Starting Primary School Anxiety

Whether your child is returning to primary school or kindergarten, or starting for the first time, there may be some anxiety. This can last a few days or even several weeks.  Anxiety can come and go during the first year, as your child has many new experiences both in the classroom and in the playground. It is important that you and your child feel prepared for this time of transition. Picking up on any concerns your child has, and supporting your child to overcome these, will be important for his happiness and learning experience.

Here are some ideas for making the best start possible:

• Answer in a positive, matter-of-fact way if your child asks questions about school or pre-school. And remember that children take your words literally – “You’ll learn to read and write when you go to school.” Does this mean after one day? 
• When your child has finished school for the day, have a conversation about your day and the child’s. Perhaps you can do this over a snack, or at dinnertime. Remember that school or pre-school is the equivalent of “work” for your child, so take it seriously.
• Ask open-ended questions where possible. Try asking questions such as “Who did you play with today?”, “Did you do anything you hadn’t done before?”, “What was the best part of the day?”, or “Tell me about….” rather than the generic question “What did you do today?”, to which children often reply “Nothing!”  
• Don’t make it an interrogation! Some children get defensive or clam up when they are asked lots of questions.
• Most importantly, listen to the answer, really listen. If you get the feeling that your child might have a problem, feed back that impression to your child – this is Active Listening. If you’re right, he or she will usually confirm your impression and tell you a bit more. If you are wrong, you’ll be told that too! Then you can move on to help your child deal with this problem.

Categorised in: Featured

This post was written by Judith