Social and school maladaptation - Causes and manifestations of school maladjustment

School maladjustment is a very common phenomenon among modern schoolchildren. A large number of children experience serious problems with adaptation to the educational process, which manifest themselves in various ways. This has a negative impact on their academic performance, interests and relationships with teachers and peers. This disorder often manifests itself in younger schoolchildren who were unable to adapt to educational activities in time, although it is also quite common among adolescents.

School maladaptation - what is it, concept

School maladjustment is a disruption in the functioning of the child’s adaptation mechanisms to the educational process, which affects his productivity and relationships with others. It can be triggered by various factors, which most often come together:

• heredity;
• individual characteristics and neoplasms;
• relationships with family or individuals;
• problems in establishing social contacts, etc.

Schoolchildren who are at risk of school maladaptation experience difficulties in adaptation, have problems with mastering educational material and academic performance. Their relationships with peers and adults are difficult. And personal development proceeds sluggishly: these are often infantile children, they like to lie, they easily fall under the influence of others, and they are poorly aware of their “I”.

Psychogenic school maladaptation is a phenomenon that can begin to develop at any time during education. It occurs especially often during the transition from kindergarten to school, and then during the transition from primary to secondary school. Often, any personality conflicts of the child provoke the occurrence of a violation. Therefore, the problem of social and school maladaptation has long remained relevant in pedagogy and psychology.

Article:

Child maladjustment is perceived as difficulty in educating - a child’s resistance to targeted pedagogical influence, caused by a variety of reasons:

• miscalculations of education;
• characteristics of character and temperament;
• personal characteristics.

Disadaptation can be pathogenic (psychogenic), psychosocial, social.

Pathogenic maladaptation is caused by deviations in mental development, neuropsychiatric diseases, which are based on functional and organic lesions of the nervous system.

Pathogenic maladaptation can be persistent. There is psychogenic maladaptation, which can be caused by an unfavorable social, school, family situation (bad habits, enuresis, etc.)

Psychosocial maladaptation is associated with the gender, age and individual psychological characteristics of the child, which determine his non-standard nature and require an individual approach in the conditions of a children's educational institution.

Persistent forms of psychosocial maladjustment

• character accentuations,
• features of the emotional-volitional and motivational-cognitive spheres,
• advanced development of the child, making the child “inconvenient” for students.

Unstable forms of psychosocial maladjustment:

• crisis periods of child development,
• mental states provoked by traumatic circumstances (divorce of parents, conflict, falling in love).

Social maladaptation manifests itself in violations of moral norms, asocial forms of behavior, and deformation of value orientations. There are two stages: pedagogical neglect and social neglect.

Social maladjustment is characterized by the following signs:

• lack of communication skills,
• inadequate assessment of oneself in the communication system,
• high demands on others,
• emotional imbalance,
• attitudes that prevent communication
• anxiety and fear of communication,
• isolation.

In addition to the concept of “maladaptation,” the concept of resocialization is distinguished - an organized socio-pedagogical process of restoring social status, lost or unformed social skills and orientations through inclusion in new positively oriented relationships.

Both family and school can be factors of maladjustment.

The school performs a variety of functions: educates; educates; socializes (spontaneously, purposefully). Once a child enters school, he acquires new factors that influence the child’s relationship to himself, to school, and to the child’s status in the classroom and at home. Not only his first name, but also his last name and nickname appear in his mind; his figure and motor skills acquire new meanings. The motivational-need sphere is being restructured, the claim to recognition from adults and peers occupies an important place in it, and responsibilities appear.

The teacher is the most significant adult for a child at the beginning of school, and the presence of such qualities as perseverance, self-control, self-esteem, good manners leads to the fact that the teacher accepts the student, satisfies his claims or recognition. If these qualities are not formed, the child’s maladjustment is possible.

Research conducted in England has shown that the greatest problems among students arise in schools with unstable teaching staff. A teacher's expectation of only bad things from a student leads to increased maladaptation; classmates adopt the teacher's bad attitude towards a particular student. The following pattern emerges: rude staff – rude children; Corporal punishment is aggression.

The task of the teacher (and psychologist) is to find opportunities to reward weak students for achievements (for improvements); children should receive positive emotions from school, they should feel needed and responsible. Interest in the child’s studies and success (rather than control over studies) on the part of teachers and parents improves academic performance.

Communication styles between teachers and students can be different: authoritarian, democratic, permissive. Children need direction and guidance, so an authoritarian (or democratic) approach in the early grades is preferable to a permissive one. In high school, the best results are achieved by the democratic style.

Claims for recognition among peers cause children to have ambivalent relationships (friendship - rivalry), the desire to be like everyone else and better than everyone else; pronounced comfortable reactions and the desire to assert oneself among peers; (feelings of schadenfreude and envy) lead to the fact that the failure of others can cause a feeling of superiority. Teacher's comparison of students with each other leads to alienation among children, which can cause rivalry and difficulties in relationships.

The lack of communication skills and significant skills and abilities can lead to disruptions in relationships with peers, which will lead to increased difficulties both in communicating with peers and adults, and to the emergence of problems with learning. Violation of the child’s relationships with other children is an indicator of anomalies in the process of mental development and can serve as a kind of “litmus test” for the child’s adaptation to the conditions of existence at school. Sympathy more often arises in the neighborhood (in the classroom, in the yard, in extracurricular activities), which a teacher and psychologist can use to improve the relationships of difficult children with their peers. It is important to identify the position of the child and adolescent in the reference group for him, since it greatly influences the behavior of the student, and the increased conformity of children in relation to the attitudes and group norms of the reference groups is known. The claim to recognition among peers is an important aspect of a child’s relationships within school, and these relationships are often characterized by ambivalence (friendship - rivalry), the child simultaneously needs to be like everyone else and better than everyone else. Pronounced conformist reactions and the desire to assert oneself among peers - this is a possible picture of a child’s personal conflict, leading to feelings of schadenfreude and envy: the failure of others can cause a feeling of superiority. The teacher's comparison of students with each other leads to alienation among children and drowns out the feeling of empathy.

Violation of relationships with other children is an indicator of abnormalities in the process of mental development. The lack of communication skills, significant skills and abilities can lead to disruptions in relationships with peers and increases school difficulties.

Internal factors of school maladjustment:

• somatic weakness;
• MMD (minimal cerebral dysfunction), impaired formation of certain mental functions, impaired cognitive processes (attention, memory, thinking, speech, motor skills);
• characteristics of temperament (weak nervous system, explosive nature of reactions);
• personal characteristics of the child (character accentuations): features of self-regulation of behavior,
• anxiety level,
• high intellectual activity,
• verbalism,
• schizoid.

Features of temperament that interfere with the successful adaptation of children to school:

• increased reactivity (reduced volitional moments),
• high activity,
• hyperexcitability,
• lethargy,
• psychomotor instability,
• age-related characteristics of temperament.

Correction of a child’s social maladaptation can be carried out in the following areas:

• development of communication skills,
• harmonization of family relationships,
• correction of some personal characteristics,
• correction of the child's self-esteem.

An adult often acts as the instigator of a child’s maladaptation at school, and the maladaptive influence of parents on a child is noticeably more serious than the similar influence of a teacher and other significant adults. The following factors of influence of an adult on children's maladjustment can be identified:

• Family system factors.
• Medical and sanitary factors (parental diseases, heredity, etc.).
• Socio-economic factors (material, living conditions).
• Socio-demographic factors (single-parent, large families, elderly parents, remarriages, stepchildren).
• Social and psychological factors (conflicts in the family, pedagogical failure of parents, low educational level, deformed value orientations).
• Criminal factors (alcoholism, drug addiction, cruelty, sadism, etc.).

In addition to the identified factors, other features of the family system and the immediate social environment also influence the possible maladjustment of the child, for example, a “problem” child, acting as a connecting factor of the family system according to the role assigned to him in the family, becomes less adapted than a child in whose family there is no pronounced problem areas associated with the child. An important factor may be the birth order of children and their role positions in the family, which can lead to children's jealousy and inadequate ways to compensate for it. An adult’s childhood has a strong influence on his pedagogical activity and attitude towards his own child or student.

Approaches to solving the problem

Currently, teachers together with psychologists have developed three approaches to the concept of school and social maladjustment and resolution of this problem:

1. School maladjustment is defined as a mental personality disorder, which can only be overcome through psychiatric treatment.
2. School maladjustment is considered as a pedagogical phenomenon, where the main factor in its occurrence is the relationship with teachers (their style of teaching and education, manner of communication). In this case, it is they who must correct the violation.
3. A broader approach, which is considered as a socio-psychological process of the formation and development of conflict between the child and school requirements. In this case, the solution is an integrated approach to solving the problem.

The third option looks the most optimal and comprehensive in its logic and validity. But, despite this, experts still have disputes, because the vastness of the problem does not allow finding universal ways to solve it.

Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of school maladjustment

 The article discusses the problem of school maladjustment, its classification, causes and factors, and also puts forward a hypothesis for overcoming it.

Introduction

Modern society, which is constantly and rapidly developing, can be characterized by various changes in all spheres of human life, including in the field of education. School education plays a big role in the life of every individual. In connection with the humanization of school education, its main goal is the formation of a healthy, harmoniously developed personality who can become a full-fledged member of society. But, unfortunately, recently the number of crimes committed by teenagers has been increasing, the interest of teenagers in school is decreasing, and the number of children with psychosomatic diseases is increasing. All of the above is a consequence of school maladjustment, i.e., incorrect adaptation, which in turn is currently a pressing problem in modern society.

The term "adaptation" was originally used in the biological sciences to describe the ability of living organisms to adapt to their environment. Later, this concept began to be applied in relation to a person’s personality and even collective behavior. There is no uniform interpretation of the term “adaptation” in the scientific literature.

O. V. Pozdnyakova [8] defines adaptation as a social phenomenon that manifests itself at all levels of life. Other authors consider adaptation both as a process of a person’s adaptation to the conditions of society and as the result of this process.

E. Erikson described the content of the adaptation process with a formula that includes contradiction, anxiety, defensive reactions of the body¸ and the final component of the process is the bifurcation point at which the individual can achieve balance or form a conflict. According to Erikson, conflict, as one of the possible results of the interaction of the individual with the environment, if unfavorably resolved, leads to abnormal development of the individual, i.e. to maladjustment.

The adaptation process that occurs with a person lasts a lifetime. One of the most difficult stages in a person’s life is entering school. Throughout the entire period of education, the child must adapt to new learning conditions, new requirements and rules of the educational organization. The process of a child’s adaptation to school, like an adaptation of the body, goes through three stages: indicative, unstable and relatively stable adaptation.

School adaptation is closely related to social adaptation, which implies a continuous process of adaptation of the individual to the conditions of society, associated with periods of changes in the individual’s activity [8]. Social adaptation in this case is considered as a mechanism of socialization of the individual. Socialization, in turn, is aimed at the individual’s assimilation and reproduction of social experience. The mechanism of social adaptation begins to work at a turning point, caused by the emergence of contradictions between the requirements of the environment and the individual’s ability to meet them, which gives rise to a conflict between personal beliefs, aspirations, abilities of the individual and the social environment. Conflicts of this kind, according to Savina L.N. [9], and the traumatic situations accompanying them can lead to neuroticism of the individual.

However, in fact, the process of children’s adaptation to school increasingly occurs with complications, which in turn lead to maladjustment.

So, according to modern researchers E. Yu. Petrova, O. V. Karbanovich, A. S. Gormin and I. S. Kaplunovich, etc., recently there has been a tendency towards a decrease in schoolchildren’s academic performance.

The authors consider academic failure and behavioral disorders as an extreme manifestation of school maladjustment. E. Yu. Petrova [7] defines school maladaptation as a complex social-psychological-pedagogical phenomenon, which is considered, on the one hand, as a result of the malfunction of the adaptive functions of the human body, and on the other, as a violation or deviation associated with educational activities. The author identifies such components of school maladaptation as socio-psychological maladjustment, psychological maladjustment and educational maladjustment.

Maladjustment is broadly understood as a process in which a person’s ability to adapt decreases.

Gormin and Kaplunovich [3] see the basis of school maladjustment as the child’s insoluble internal conflict, generated by the conflicting demands of the school and the individual’s capabilities, which manifests itself in his failure to succeed in educational activities.

At the moment, there are many approaches to understanding the phenomenon of school maladjustment. E. Yu. Petrova [6] identifies three main approaches: medical-biological, socio-psychological and socio-pedagogical. A similar opinion is shared by O. V. Karbanovich [5], who considers school maladjustment as a collective concept that includes such factors as medical-biological, psychological-pedagogical and social-environmental factors. Let's explore each of them in more detail.

The first approach is associated with pathological factors that cause certain disorders in the child, reducing his ability to psychological adaptation. In this case, school maladjustment can be considered as a phenomenon that makes it possible to detect both developmental pathology and the level of its health. In the scientific literature, most often the risk group includes children with mental retardation. E. A. Kharitonova and O. I. Kozhinova [10] in their article understand mental retardation as a certain violation of the normal pace of mental development. Mental retardation is manifested in the child’s inability to adapt to school activities, perform various tasks, and accept new norms of behavior regulated by the school. A child with mental retardation continues to exist in the sphere of his play interests inherent in preschool age. Children with such developmental pathology are characterized by the inability to quickly switch from one type of activity to another. E. A. Kharitonova and O. I. Kozhinova believe that all of the above weakens the child’s nervous system, and leads to increased fatigue and decreased performance.

The second approach to understanding school maladjustment pays great attention to learning difficulties associated with social and personal aspects. School maladaptation manifests itself as a disruption in the interaction between the child and school. The risk group under this approach includes children whose lives take place in socially disadvantaged conditions. For example, orphans, children from low-income families, children who have become victims of violence, etc.

Students. those who have unformed prerequisites for school activities, who have disabilities, which are characterized by emotional disorders, behavioral disorders, hyperactivity, constitute a risk group within the framework of the third approach.

In this interpretation, school maladjustment can be considered as an integral part of social adaptation and reflects a complex of inadequate adaptive reactions leading to various disorders.

A large number of different approaches to defining the concept of school maladaptation required their classification. For example, T.D. Molodtsova [6] identifies four types of school maladaptation: pathogenic, psychological, socio-psychological and social.

Pathogenic maladaptation is understood as a certain mental state, which is caused by damage to the central nervous system, and can be either stable or borderline in nature. The manifestation of pathogenic maladaptation can be expressed in neuroses, psychopathy, hysteria and somatic disorders.

Psychological maladjustment is associated with various internal disorders that have a detrimental effect on the personality, lead to stress, but do not affect the behavior of the individual. This type of maladaptation manifests itself in the form of various phobias, violations of values, disturbances of personality orientation and self-esteem.

The third type of maladjustment. Socio-psychological maladjustment is associated with the gender, age and individual psychological characteristics of the individual and manifests itself in rudeness, indiscipline, conflict and poor performance.

Social maladaptation in the classification of T. D. Molodtsova implies a violation of the socialization process, which leads to antisocial behavior of children, the use of profanity, the use of alcoholic beverages, narcotic substances, and violations of the rule of law and morality.

If the classification of school maladaptation given by T. D. Molodtsova to a greater extent highlights the cognitive, emotional and behavioral components of school maladaptation on the behavioral characteristics of the child in society, then the classification of N. V. Vostroknutov [1] is more concerned with aspects of adaptation that manifest themselves in the educational process .

The cognitive component characterizes a lack of educational skills, knowledge, as well as constant academic failure. Manifestations associated with violations of the attitude towards the learning process and the teaching staff constitute the emotional component of school maladjustment. The behavioral component is manifested in violation of discipline, school “vandalism” and non-compliance with the internal regulations of the educational organization.

A more generalized model of school maladaptation can be seen in the classification of T.V. Dorozhevets [4], which considers academic, social and personal adaptation/maladjustment.

Thus, if academic maladaptation reflects the child’s level of mastery of the rules of behavior at school, the level of his acceptance of requirements and the pace of educational activities, then social maladjustment shows the child’s ability and ability to resolve individual problems of an interpersonal nature, demonstrates how accepted the child is by society, i.e., by the group of classmates.

The manifestation of personal maladjustment/adaptation lies in the corresponding self-esteem, level of aspirations and desire for self-improvement.

School maladjustment can manifest itself at several levels: pedagogical, psychological and physiological.

The pedagogical level of school maladjustment is the most obvious for the teacher. Its manifestation is reflected in the child’s problems in educational activities, which can develop into gaps in knowledge, which subsequently leads to the child falling behind in a subject or even several subjects. All this leads to poor performance and, in extreme cases, can provoke a complete abandonment of educational activities.

Problems in educational activities contribute to the child’s feelings of anxiety, and can also cause tension in the relationship between the child and adults, both teachers and parents. With unfavorable development, tension in relationships develops into semantic barriers. In the dictionary of Golovin S. Yu. [2], a semantic barrier is a misunderstanding between people that arises during communication, which is a consequence of different semantic meanings of a particular event for the participants in this communication. Such semantic barriers often arise between teachers and students if a child receives an unsatisfactory grade. The teacher, evaluating the result of the work, thus tries to stimulate the child to work better, but what matters to the child is that he tried, how much effort he spent on completing the task, and not the correctness of its completion. In this regard, the child considers such an assessment to be unfair, and an unsatisfactory assessment no longer has any motivational power. The next phase in the manifestation of the pedagogical level of maladaptation is the emergence of conflicts, sometimes systematic, which are associated with the failure of the child’s educational activities. The extreme form of manifestation is the severance of personally significant relationships.

A child cannot help but react to his underachievement, to problems in relationships with adults; all this leaves an imprint on him, has a negative impact on the formation of character, life attitudes, and moves to a psychological level, which is deeper in the context of the child’s individual organization.

Children with maladaptation at the psychological level are withdrawn, whiny, and any actions related to educational activities cause them a feeling of insecurity and anxiety. When communicating with classmates, they try to stay close, but not interact, that is, not make contact.

The psychological level of maladaptation can be divided into three stages. At the first stage, the child tries to the best of his ability to change the current situation, but if during the efforts made he observes their futility, self-preservation mechanisms are launched, i.e. the child’s body instinctively protects itself from heavy loads that are beyond its strength , and from those that correspond to the level of his capabilities. Thanks to the work of the self-defense mechanism, the child ceases to regard educational activities as personally significant, as a result of which the level of anxiety and initial tension decreases. At the second stage, new attitudes begin to actively manifest themselves and become consolidated. The third stage is associated with the work of psychoprotective reactions, as well as with the manifestation of antisocial behavior, manifested in violation of the rules of the educational organization, as a way of self-affirmation as an alternative to the need for success. At the final stage, the child expresses a protest against his position in the surrounding society; such protests can be either active or passive.

After the psychological level, maladaptation moves to the last level, physiological, characterized by the appearance of various diseases, the root cause of which is failure in educational activities.

The development of school maladjustment can be facilitated by various factors, which are usually divided into five groups.

The first group - biological or somatic factors, imply a weakening of the child’s body, disorders associated with psychomotor retardation or emotional instability. This group also includes speech, hearing, vision defects, minimal brain dysfunction, as well as various asthenic syndromes. After analyzing the factors included in this group, we can conclude that they are all associated with congenital disorders that affect the behavior of the individual in the social environment.

The next group of factors consists of various pathologies in the mental development of a child.

Social and environmental factors include changes in family composition, stressful situations in everyday life, the influence of antisocial groups, and an incorrect, formal approach to raising children on the part of parents.

Pedagogical factors in the development of school maladaptation represent a complex of problems, which include: overload of the educational process, rude or offensive attitude of the teacher, the complex and conflictual nature of intra-family relationships that are formed against the background of the child’s educational failure.

Psychological factors include insufficient development of the motivational and intellectual sphere, lack of formation of the emotional-volitional sphere, certain educational skills or abilities, as well as inadequate relationships between a child and an adult.

If we delve deeper into the analysis of the causes and certain factors of school maladaptation, we can conclude that all of the above factors have two main causes: congenital pathologies and disorders associated with improper pedagogical influence.

Conclusion

So, based on an analysis of the scientific literature, we can say that school maladaptation is a complex phenomenon that interferes with the normal development of personality. Having analyzed the causes of school maladjustment, we can come to the conclusion that this phenomenon can be overcome by creating a psychological and pedagogical service in each educational organization that can provide psychological assistance to students, timely diagnose and correct the symptoms of school maladaptation, and also carry out educational work with parents and teachers to improve their level of psychological competence.

Literature:

1. Vostroknutov N.V. School maladjustment: key problems of diagnosis and rehabilitation. //In the book: “School maladjustment: Emotional and stress disorders in children and adolescents.
2. Golovin S. Yu. Dictionary of practical psychologist-
3. Gormin A. S. Kaplunovich S. I. Program “correction of school maladjustment” and its implementation in the municipal education system. //Man and education -2007
4. Dorozhevets T.V. Study of school maladjustment.
5. Karbanovich O. V. Psychological and pedagogical conditions for overcoming school maladjustment // Bulletin of Bryansk State University.-2012
6. Molodtsova T. D. Main types and types of teenage maladjustment.// Concept -2013
7. Petrova E. Yu. School maladaptation and pedagogical conditions for overcoming it.//Bulletin of the Tomsk Pedagogical Institute.-2012
8. Pozdnyakova O. V. Social adaptation as a stage of personal socialization.//Socio-economic phenomena and processes.-2011
9. Savina L. N. On the issue of the health of modern Russian schoolchildren // News of the Penza State Pedagogical University named after V. G. Belinsky. — 2009
10. Kharitonova E. A., Kozhina O. I. Peculiarities of raising preschool children with mental retardation//Perspectives of Science and Education - 2014.

Levels of development of school maladjustment

In the process of development of school maladjustment in a child, 3 different levels can be distinguished and traced.

Pedagogical

If a student finds himself in an uncomfortable or conflict situation, he experiences a number of physiological problems, such as:

• inability to concentrate on one mental or physical operation for a long time;
• irritability from loud sounds, flashes of light, strong odors;
• restlessness;
• sudden mood swings;
• fast fatiguability;
• difficulty waking up and falling asleep, etc.

All of these problems are not permanent; they are only caused by a conflict situation. When solved, they disappear and are easily corrected.

Psychological

If at the previous level the child systematically does not receive support and does not cope with the difficulties that arise, then the psyche begins to defend itself with the help of antisocial actions. The student refuses to go to the board, talks rudely to others, does not want to go to school, refuses to complete assignments and requirements. Teachers and parents often make the situation worse when they react to such behavior with shouts, ultimatums, and bad grades.

This leads to the fact that all the problems mentioned above become permanent and become even more pronounced. Poor sleep can develop into insomnia, refusal of lunch or dinner turns into serious eating disorders, etc. The child now makes attempts to protect himself and isolate himself from everyone outside of school.

This condition should be corrected with the help of a psychologist. If this does not happen in time, then the student turns into a “difficult child with antisocial behavior.”

Physiological

The next level of school maladjustment, which occurs if the child is still left alone with problems. Everyone around him now experiences negativity from him: a conflict with one of the teachers develops into conflicts with all teachers. Not only his own parents do not understand the student, but also all adults. The skill of self-control is lost, the child no longer even tries to restrain himself.

Antisocial behavior leaves its mark on the student’s health. He suffers from chronic neuroses, and this has a negative impact on all systems in the body, making them even more difficult to cure.

There are no clear intervals for each level; forms of school maladjustment are individual for each child. Therefore, the sooner he gets help, the easier it will be to cope with the disorder and not get health complications.

The problem of prevention and correction of school maladaptation of students with mild central nervous system pathologies

School maladaptation is a set of signs indicating maladaptation of the child’s socio-psychophysiological status to the demands of the school situation, coping with which for various reasons becomes difficult and, in extreme cases, impossible. In fact, school maladjustment is a term that defines any difficulties in the learning process.

Primary, outward signs of school dislike include learning difficulties and behavior problems. One of the reasons for these manifestations is the presence of mild forms of pathologies of the central nervous system. These include cervical spine pathology and minimal cerebral dysfunction.

The relevance of studying the characteristics of school adaptation of students with mental retardation and MMD is determined by the growing number of such children. According to a number of studies, up to 70 students study there. According to a study conducted in secondary schools in Moscow, among students with school maladjustment, MMD was identified in more than half of the students (52.2%). Moreover, the incidence of MMD was 2.3 times higher in boys, and motor hyperactivity syndrome was 4.5 times higher than in girls.

Features of children with this pathology include rapid fatigue, difficulties in the formation of voluntary attention (instability, distractibility, difficulty concentrating, slow speed of switching attention), motor hyperactivity, reduced ability to self-government and independence in any activity, reduced working memory, attention, and thinking. Usually these features appear in preschool age, but for a number of reasons they do not become the object of attention of teachers and psychologists. As a rule, parents and teachers pay attention to the child’s problems only at the beginning of the school period.

School, with its daily intense intellectual load, requires the child to realize all those functions that are impaired. The first serious problem for a child with ASD, MMD is the length of the lesson. The maximum duration of such a child's performance is 1 5 minutes. Then the child is unable to control his mental activity. The child’s brain needs rest, so the child involuntarily switches off from mental activity. Omission of educational information, which is summarized for all periods during the lesson, leads to the child learning the material incompletely or with significant distortions, sometimes completely losing the essence, and in some cases the information mastered by the child becomes unrecognizable.

In the future, the child uses incorrect information, which leads to difficulties in mastering subsequent material. The child develops significant gaps in knowledge. Since the attention of children with ASD, MMD is extremely unstable, and distractibility is high, working in a class with other 20 or even 30 children is already very difficult for the child. They are distracted by any movements and sounds.

Such children do better on tests or tests if the teacher conducts them alone with the child. Parents notice that the child copes with tasks at home that he could not cope with in the classroom. This is explained by the fact that the child feels more comfortable at home: it is quiet, there are no time limits for completing tasks, in a familiar environment the child feels calmer and more confident. Parents help and guide their child's work.

The success of a child’s education largely depends on his ability to establish conflict-free relationships with peers and control his behavior. Many modern educational technologies require children to work in pairs or fours during the lesson, which requires the ability to organize interaction with peers. This is where difficulties may arise for a child with mental retardation, as he is easily distracted from the learning task and is susceptible to the influence of other children.

Since the motivation to learn in children with ASD, MMD is weak, they usually adapt to play-oriented children. Children with ASD and MMD willingly participate in games that their classmates can offer them. In addition, difficulties in managing oneself often manifest themselves in intemperance and harshness towards classmates.

Motor hyperactivity, which occurs in many children with ASD, is a serious obstacle to learning not only for the child himself, but also for other children, and leads to a refusal to work together with such a child. Increased emotional excitability and motor hyperactivity, characteristic of many children in this group, make the usual methods of organizing extracurricular activities unsuitable. The search for new methods of organizing extracurricular work with children in classes where the number of students with ASPS and MMD exceeds 40% is becoming especially relevant.

It should be noted that, despite the fact that the above problems of the child significantly complicate his cognitive activity, psychologists and teachers do not always understand the connection between the child’s health and his problems in educational activities.

A questionnaire survey among psychologists in educational institutions showed that most of them do not have a clear understanding of the nature of disorders such as PCOS and MMD. Most often, the awareness of psychologists and teachers is manifested in the awareness of the prevalence of such pathologies.

Types of school maladjustment

The process of development of school maladaptation is individual for each child, so its type in its pure form is almost impossible to determine. Almost always, varieties can be combined and create a whole complex of deviations. The most common types are:

1. Social. Includes denial of socially accepted attitudes, antisocial behavior, and student self-regulation problems.
2. Psychosocial. Characterized by psychological characteristics of the individual (including gender and age). The less attention and individual approach is given to the child, the more clearly this type of maladjustment manifests itself.
3. Pathogenic. It manifests itself through disturbances in the functioning of the brain, mental disorders, and sometimes phobias that the student has.
4. Intelligent. It often manifests itself not in elementary school, but in older children. Caused by missed and unrecovered knowledge gaps that impact learning.
5. Emotional. It is identified through an increased level of anxiety, a feeling of fear for academic performance. This type occurs in children with high motivation but low self-esteem.

Social maladjustment: concept, factors

The concept of social maladaptation is understood as a process in which a person violates the norms and rules of behavior in society. With social maladjustment, a person is unable to adapt to the society in which he lives. This process can manifest itself in the following:

• vagrancy
• begging
• theft
• smoking, drinking alcohol and drugs
• law violation

People who have problems with social adaptation in the future cannot get a job because they do not have labor skills and the desire to work, they also cannot create full-fledged families.

Scientists identify a number of factors that contribute to social maladjustment:

• individual
• psychological and pedagogical factors
• socio-psychological factors
• personal factors

Causes of school maladjustment

The opinions of psychologists about the possible causes of school maladjustment vary. Some believe that the only problem of school maladaptation is didactogenic disorders: the contradiction between the requirements of the educational environment and the individual psychophysical characteristics of the child. Others are inclined to believe that there are a number of prerequisites for school maladaptation that lead to the occurrence of this phenomenon.

The reasons for school maladaptation of younger schoolchildren include:

• insufficient preparedness for school: lack of basic understanding of the world, the level of development of psychomotor skills is below average, which makes it difficult for a student to keep up with classmates;
• low level of development of cognitive processes and some mental functions (too low or, conversely, too high self-esteem, distracted attention, poor memory);
• behavioral problems: the student cannot sit through an entire lesson without getting distracted or getting up;
• parental influence: overprotection, fear of mistakes and failures, insufficient attention to the child, unfavorable conditions and atmosphere in the family;
• influence from the teacher: authoritarianism, excessive demands, lack of an individual approach to each child or division into favorites and others;
• social aspect: relationships with peers do not work out, they are not recognized in the class;
• any psychological disorders and disorders (including hereditary ones);
• inability to adapt to the curriculum (high pace, complexity, specific features).

Difficulties

A certain part of school psychologists are familiar with the difficulties that children with cerebral palsy and minimal brain development in cognitive activity may experience, but do not know how to organize work to effectively help children and teachers, and do not know how to diagnose the presence of child developmental disorders. Most respondents do not know about the characteristics of the personal development of children with PSOP and MMD. Literature devoted to the problems of children with PSOP and MMD is not widespread and is mainly devoted to the characteristics of the cognitive development of these children.

Meanwhile, the personality development of such children is usually delayed. Children are infantile, prone to irrational behavior strategies, not independent, easily susceptible to the influence of others and prone to lies. They do not feel responsible for their own actions and deeds; many of them are characterized by the motivation to avoid failures, the motivation to achieve is not expressed, there is no motivation to learn, there are no interests or serious hobbies. Limited opportunities for self-organization lead to the fact that the child does not know how to structure his free time.

It is easy to see that it is precisely such personal characteristics that largely contribute to a child’s tendency to addictive behavior. This tendency is especially evident in adolescence. At this age, a child with the above pathologies most often comes with a lot of problems: serious gaps in basic knowledge, low social status, conflictual relationships with some classmates (in some cases with the majority), tense relationships with teachers.

Emotional immaturity forces children to choose the simplest ways to solve problems: leaving school, lying, searching for a reference group outside of school. Many of these children join the ranks of those who thrive in deviant behavior. They go from learning difficulties, truancy and lying to delinquency, crime, drugs. In this regard, the relevance of organizing psychoprophylactic and psychocorrectional work with students with mental retardation and MMD is obvious.

It is noteworthy that psychologists in many schools do not recognize the connection between the history of a child with PPCNSL, MMD and disorders in his personal development. Thus, when asked whether there were children with PCPD or MMD in their school, many psychologists could only answer that they had heard about the presence of such diagnoses in students. At the same time, they could not name the number of students with this pathology and did not remember which of them was which. Psychologists explained that they do not work with such students because they are busy with other work.

Thus, while paying attention to children, trying to solve the problems of school maladjustment, the school psychologist often fails to eliminate or correct the primary error.

Organizing effective psychological work is impossible without determining the root cause of school maladjustment in a child of any age, without a clear definition of cause-and-effect relationships. Due to the fact that the main cause of school maladjustment in its various manifestations is a violation of the child’s health, an integrated approach to organizing work with a child with ASD and MMD is necessary.

Working with a child is especially complex as it involves social, medical, psychological and educational aspects. The implementation of a comprehensive program of psychological rehabilitation of children with ASD, MMD identified a number of the most acute problems, including:

1. low awareness of doctors, psychologists, teachers and parents about the nature of the problem and the psychological consequences of the child’s health characteristics.
2. low awareness of psychologists, teachers, and parents about the possibility of receiving qualified medical and psychological assistance.
3. lack of pedagogical technologies for raising and training children with manifestations of mild central nervous system pathologies.
4. the widening gap between the growing demands on a child's education and the deteriorating health of children.
5. low awareness of medical workers, school psychologists and teachers about both the problems and successes of each professional group in working with children with PSPD and MMD.
6. psychological and organizational unpreparedness of medical institutions and school psychologists to coordinate the rehabilitation of children with autism, MMD.
7. the existing negative attitude of the population towards seeking help from psychotherapists and psychiatrists.
8. passive position of parents in relation to the organization of treatment of children, inconsistency, irregularity and, as a consequence, ineffective treatment of children.

Types of manifestation of school maladjustment

There are 5 types of manifestation of school maladaptation, which differ in the reasons that caused the violation.

Cognitive

This type of maladaptation is expressed in the student’s failure to perform according to the school curriculum, which corresponds to age characteristics. It can be either chronic in all subjects or fragmentary (from time to time). It is difficult for a child to keep up with the pace of the whole class: he is late for lessons, gets tired quickly and takes a long time to complete assignments.

Emotional-evaluative

This type of maladjustment is associated with an emotional and personal attitude towards the entire learning process or to individual subjects. The student violently expresses his emotions, which are caused by a feeling of fear and anxiety in relation to lessons, teachers, and school locations.

Behavioral

The behavioral type of maladaptation is characterized by the child’s inability to control his own behavior and weak self-regulation. He violates social norms of behavior at school: he is aggressive, enters into conflicts with others, and does not want to make any contact. There is no motivation to study and engage in other activities.

Somatic

Another type of school maladjustment, which is associated with various deviations and problems with the physical development and health of the student. Fatigue, diseases of internal organs and weak immunity negatively affect a child’s academic performance and communication.

Communicative

This type of maladjustment occurs due to difficulties in communicating and establishing contacts with peers and teachers. A student may be shy, not be able to carry on a conversation, or not know how to ask for help. All this ends in failures, which make him withdraw into himself even more.

Prevention of maladaptive states in children and adolescents in secondary schools

The article examines the relevance of the problem of school maladjustment in children and adolescents, and analyzes the nature of the occurrence and characteristic manifestations of maladjustment in childhood and adolescence. The main directions of pedagogical work on the prevention of maladaptive states in secondary school students are proposed.

Key words: school maladjustment, social adaptation, prevention of maladjustment.

The reform of political and socio-economic life in Kazakhstan, which began in the early 90s, led not only to progressive structural changes in the country, but also to the aggravation of various social problems caused by the acceleration of the rhythm of life in modern society. One of these social problems includes problems associated with the emergence of behavioral deviations in today's children and adolescents and the presence of negative mental states, which are based on maladaptive processes. School maladjustment, being part of social maladjustment, is currently a fairly common phenomenon among children and adolescents in our society, which can negatively affect their development as a whole, since social adaptation is an integral indicator of a person’s condition, reflecting his ability to perform certain biosocial tasks. functions. Such functions include a person’s adequate perception of the surrounding reality and himself, an adequate system of relationships with people around him, the ability to do socially useful work, learning, to organize his own leisure and recreation, variability of behavior in accordance with the role expectations of other people [1].

The term “maladaptation” is interpreted as a socio-psychological and socio-pedagogical phenomenon of a child’s failure in learning, associated with a subjectively insoluble conflict for him between the requirements of the educational environment and immediate environment and his psychophysical capabilities and abilities. A child’s failure in educational activities and problems in relationships with personally significant people have a negative impact on the socio-psychological well-being of his entire personal development [2].

When organizing preventive work for maladaptive states in children and adolescents in an educational institution, it should be taken into account that the main factors in the occurrence of maladaptive states include: learning difficulties, family dysfunctions, neuropsychiatric diseases, behavioral deviations, and the imbalance of the modern educational environment. In this regard, the issue of not only studying the nature of the occurrence and characteristic manifestations of social maladjustment, but also determining effective ways and means of its prevention in children's and adolescents' environment of educational institutions becomes particularly relevant. The main idea of ​​prevention is to eliminate social preconditions that contribute to the formation of maladaptive states and take timely measures to preserve the mental health of schoolchildren through the implementation of special psychological and pedagogical work.

The educational process should include psychological and pedagogical support aimed at preventing maladaptive states of students: overwork, physical inactivity, distress, etc.

Adaptation is the process of students actively mastering new learning conditions in order to adapt them to their individual needs and capabilities. The state of social maladaptation is characterized by problems in the social and personal development of the child, which negatively affect the nature of interpersonal relationships with family, teachers and peers. At the same time, social maladjustment develops step by step in two spheres - the activity sphere and the sphere of relationships [3].

Thus, under unfavorable social and psychological-pedagogical conditions, the formation of maladjustment in children and adolescents in educational activities includes five interrelated stages: primary difficulties in learning; knowledge gaps; delay in mastering the program in one or more subjects; partial or total academic failure; refusal of educational activities, i.e. failure to attend training sessions.

Maladjustment in children and adolescents also manifests itself in difficulties caused by the need to assimilate various social roles, curricula, norms and requirements of social institutions such as family and school.

A systematic lack of success in educational activities and increasing tension in relationships with loved ones negatively affect the psychological well-being of the child as a whole. In situations of constant failures in educational activities, it ceases to be significant for the child, so he begins to look for the type of activity in which he would be more successful and could reveal his personal potential (leisure activities, sports, informal teenage groups, etc.). d.) [4].

In the structure of maladjustment, the following main components can be distinguished: cognitive, emotional-personal, behavioral (Table 1).

Table 1

The structure of childhood and adolescent maladjustment

The main reasons for the formation of maladaptive states in children and adolescents include:

 psychophysiological and cognitive factors: individual temperamental properties, increased anxiety, low level of voluntariness, attention, thinking, memory and behavior, psychological and functional unpreparedness for the conditions and requirements of the educational process, mental and physical health disorders.

 social: a change in the child’s role position, the child’s assimilation of a system of new school requirements, a variety of educational requirements, an increase in the level of complexity of the training program, an increase in intellectual and psycho-emotional load, a change in the parental position in relation to the child, violation of the regime, etc. [5].

In psychological and pedagogical work to prevent maladaptive states in children and adolescents, two main strategic goals must be realized:

1) facilitating the adaptation of all children, without exception, to school;

2) prevention of maladaptive states in students.

Work on the prevention of maladjustment in children and adolescents should be of a purely individual nature, based on a comprehensive analysis of the causes of maladaptation of a particular student, which may be associated with the characteristics of both the psyche of the student himself and the conditions of the surrounding socio-educational environment [6].

There is a certain algorithm for preventing student maladaptation, which includes the following main stages (Figure 1) [7]:

Rice. 1. Algorithm for preventing student maladjustment

When carrying out diagnostic work, the time frame should be taken into account, since with children of primary school age, diagnostics cannot be carried out for more than 30–40 minutes; with adolescents, diagnostics can be carried out in 2 stages, each lasting no more than one hour. Psychological diagnostics of the characteristics of the behavioral and personal profile of students allows us to identify such characteristic aspects as: the level of adaptation of the student to the conditions of the school; range of current problems in the educational activities of schoolchildren; the student's attitude towards himself; emotional and behavioral problems of the child; features of the student’s interpersonal relationships with peers, i.e., determination of his social status.

The obtained indicators make it possible to determine the most effective ways of correctional work within the framework of the educational process, to specify the tasks of preventing the formation of maladaptive states (overwork, physical inactivity, distress) in children and adolescents, as well as to identify a “risk group” for in-depth diagnostic and enhanced pedagogical correction -developmental work, the directions of which are presented below (Table 2).

It should be taken into account that, along with the described manifestations of school maladjustment, there are also its hidden forms, when, with sufficiently good academic performance and discipline, the child experiences constant internal anxiety and fear of school or a specific teacher, he has no desire to go to school, there are difficulties in communication, inadequate (usually low) self-esteem. In this case, it is necessary to develop a slightly different correctional and pedagogical program to eliminate such maladaptive states, based on an analysis of the individual reasons for their occurrence.

table 2

Direction of pedagogical work with children with signs of school maladjustment

Thus, the main directions of preventive and correctional-developmental work with children in the aspect of interpersonal relationships with peers include:

 development of self-knowledge of children and adolescents in various social situations, determination of their position and methods of adequate behavior in them;

 training in the skills of analyzing various communication situations;

 training in emotional self-control skills in communication;

 creating conditions for children and adolescents to turn to their own communication experience;

 teaching children and adolescents the skills of effective interaction in conflict.

Only such an integrated approach ensures the necessary effectiveness of psychological and pedagogical work to prevent maladaptive states in children and adolescents and their correction.

Literature:

1. Kazanskaya V. G. Teenager: social adaptation. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2011.
2. Ageeva L.G. Socio-psychological disadaptation of modern adolescents and its causes. - Ulyanovsk: 2010.
3. Sharapanovskaya E. V. Socio-psychological disadaptation of children and adolescents. - M.: Sfera, 2005.
4. Galushina E., Komarova O. Game for teenagers “What is the meaning of life” // School psychologist, 2005, No. 5.
5. Korchuganova I.P. Professional development and support for teachers working with “at-risk” children: Methodological manual. - St. Petersburg, 2006.
6. Krylova T. A., Strukova M. L. Social and pedagogical technologies in working with children and families at risk. - M.: Research Institute "School Technologies", 2010, - pp. 26–52.
7. Cheprakova E. A. Development of correctional and developmental programs. — // Handbook of educational psychologist. School. — 2012, No. 4.

Diagnosis of school maladjustment

Only a teacher can diagnose school maladaptation at the initial level. To do this, you need to evaluate the lessons as a whole, note which of the children have periodic difficulties in mastering the material, the pace of work, and doing homework.

A teacher may notice the following signs of maladjustment in a child:

• rapid exhaustion in class and decreased performance (the child spins around a lot, cannot sit at his desk for a long time, yawns, plays with school supplies, cannot repeat what was just discussed in class);
• increased fatigue (appearance: bright red cheeks, blueness above the upper lip, refusal to play and communicate with classmates, lack of initiative in lessons, aggression towards peers, walking on tiptoes);
• errors in written work (done out of order, many erasures and corrections, rules for keeping notebooks not followed, homework not submitted on time, letters missing in words);
• increased anxiety with good academic performance (afraid of answering at the board, doubts one’s abilities, reacts to comments with tears or aggression, fidgets with clothes when answering, makes a lot of hand movements, often blinks or licks lips).

If at least one of the signs often begins to appear, then the teacher is obliged to talk with the parents and involve a school psychologist.

Further examination is as follows:

1. The psychologist carries out the necessary diagnostic techniques.
2. Collects and analyzes the received data, criteria for school maladaptation, and, if necessary, talks with the child again.
3. A student is being examined by a doctor.
4. The psychologist talks with the teacher, correlating all the results with observations.
5. The teacher and psychologist convey all the information to parents.

Causes of school maladaptation article on psychology on the topic

Causes of school maladjustment

The problem of protecting children's mental health, the relevance of which is becoming increasingly obvious in connection with the observed increase in neuropsychiatric diseases and functional disorders among the child population, requires extensive preventive measures in the education system.

Qualitatively different, in comparison with previous institutions of socialization (family, preschool institutions), the atmosphere of school education, consisting of a combination of mental, emotional and physical stress, makes new, complicated demands not only on the psychophysiological constitution of the child or his intellectual capabilities, but also on the holistic his personality, and, above all, to its socio-psychic level. One way or another, entering school is always associated with a change in the usual way of life and requires adaptation to new conditions of social existence.

In the most general form, school maladjustment usually means a certain set of signs indicating a discrepancy between the sociopsychological and psychophysiological status of a child and the requirements of the school learning situation, the mastery of which becomes difficult for a number of reasons.

The concept of “school maladaptation” is associated with any deviations in the educational activities of schoolchildren. These deviations can occur in mentally healthy children and in children with various neuropsychic disorders (but not in children with physical defects, organic disorders, mental retardation, etc.). School maladjustment, according to a scientific definition, is the formation of inadequate mechanisms for a child’s adaptation to school, which manifest themselves in the form of disturbances in educational activities, behavior, conflictual relationships with classmates and adults, increased levels of anxiety, disorders of personal development, etc.

Characteristic external manifestations that teachers and parents pay attention to are a decrease in interest in learning up to a reluctance to attend school, deterioration in academic performance, a slow pace of learning educational material, disorganization, inattention, slowness or hyperactivity, lack of self-confidence, conflict, etc. One of the main factors contributing to the formation of school maladjustment is dysfunction of the central nervous system. In case of school maladjustment in children, it is quite often revealed that this category of children has minimal brain dysfunction (MCD). The main factors leading to MMD were: a complicated medical history, the course of pregnancy and childbirth. Subsequently, manifestations of MMD were characterized by disturbances in speech functions, attention, and memory, although in terms of general intellectual development the children were at the normal level or experienced minor cognitive difficulties in school.

Based on the identified changes, the following syndromes were identified:

1. neurosis-like;
2. asthenic syndrome;
3. attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Thus, the majority of children suffering from MMD, which subsequently leads to school maladjustment, require observation and treatment by a neurologist with the involvement of psychologists, teachers, speech therapists and with the mandatory inclusion of methods of psychological and pedagogical correction.

Significant difficulties in complying with school norms and rules of behavior are experienced by children with various neurodynamic disorders, most often manifested by hyperexcitability syndrome, which disorganizes not only the child’s activities, but also his behavior in general. In excitable, motor-disinhibited children, attention disorders and disturbances in the purposefulness of activity are typical, preventing the successful assimilation of educational material.

Another form of neurodynamic disorder is psychomotor retardation. Schoolchildren with this disorder are characterized by a noticeable decrease in motor activity, a slower pace of mental activity, and a poor range and severity of emotional reactions. These children also experience serious difficulties in educational activities, since they do not have time to work at the same pace as everyone else, are not capable of quickly responding to changes in certain situations, which, in addition to educational failures, prevents normal contacts with others.

Neurodynamic disorders can manifest themselves in the form of instability of mental processes, which at the behavioral level reveals itself as emotional instability, ease of transition from increased activity to passivity and, conversely, from complete inaction to disordered hyperactivity. Quite typical for this category of children is a violent reaction to situations of failure, sometimes acquiring a distinctly hysterical tone. Typical for them is also rapid fatigue in class and frequent complaints of poor health, which generally leads to uneven academic achievements, significantly reducing the overall level of academic performance even with a high level of intellectual development.

Psychological difficulties of a maladaptive nature experienced by children of this category most often have a secondary conditionality, forming as a consequence of the teacher’s incorrect interpretation of their individual psychological properties.

Factors that do not favorably affect a child’s adaptation to school are such integrative personal formations as self-esteem and level of aspirations.

If they are inadequately overestimated, children uncritically strive for leadership, react with negativity and aggression to any difficulties, resist the demands of adults, or refuse to perform activities in which they may discover their inadequacy. The sharply negative emotions that arise in them are based on an internal conflict between aspirations and self-doubt. The consequences of such a conflict can be not only a decrease in academic performance, but also a deterioration in health against the background of obvious signs of general socio-psychological maladjustment.

No less serious problems arise in children with low self-esteem: their behavior is characterized by indecisiveness, conformism, and extreme self-doubt, which form a feeling of dependence, hindering the development of initiative and independence in actions and judgments.

As studies show, the causes of school maladjustment mainly lie outside of school - in the sphere of family education. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the main recommendations given to parents of such children when they turn to a psychologist are to change something in their family. Parents are often surprised: what does family have to do with it when a child has problems at school? But the fact of the matter is that the reasons for school maladaptation in schoolchildren are most often associated with the attitude towards the child and his educational activities in the family.

Overcoming any form of school maladaptation, first of all, should be aimed at eliminating the causes that cause it.

Causes of school maladjustment

The nature of school failure can be represented by a variety of factors.

1. Shortcomings in preparing a child for school, social and pedagogical neglect.
2. Somatic weakness of the child.
3. Violation of the formation of certain mental functions and cognitive processes.
4. Motor disorders.
5. Emotional disorders.

All of these factors pose a direct threat, primarily to the child’s intellectual development. The dependence of school performance on intelligence does not need proof.

Forms of manifestation of school maladjustment

Understanding the process of school maladaptation in this regard requires:

1. knowledge of the social situation of the child’s development and life activity;
2. analysis of its leading, subjectively insoluble and “system-forming” conflict for school maladjustment;
3. assessment of the stages and level of somatophysical and mental development, individual mental and personal properties, the nature of leading relationships and characteristics of reactions to a crisis situation and personally significant conflict;
4. taking into account factors that act as conditions for provoking, further deepening or restraining the process of school maladjustment.

Prevention of school maladjustment.

The problem of preventing school maladjustment is solved by correctional and developmental education, which is defined as a set of conditions and technologies that provide for the prevention, timely diagnosis and correction of school maladjustment.

Prevention of school maladjustment is as follows:

1. Timely pedagogical diagnosis of the prerequisites and signs of school maladaptation, early, high-quality diagnosis of the current level of development of each child.
2. The moment of entering school should correspond not to the passport age (7 years), but to the psychophysiological age (for some children this can be 7 and a half or even 8 years).
3. Diagnostics when a child enters school should take into account not so much the level of skills and knowledge, but rather the mental characteristics, temperament, and potential capabilities of each child.
4. Creation of a pedagogical environment in educational institutions for children at risk that takes into account their individual typological characteristics. Use variable forms of differentiated correctional assistance during the educational process and outside of school hours for children at high, medium and low risk. At the organizational and pedagogical level, such forms can be: special classes with lower occupancy, with a gentle sanitary-hygienic, psycho-hygienic and didactic regime, with additional services of a therapeutic, health-improving and correctional-developmental nature; correctional groups for classes with teachers in individual academic subjects, intraclass differentiation and individualization, group and individual extracurricular classes with teachers of basic and additional education (clubs, sections, studios), as well as with specialists (psychologist, speech therapist, defectologist), aimed at development and correction of deficiencies in the development of school-significant deficit functions.
5. If necessary, consult a child psychiatrist.
6. Create compensatory training classes.
7. Application of psychological correction, social training, training with parents.
8. Mastering by teachers the methods of correctional and developmental education aimed at health-saving educational activities.

Correction of maladjustment in school-age children

There is no unified method for correcting school maladaptation in school-age children. An individual approach must be taken to each child, because... The factors of school maladaptation and the ways of its correction vary greatly. The child needs qualified help that will simultaneously consider medical, psychological, pedagogical and social aspects.

The main emphasis is on psychological assistance, so a large part of the work is performed by the school psychologist (if necessary, this can be a private psychologist or psychotherapist). He explores in detail the main points associated with the life of a student:

• studies the child’s social environment and the conditions of his development;
• assesses the psychophysical development of the student, takes into account individual characteristics;
• determines the nature of the internal conflict that led to the violation;
• identifies factors that lead to a crisis situation and the appearance of signs of maladjustment;
• draws up an individual plan for psychological and pedagogical correction and brings it to the attention of teachers and parents.

A psychologist practices many methods of correction, most often these can be:

• conversations;
• art therapy;
• group training;
• associative techniques;
• gaming activities aimed at uniting the class team;
• exercises to develop mental processes when necessary.

Teachers are also actively involved in corrective measures for a particular child. They create positive conditions for the student’s adaptation: a comfortable and friendly atmosphere in the classroom, a friendly climate in the classroom, and special attention to the child.

Parents should be involved in the child's life to increase the chance of positive dynamics in the development of the disorder. Without their support, the result may be minimal. The family must build a trusting relationship with the child, encourage and help him in all endeavors, and be sure to praise him. All comments should be kept to a minimum or spoken calmly and accurately. Family members should spend time together and engage in some common activity.

School maladjustment in adolescence

During adolescence, the situation most often worsens. Students' performance begins to decline and more problems with discipline appear. During this period, a number of factors begin to affect the process of normal adaptation that lead to its disruption

The first factor is the individual factor. It should be noted that during this period, adolescents experience a strong hormonal surge, which affects their attitude, behavior, physical and emotional state. Some strive to take a leading position, they realize this desire through antisocial behavior, try to demonstrate their maturity through incorrect behavior, start smoking or drinking alcohol, and using obscene language.

The next factor is the mental factor. During this period, emotions take precedence over rationality. The child decides to do for himself what brings him more pleasure and thinks less about the benefits.

The next factor is the volitional factor. A teenager begins to have problems with water power. He often cannot bring himself to do what he needs to do; more often he does what he wants. If the goal is not attractive to him, then most often the work remains unfinished.

The last factor is the family factor. During adolescence, children try to appear independent. If there are good relationships in the family, then the child does not move away from relatives and seeks help and support when necessary. If family relationships have become complicated, then the teenager has no one to share his problem with.

Prevention of school maladjustment

Methods for preventing school maladjustment should also be a set of measures. Today it consists of the following measures:

• compensating classes;
• special methods of correctional training;
• social trainings;
• trainings together with parents and students;
• special consultations for parents.

The main focus of prevention should be on successful adaptation to the school environment. After all, for every schoolchild this is a big stressful process. Both parents and teachers must work together to help the child pass it. The result should be his positive attitude towards life, towards the educational process, towards teachers and classmates. Then the lessons will be positive, with a creative approach, learning activities will bring joy and satisfaction, and school will no longer be a problem.

The process of adaptation to school will be much easier if a trusting and friendly relationship is established between the child and parents. In this case, any life difficulties will be overcome more successfully, and forms of school maladjustment will not appear.

Prevention of maladjustment in first-graders

How to recognize school maladaptation, how to cope with it, and what can be done to make studying bring only joy?

Getting a first-grader accustomed to school is not an easy process. From a cozy, carefree childhood, a child finds himself in a completely different school environment, where new rights and responsibilities await him, a new team, an unfamiliar teacher, unknown subjects, a different daily routine. It is not surprising that not all first-graders manage to adapt to a new life easily and quickly and avoid disruption of adaptation to school.

School maladjustment is a fairly common phenomenon among primary school students. In especially severe cases, the child experiences severe discomfort when attending school, and negative emotions literally block his cognitive activity and slow down his development. Therefore, the problem of maladaptation of younger schoolchildren cannot be ignored! How to recognize it, how to deal with it, and what can be done to ensure that studying brings only joy and does not cause inconvenience?

What is school maladjustment?

There are many definitions of maladaptation, one of them says that it is “a set of signs indicating a discrepancy between the sociopsychological and psychophysiological status of a child and the requirements of the school learning situation, the mastery of which for a number of reasons becomes difficult or, in extreme cases, impossible” (Belicheva S.A. ).

School maladjustment consists of three components:

• cognitive,
• emotional,
• behavioral.

The cognitive component of school adaptation assumes that a child entering first grade understands that he is already a schoolchild and that the requirements for him have changed. An indicator of successful adaptation at the cognitive level is the child’s awareness of his rights and responsibilities as a schoolchild and the presence of adequate ideas about what school is for. Accordingly, manifestations of school maladaptation are inability to adapt to the subject side of educational activity (“I can’t master the subject because I don’t like it, I don’t understand why I need it,” etc.) and the discrepancy in the pace of the student’s educational activity and teachers or training programs.

The emotional component of school adaptation includes self-esteem and level of aspirations. Adequate self-esteem and a high level of aspirations – “I am good and can achieve a lot” – are considered a good indicator. The forms of maladjustment will be:

• inability to control one’s behavior (“I do what I want, I don’t need anything, I came to school to play”);
• school phobias (“I’m afraid to go to the blackboard, I can’t answer in a situation where they’re looking at me”).

The behavioral component of school adaptation includes the student’s behavior at school, his interaction with other people, knowledge of the rules by which to behave in a given situation. Forms of school maladaptation will be the desire to violate the rules of school life, commit destructive actions, and organize a kind of “rebellion against the system”: “I don’t want to behave as expected of me.” In this case, you obviously cannot do without the help of a psychologist - after all, you need to understand what exactly in the child causes such a reaction of protest.

Find out your child's level of preparation for school

Reasons for school maladaptation of primary school students

There may be several reasons for school maladaptation; they are often interrelated, and one follows from the other. They can be divided into three large groups.

Reasons that lie in the child. The most important are the lack of school maturity, in which the child’s functional capabilities do not meet the requirements set by the school, and health problems - frequent illnesses do not allow them to master the school curriculum well.

The reasons lie in the family. If mom and dad react too emotionally to their heir’s failures at school, this has a bad effect on his self-esteem, he is afraid of making mistakes, afraid of disappointing his parents, and as a result he develops a negative reaction to everything related to school.

The reasons lie in the school environment. The role of the first teacher in the success of a child’s education is very important. Even a simple discrepancy in the pace of learning (“tempo conflict”, in which the teacher gives knowledge quickly, but the child is slow) can lead to a problem. The school education system “Primary School of the 21st Century” takes into account these characteristics of children; the methodology places special emphasis on an individual approach to each student. The construction of the system ensures personal pace and assimilation of the material while maintaining the quality of the knowledge gained. For individual prevention of school maladjustment, each student needs a properly selected training program.

How not to miss the first signs of maladjustment

Parents who are attentive to their first-grader will definitely pay attention if the child:

• afraid to go to school
• started getting sick often
• he lost his appetite, he lost weight,
• he has sleep disorders: insomnia or drowsiness,
• became forgetful (forgets things at school, textbooks at home),
• loses independence and self-care skills,
• became withdrawn
• became absent-minded, inattentive, cannot tell what happened at school,
• afraid to ask a teacher for help,
• started to be capricious
• stuttering, “blinking” of the eyes, and coughing appeared (this is how obsessive tics manifest themselves).

All this is a sign of maladjustment. The problem needs to be solved by combining the efforts of a school psychologist, a neurologist (in some cases), a teacher and the parents themselves.

Prevention of maladjustment

It is advisable to begin preventing school maladaptation even before the child enters first grade. After all, it is easier to prevent a possible problem than to solve it during the learning process.

As part of the prevention of maladaptation even at the preschool stage:

• tell your child about school. Discuss future learning, answer questions, explain how to behave in a particular school situation;
• If possible, introduce your child to the physical environment where he will learn. It’s simpler – show, give a tour, explain where and what is located. So, upon entering first grade, the child will find himself in a familiar environment;
• develop your child’s memory, thinking, attention with the help of games, manuals, reading books and simply in everyday life;
• put dolls and bears at the desk, play school, play out different situations that the child himself may have;
• share your good memories of school, your first teacher, and your favorite subjects. This will form a positive image of the school and teacher and will prevent school fears.

When your child has already started school, try to “keep abreast” of his school affairs.

• Show interest and participation in what is happening at school, in class, and ask questions.
• Refrain from criticizing the school and teachers.
• Don't compare your little student with his classmates.
• Be consistent in your demands: if you think that the child should study independently, do not rush to help him.
• Be patient: the baby will not succeed in everything right away.
• Don’t scold for mistakes: as you know, you learn from mistakes, and you need to treat them calmly and constructively; the child should not have the fear of making mistakes.
• Give us the opportunity to relax, take a walk, play. These are important activities for a first grader that will help avoid health problems.
• Take breaks from your homework every 10 to 15 minutes. Physical education is good during breaks.
• Limit computer games, watching TV and other activities that require a lot of visual stress - there is a lot of it during lessons.
• Be on the child's side. Don't force him to be friends with people he doesn't like. Encourage his independence in both actions and judgments.

All help to a child who suffers from school maladjustment is aimed at restoring a positive attitude towards school life, towards learning, towards those people who surround him at school and participate in the educational process.
All you have to do is bring joy back into a child’s life, and school will become a place where he will feel comfortable, interesting and useful. Anna Kalinina-Artemova