Psychological features of a child’s adaptation to school. Types and levels of adaptation

Features of modern adaptation

Studying at school, moving from one level to another and admission itself always requires special expenses from the child. But the situation of entering school deserves special consideration, especially since over the past few years it has acquired new features while maintaining established ones.

• Technological progress and the informatization of society, as well as the introduction of educational standards, complicate the adaptation process.
• Federal state educational standards require serious expenses (physical, moral, psychological) from first-graders. In addition to the usual educational knowledge, skills and abilities, the child needs to achieve subject, meta-subject and personal results, to correspond to the portrait of a primary school graduate.
• Overnight, the first grader finds himself in a new status and role, environment, system of responsibilities and rights. The child receives an endless stream of new information.

Adaptation to school is a kind of difficult life situation for the child and parents. At the same time, it is the primary adaptation to school that influences the entire further educational, professional and personal path of the individual.

What is adaptation to school

The problem of school adaptation is at the intersection of a number of sciences (psychology, pedagogy, sociology, medicine). Speaking about school adaptation, we will consider it as a psychological and pedagogical phenomenon.

• The very concept of adaptation relates to biology and means the adaptation of an organism to changing environmental conditions. According to V.I. Dolgova’s definition, adaptation is the process and result of internal changes, external active adaptation and self-change of the individual to new conditions of existence.
• For a person, this is a process of assimilation of norms and values, changing conditions, responsibilities and requirements.

School adaptation is the process of a child’s acceptance and assimilation of the social situation of schooling, his new status (school student) and new systems of interaction (“child – teacher”, “child – peer”); developing new means of behavior.

From a psychological point of view, school adaptation can be characterized by 4 specific criteria:

• The child’s mastery of a new social situation in the unity of its components.
• Acceptance of a new social position and status, reflected in the internal position of the student.
• Mastering new forms and means of social interaction in the emerging systems “student - teacher”, “student - student”.
• Differentiation of the “child – adult” relationship, purposeful restructuring of the child’s entire lifestyle (the initiator and manager is the adult).

The period of adaptation to school can last from 2-3 months to a year. Therefore, the first class is considered the most difficult and important.

Structure and types of adaptation

Adaptation to school is a systemic process. It is divided into social, physiological and psychological adaptation, each of which goes through:

• orientation phase (2-3 weeks);
• unstable adaptation (2-3 weeks);
• relatively stable adaptation (from 5-6 weeks to a year).

In the first phase, all systems of the body are tensed, in the second – the body is looking for optimal solutions, in the third – the tension subsides, the body’s systems return to normal, and stable forms of behavior are developed.

Social adaptation

Requires the ability to:

• listen;
• respond to the teacher;
• complete tasks independently;
• organize and analyze their implementation.

At the same time, it is important to be able to establish contacts with peers and adequately evaluate oneself and others.

Physiological adaptation

It assumes that the body is tense due to heavy loads. Regardless of what kind of activity a child is engaged in at school, his body works to the limit. This is dangerous due to overwork.

Psychological adaptation

Depends on the child's readiness for school. Assumes:

• desire to learn and complete tasks;
• the desire for their successful implementation and understanding.

A developed ability to remember and process information is important. You can read more about this element in the article “Is the child ready for school: ways to check, recommendations for parents.”

Impact of adaptation

From the above it follows that school adaptation affects the entire body and personality as a whole. We can distinguish 3 main areas and characteristic changes in them during dysfunctional adaptation:

1. Mental (cognitive component). When problems arise, internal tension (anxiety) and stress arise.
2. Psychophysiological (emotional component). When problems occur, emotional maladjustment and physical manifestations of stress occur.
3. Psychosocial (behavioral component). In case of problems, it is noted that it is impossible to form new communication connections.

This can be tracked (table below).

Criteria and indicators of a child’s adaptation to school (according to V.V. Gagai)

Signs of successful adaptation to school

1. The child’s satisfaction with the learning process, mastery of learning skills.
2. Independent organization of educational activities and homework; appropriate behavior.
3. Satisfaction with relationships with teachers and classmates; established contact.

Bottom line

A person is always forced to adapt at different levels of his life. First, a person adapts physiologically, getting used to control of his body, then to the surrounding nature. Social adaptation begins at the moment when parents begin raising a child. At the same time, psychological adaptation occurs when a person develops character traits that will help him feel harmonious in existing conditions.

Adaptation does not always imply exclusively effective and successful, acceptable behavior. You can adapt by developing an illness or bad behavior, which also helps you achieve your goals more quickly under existing conditions.

Levels of adaptation

A. L. Wenger identified 3 levels of school adaptation (low, medium, high) and the following components of school adaptation: attitude towards school, interest in educational activities, behavior, position in the class (see table below).

Levels of school adaptation (A. L. Wenger)

From the table it can be stated that a low level indicates the student’s maladjustment, a medium level indicates mild manifestations of maladjustment and risks, a high level indicates the successful adaptation of a first-grader.

Adaptation Success Factors

The success of adaptation to school depends on a number of factors. External and internal factors of school adaptation are distinguished.

• External ones include relationships with the class, teacher and family.
• Internal ones include educational motivation, readiness for school, health and stress resistance of the child.

External and internal factors are interconnected. There is no consensus on what is secondary and determines the rest. This issue has not been fully studied. But many psychologists and teachers (S. N. Vereykina, G. F. Ushamirskaya, S. I. Samygin, T. S. Koposova, M. S. Golub, V. I. Dolgova) agree that the family is paramount. The child’s health (physical, psychological and mental), preparation for school, educational motivation and the ability to establish social contacts depend on the child-parent relationship.

ADVICE FROM A PSYCHOLOGIST

Parents and teachers should take their child’s admission to grade 1 very seriously, because psychological adaptation is a complex and time-consuming process.

Let's consider general advice from a psychologist on how to adapt first-graders to school, which will help children who do not have specific health problems (physical and mental) get used to school.

• Praise. In mastering his new role as a student, a child can make many mistakes, which are very painful. Therefore, you cannot scold your child and show him your disappointment. At these moments, he needs support and approval more than ever. Praise your first grader even for the most modest successes and achievements.
• Uniqueness of personality. Under no circumstances should you compare your child with other children. Self-esteem in children at this age is unstable; any traumatic phrases can greatly reduce it. At the same time, motivation for further study is lost. If you need to point out mistakes and development opportunities to your child, it is better to compare him with himself, focusing on improved results.
• Conditionality of assessments. In the first year of study, it makes no sense to objectively evaluate the results of a student’s success; they can vary greatly under the influence of a number of factors. The main thing is to instill in him a cognitive interest and a positive attitude towards learning activities. Therefore, children can only be assessed verbally and for their successes.
• Development of hidden potential. The school allows the child to express himself in different areas, be it sports, dancing or creativity. The teacher, together with the parents, must see in him the potential and energy that he can direct in the right direction. It is important to combine this with studying so that you have enough time to prepare for lessons and relax.
• Encouragement. Children sense lies well, so sincere praise and confidential communication will be very valuable to them. Parents should not replace these things with toys and sweets in order to pay off their children and save their time.

The role of family in adaptation

V.I. Dolgova calls the child-parent relationship the main factor in a child’s adaptation. The author, in her study to identify the influence of family education style on school adaptation, relied on 2 indicators of adaptation success: anxiety and educational motivation. The results of the study showed the following:

• in families with the “symbiosis” type, children experience increased anxiety;
• high parental control contributes to a decrease in the child’s educational motivation;
• The “cooperation” style and the ability of parents to accept the child’s failures contribute to the reduction of anxiety.

The best position (style) in the family when adapting a first-grader is recognizing the child as an active subject of family relations; adequate control in the form of emotional acceptance of the child and voluminous, clear, feasible, consistent requirements.

Children from such families adapt well to school. They:

• active (socially, physically and communicatively);
• are proactive;
• independent;
• empathic and friendly.

However, what really prevails in most families is the subject-object attitude of parents towards the child. This causes problems with the child’s adaptation and socialization.

Afterword

School adaptation is a crisis situation, since the child finds himself in new conditions without the appropriate “tools” and experience of similar situations. Studying in the first grade coincides with the 7-year crisis. This makes the adaptation process even more difficult. The period of school adaptation can be called a contradictory period of transformation of a preschooler into a schoolchild.

If the child is ready for school and has the support of the family and teacher, school adaptation can take place in 2-3 months. Otherwise, the process may last for a year and be accompanied by problems or result in maladaptation (the child’s inability to psychologically and physically accept a new way of life).

The democratic style of education has a beneficial effect on the development of the child and his adaptation to any conditions. Child-parent relationships in which each family member acts as an active subject, is interested in the affairs of others, supports, is involved in everything that happens and expects the same from others.

Phases of the adaptation process

The implementation of the adaptation process is carried out in stages:

• at the first stage, deconstruction and decomposition of the old homeostasis program is carried out, resulting in a complex situation in which previous behavioral patterns, activity stereotypes and patterns lose their effectiveness, and new ones have not yet been created. At this phase, temporary adaptation mechanisms are updated to overcome the crisis situation;
• at the second stage, a new strategy and a program for deploying regulatory mechanisms are formed;
• the third phase of adaptation is characterized by stabilization of adaptation indicators and the development of new effective behavioral strategies.