ask about the main rules of school, classes, place of rest room and place that personal things are kept with simple words. Most teachers are calm when they talk to students and when they ask them questions, they wait until they answer the questions. When you answer questions instead of them, they pause for a long time or they do not know answers.

Practicing at home

Few days before the start of school, you should practice with children the appropriate way of asking, the way of getting permission, introducing themselves, request help and others matters related to school several times through plays and acting roles ( teachers and students, classmates, assistant, students and…) . You should explain them how to deal with specific matters; for example, when you are irritated and when you pick up your child late and they have specific sadness. Moreover, few days before the start of school, you should set his or her daily schedule according to new plan that he or she will have at school, the time of sleep, the time and duration of watching TV and …

The early days of school

You should understand the feelings of your child and express that all of children are as worried and excited as you are.
Try to be calm, do not express that you will miss him or her and remind that he or she will have good times, how well! You will play with other children and …
Even though the school of your child is near and he or she can go to school on foot, you should take him her to school on the first day of school and accompany your child to his or her class if your child would like and school allows you.
Do not stay for a long time when your child is leaving you and when you are saying goodbye, do not turn your head over two times.
Communicate with the parents of the classmates of your child and introduce yourself and your children.
If you did not meet the teacher of your child before, you should visit the teacher of your children in the first week of school.
You should evaluate the spiritual condition of your child during daily talks after school.
When you pick up your child from school, you should be happy and avoid asking questions whose answers are yes or no and general questions.

Appropriate daily talks

Appropriate daily talks are a good chance in order to know the mind of your child and they are good practice for children to express themselves. As a general principle, you should avoid asking questions whose answers are yes or no and questions that are presented in order to criticize and censure opposite side. Clear questions that can be asked include:
What did you learn today, but you did not know them before? Instead of asking '' did you learn something new today?''
How many classmates did you talk to? Or what did you talk about? Instead of asking '' with whom did you talk? Or did you talk to anyone?''
What happened in break time (in class and …) today? Instead of asking '' what did you do at school?''
When your teacher was shouting at Omid, what were you thinking about? Instead of asking '' did you scare? Did you think that your teacher might shout at you too?''
Did something that made you obsessed and think about it happened today? Instead of asking '' what happened today?''
In your opinion, why did he or she do that and why did he or she express such remarks? Instead of asking '' what did you do and say?''
In your opinion, if you had asked it, what would have happened? Instead of asking '' well, why didn't you ask it?''
In your opinion, what else could you do? Instead of asking '' why did you do that?''
How did you love your teacher? Instead of asking '' did you like your teacher?''
Why are sad from your teacher?''
How did you like your break time? Instead of asking '' do you like break time?''
It can be asked from students in higher ages '' among your teachers? Which one do you like more? And why?

The anxiety of separation

After six or seven months, all of persons become sad, anxious and sacred when they separate their beloved person in different ways and this is very natural matter. Mature persons get along with the anxiety of separation easily and will not have great problems about it because they have the right understanding of separation, know the reason and motivation of separation and are sure about revisiting in certain time. Due to lack of such abilities in children, anxiety separation becomes more in children and when it leads to problem in activity and the natural life of a child such as playing with others, sleeping, the adherence of a child to father or mother, lack of desire of a child for going to school or preschool and … and if it lasts over two or four weeks, it will be called '' separation anxiety disorder''. Around three until 13 percent children under 18 deal with it and it is the most common reason of social anxiety and lack of desire for going to school. Since such a topic is important, it should be more explained.
In the first year of birth, the comfort, enjoyment and happiness of a child are dependent on the main person that takes care of him or her. Therefore, when a mother meets the needs of his or her child and removes the physical and mental problems of his or her child, the basis of the personality of a child that is assurance and security is formed. In other words, in the mind of a child, it is mother that gives comfort, relaxation, happiness and enjoyment to her child. Such an emotional relationship between a child and a mother is called '' secure attachment'' and it is formed from 7 until nine months. This relationship is formed not only with a person but with the belongings of a child especially house. A child with such a person will have a lot of comfort and the separation of a child from such a person will result in the anxiety and sadness of a child.
When children are six or eight months, they can recognize familiar persons from unfamiliar persons and strangers. During this stage, they have anxiety and fear from strangers. After children grow up and their understanding becomes more, the conception of '' I '' as a different and independent person from others (such as parents) is formed into the mind of child around eighteen or twenty months. In such time, the anxiety of separation appears clearly because a child scares that he or she separates from his or her beloved person or house and misses them forever or they hurt and because he or she is completely dependent on the beloved person, he or she will feel miserable; therefore, he or she will be in separation anxiety. Anxiety and separation are removed when children are two years old or three years old. Then such anxiety and separation will appear again in certain situations and ages when they change school, enter new educational levels such as kindergarten, guidance school, high school, the change of living place and …from six until seven years old.

The consequences of the anxiety of separation

Lack of appropriate treat of the anxiety of separation can face to the following consequences:
The possibility of the appearance of general anxiety, the kinds of phobia or depression in the future;
The reduction of ability in the establishment of social relationships such as fault in the establishment of emotional relationships;
Educational weakness and even dropping out in the future.
Appropriate way for dealing with the anxiety of separation
The most important matter about the anxiety of separation is its prevention and changing it to the problem of anxiety separation will need an expert. Regarding the age of children, this mood will be improved with a collection of the ways of the recognition of behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, systematic desentization, acceptance and commitment therapy, paying therapy and medicine therapy. The most important duty of parents is to give their children infinite love and affection, the improvement of sense of self-sufficiency and ability in children that will be accessible with considering the following points:
Curing the anxiety of separation is time consuming (several months and several years due to the age of children).
You should never humiliate and censure children with lack of applying sentences such as you've grown up or do not act like children and … In return, the appropriate behaviors of children should be confirmed and admired.
Understand and confirm his or her feeling and assure him or her. For example, I know that you will feel sad because you are away from your parents for a while, we'll back together after a while as usual.
Do not leave your child secretly even at home. For example, if you want to go to the kitchen, you should say to your child '' I'm going to the kitchen and if you have any jobs with me, I am there''.

The anxiety of separation in going to school

If the anxiety of separation is mostly in the time of going to school, the following points will be useful apart from the mentioned points:

a. Parents

You should apply the following cases with informing trainer or training consultant in advance:
You should consider going to school and education as the duty and responsibility of a child and never accept that if a child does not go to school, it does not mean that he or she does not like to go to school and consider it as excuses. Sometimes, parents would not like to go to school or cook, but they have to do it.

Prepare your child before he or she goes to school.

Create the time of buying school stationery at a specific time for him or her.
If your child would like, let him or her take his or her favorite toy to school so that he or she can use it whenever he or she is anxious and sad.
When he or she says goodbye to go to school, do not change it to a sad scene. You should hold and kiss your child and tell him or her that he or she will have good times there as he or she is saying goodbye. Do not turn your face over one or two times and leave place.
If the anxiety of separation from one of parents is more, the other one takes him or her to school.
Admire and encourage the appropriate behavior of your child and if he or she had a good day a school, you should reward him or her. For example, let him or her watch TV ten minutes more, let him or her watch his or her favorite, let him or her go a place that he or she loves or cook his or her favorite food.
If your child misses two classes for any reasons due to delay in getting ready, visiting a doctor and .., take your child to school for other classes.
In most cases and in all ages, although children know the reason of their feelings, parents should present a simple and understandable explanation within the understanding of a child so that their negative feelings can be removed and the anxiety of separation is one of the most important kinds of anxiety. The following main conceptions can be transferred to children:
If there is an appropriate chance for ten-minute conversation, express the topic of anxiety regarding the latest event related to fear and anxiety. For example, don't you think that your father is too late, so call him?
Explain for your child the meaning and conception of anxiety and differences among them. Fear happens when they face a real danger. For example, when we see a dog or a snake, we scare that they invade us. In such a situation, our heart starts beating rapidly. Our face turns pale and we sweat and breathe hard. All of these cause that we are about to escape or fight. But anxiety happens when we face to threats not real dangers and imagine that a bad event may happen. For example, when we go to a dark place, we feel anxious and worried because our feet or head may hit. Therefore, we walk carefully, our heart beats rapidly, may breathe hard, feel badly, have a headache and …
As it was explained, it should be reminded that all of children feel anxious and worried naturally when they separate from their parents and sometimes, they are severe and sometimes, they are weak. The reason of anxiety is the existence of negative thoughts in the mind of a child. For example, a child may think that his or her parents forget to pick him or her up and if something bad happens for me( such as stomachache and vomiting), what should I do? Like other cases of anxiety and fear, a child may feel sick, stomachache, anxiety, hard breath and heartbeat. The reaction of a child against such irritating feeling is lack of separation from parents and the avoidance of going to school.
In such a situation, teach your child that when he or she feels anxious and worried, they breathe deeply and slowly and soften their body members so that they can decrease their bad feeling.
Teach your children how to deal with negative thoughts. For example, it has never happened that my parents do not pick me up or if a bad event happens, the teachers of school are there and I can inform them. If I vomit, I can go to the rest room and wash my hands and face. Then I call my parents. The last time that I had headache went to health teacher and she or he gave a glass of water with hard sugar and ten I felt well.
Point: When a child does not go to school for any reasons, we should not behave him or in the way that he or she feels that he or she can have good times at home.

b. Parents and school:

The role of teachers and trainers is not less than parents in the decrease of separation anxiety.
From the point of view educational system, elementary stage should be called as the stage of training of becoming sociable and purposeful persons in the life and it is possible to achieve such purposes with few facilities but appropriate plan with creating friendly, cheerful and comfortable atmosphere. In such schools, the system of common scoring has no position and value. When there are various different programs, there is no possibility for homework and practice at home (at least an hour during a day). More importantly, a student is not satisfied that he or she does not go to school a day or two days during a week; otherwise, educational system should be reevaluated.
A chance should be provided that students can get familiar with the different parts of school.
Unnecessary disciplines should be avoided.
When a student is extremely restless and sad, a chance should be provided for children so that they can call their parents in a specific time for a short time for example in lunch time.
Responsibly and role should be given to children within their ability in school. Such responsibilities can be considered either as reward or as punishment and they should be assigned to different and qualified persons for example ringing the spell of school for a week and …
If their parents are not available, who can they call respectively (at least two persons?)
Provide a safe place for children that are anxious and sad so that children can stay there for a while and they can feel comfortable.
It should be arranged that a child can deal with a group work that is exciting, cheerful and successful.
A training consultant that is knowledgeable should be used.
Only effective and permanent way of education is good and appropriate behavior and the usage of the system of reward and punishment.

The technique of deep and comfortable breathing

When you feel stressful, anxious and highly excited, you breathe rapidly and involuntarily. Such a thing causes some physical changes such as the increase of heart beating, the shivering of body members and unpleasant feeling and even in some cases, very rapid breathing can cause that such persons feel dizzy and faint.

Point

Such practices should be done when you feel comfortable and after you learn them completely, you should use them if necessary.

Anxiety and phobia from school

Phobia is defined as unusual fear toward a thing, a situation or a place such as phobia from beetle, cat, height and …since phobia and anxiety have close relationship from the aspect of conception, phobia from school is called '' school anxiety disorder''. The intensity of anxiety and fear in phobia is as much as it makes the activity and life of a person problematic in a specific area. In phobia from school, a child avoids going to school and if he or she is forced to go to school, he or she will face to physical, behavioral and mental problems.
As a matter of fact, we should consider anxiety and phobia from school as the strong form of shyness. A child is anxious and worried that he or she communicates with and face to his or her classmates and teachers and he or she should be paid attention and evaluated by them. He or she scares that he or she does something that makes him or her feel ashamed and he or she may be humiliated and censured by others. Phobia from school is considered as the background of social anxiety. In fact, if phobia from school is not improved, it may change to social anxiety.

Point

It should be paid attention that school truancy is different from avoiding going to school. In the first case, a child does not does care about whether he or she goes to school or not. When a child escapes from school, he or she does not reveal it and hides it from his or her parents. He or she spends all of his or her time out of school and he or she usually commits crimes.

School truancy

It is a kind of behavioral problem and such a problem usually appear about disagreements and family serious problems such as grimness, divorce, parents, indifference, poverty and …, very bad and severe experiences such as hurting child and genetic talent and they are treated through behavioral treatment and family treatment.

An example:

Maik is nineteen years old now. He tells the story of his social anxiety in this way. I had a usual life with kind parents. I took part in the basketball team of neighborhood. I went to the church on Sundays generally I was a good student. But when I was the first grade of guidance school, little by little, I felt that I was different and believed that others did not like me. That's why I was anxious and nervous among others. Such feeling intensified gradually and influenced my whole life. I scared that I said something wrong or behaved wrongly that caused that I felt shy and ashamed.
These phobia and anxiety became stronger every year and at the beginning of the high school, my phobia and anxiety were as strong as I was anxious only about the way of wearing, walking, looking at others, talking, sitting and avoiding being among others. I rarely participated in the parties of classmates and friends and involuntary assemblies and if I called a person, it was for lessons and homework not anything else.
To understand the matters of anxiety and phobia more, you should imagine them like anxiety and phobia from beetle, mouse and cat, but only difference is that beetle and dog are replaced with school. No explanation and interpretation cause that he or she loses his or her anxiety and phobia. In some cases, even plastic beetle and thinking about beetle may cause fear. A person that scares from dog does not matter whether it is a home and trained dog or a big dog. In some severe cases, the voice and picture of a dog can cause fear and panic in a person that fears from facing to a real dog. Such a matter is true about anxiety and phobia from school.
A person that fears from dog experiences fear up to death whenever he or she sees a dog and a child that has phobia from school experiences it whenever he or she goes to school as if he or she sees a dog every day. It is possible to have a natural life although a person fears from animals, but fearing from school will have serious consequences such as problem in the development of emotional feeling, self-esteem and social relationships. Phobia from animals is related to fear from physical hurt and about small animals, there is fear from their entrance to the members of the body. Fear from failure, insult and humiliation by peers and teachers are related to phobia from school.
Anxiety and phobia from school is due to psychological problem of a child and school is the place of failure, lack of success and bad feeling. Each group activity is to show that they imagine that they are indecent and childish. Each question, answer and examination are cases that make him or her feel humiliated and as time elapses, such threats become more.
To deal with anxiety or phobia from school, children usually escape involuntarily, but its details and ways will be different due the intensity of phobia and other conditions. Some children may be absent about a certain class, may avoid going to school and may suffer from some psychological and physical problems such as headache, stomachache, sleep problem and …Some children may deal with such a problem with disorganizing the atmosphere of class. Some children may have sensitive thoughts and behaviors such as chewing nail, numbering the number of the legs of the chairs of class, drowning in dreams and following inappropriate and illegal behaviors.
Unfortunately, no defensive mechanisms do not remove the anxiety and phobia of a child although the attempt of teachers can decrease such anxiety and fear, but their attempt is not enough and their phobia and anxiety should be removed with applying the multi-purpose way of curing in an appropriate way ( a collection of applied ways and actions in shyness and the anxiety of separation along with appropriate improvement of the structure of family and educational system supervised and led by a knowledgeable and experienced expert) .

Point

It should be arranged that students should not be censured by others (classmates and teachers) in educational systems in schools (especially elementary School and guidance school) as a general rule. Hence, recommendations and scores should be transferred to students personally and actions that make a student feel shy and weak should be avoided seriously. Physical punishment and disrespect are considered as crimes as for children and the society and teachers as prophets should be the first persons that deal with them.