Psychologists in children's educational institutions have to deal with many problems. However, one of the most common of these is school anxiety. This negative condition should be detected in a timely manner. After all, it has a negative effect on many areas relating to the condition of the child. This is his health, and communication with teachers and peers, and academic performance in the lessons, and the behavior of a small person both within the walls of the educational institution and beyond.
What is this phenomenon?
The word "anxious" first appeared in dictionaries dated 1771. To date, researchers have put forward many versions that explain the origin of this term. One of them decrypts this concept as a threat signal issued three times by the enemy.
The psychological dictionary clarifies the term âanxietyâ as an individual feature of the human psyche, which consists in his tendency to be anxious when a variety of life situations arise, including those that do not even predispose to this.
But it is worth keeping in mind that anxiety and anxiety are different terms. If the first concept means only an episodic manifestation of the child's excitement and anxiety, then the second is a steady state.
Anxiety is not associated with a specific situation. It manifests itself almost always. A similar condition accompanies a person when he performs any type of activity.
Main symptoms
School anxiety is a fairly broad concept. It includes various aspects of the studentâs emotional distress that are sustainable. School anxiety is expressed in the increased anxiety that occurs in educational situations, as well as in the classroom. The child is constantly waiting for the negative assessment that his peers and teachers will give him, and also believes that others are treating him rather badly. School anxiety is also expressed in the constant feeling of a little personâs own inadequacy, in his uncertainty about the correctness of his decisions and behavior. Such a child constantly feels his own inferiority.
But in general, anxiety in these years arises from the interaction of the individual with life issues. This is a specific condition that is characteristic of a number of situations that arise in the school educational environment.
Mobilizing and disorganizing effect
Psychologists note that the emergence of feelings of anxiety in students is inevitable. Indeed, knowledge is certainly the discovery of something new. And all that is unknown causes a disturbing feeling of uncertainty in a person. If such anxiety is eliminated, then the difficulties of cognition will be leveled. This will lead to less success in learning new knowledge.
That is why it is worthwhile to understand that studying at school will become optimal only if the child systematically worries and worries about what is happening within the walls of the educational institution. However, this feeling should be at a certain level. If the intensity of the experience exceeds the so-called critical point, which is individual for each person, then it will begin to exert not a mobilizing, but a disorganizing effect.
Risk factors
The following features are characteristic of the school educational environment:
- physical space, distinguished by its aesthetic features, providing opportunities for the movement of the child;
- human relations, which are expressed by the scheme "student - teacher - administration and parents";
- tutorial.
The first of these three signs is considered the minimum risk factor affecting the formation of anxiety in students. The design in which the school building is made is the smallest stressful element. However, the research results argue that in some cases, a negative reaction arises precisely because of a particular design of an educational institution.
Anxiety in school-age children is most likely due to educational programs. They are the socio-psychological factors that have the maximum impact on the development of this negative feeling.
The formation and further consolidation of the level of school anxiety contribute to:
- training overloads;
- inadequate parental expectations;
- the inability of the child to master the curriculum;
- unfavorable relationships with teachers;
- constant repetition of assessment and examination situations;
- change of the children's team or rejection of the child by peers.
Consider these risk factors in more detail.
Training Overloads
Numerous studies have proved the fact that after six weeks of study, children (primarily primary schoolchildren and adolescents) are not able to maintain their performance at the same level. That is why they have some anxiety. In order to restore the state that is necessary for the continuation of educational activities, it will be necessary to give children at least one week of vacation. A similar rule is ignored in three out of four training quarters. And only relatively recently, additional vacations began to be done for first graders. They can rest in the middle of the longest third quarter.
In addition, overloads also arise due to the childâs school workload, which accompanies him throughout the school week. The most optimal days for normal performance are Tuesday and Wednesday. The effectiveness of schoolchildrenâs studies has been declining sharply since Thursday. In order to fully relax and restore their strength, the child needs at least one day off per week. On this day, he should not have the need for homework and other school duties. Psychologists have found that those students who receive homework for the weekend have a higher level of anxiety compared to their peers.
The duration of the lesson makes its negative contribution to the occurrence of educational overloads. The observations of the researchers convincingly prove the fact that the child in the first 30 minutes of classes is significantly less distracted than in the last 15 minutes. In the same period, there is an increase in the level of school anxiety.
Difficulty in mastering the school curriculum
The student cannot cope with the amount of material offered by the teacher for various reasons. The most common ones are:
- increased complexity of the program, which does not correspond to the level of development of the child;
- pedagogical incompetence of the teacher and insufficiently developed mental functions of students;
- the presence of chronic failure syndrome, which develops, as a rule, in the lower grades.
Inadequate Parent Expectations
Most moms and dads are confident that their child will be an excellent student. In this case, if the student's academic performance begins to limp for one reason or another, he has an intrapersonal conflict. Moreover, the more parents will be guided by their child receiving the highest results, the more pronounced the childâs anxiety will be. However, mothers and fathers should bear in mind that often assessment is nothing more than the result of the teacher's attitude to his pupil. Sometimes it happens that a student, making efforts, achieves certain results. However, the teacher, based on the prevailing stereotype, continues to evaluate his knowledge as before, without putting a higher score. Thus, the childâs motivation does not find its reinforcement and gradually disappears.
Bad relationship with teacher
In determining school anxiety, this factor is considered multilayered. First of all, a negative emotional state can be caused by the style of interaction with children that the teacher adheres to in most cases. In addition to insulting children and physical violence, increased anxiety among schoolchildren arises when the teacher uses the reasoning-methodical style of conducting the lesson. In this case, equally strong requirements are imposed on both strong and weak students. At the same time, the teacher expresses intolerance to the slightest violations of discipline and is inclined to translate the discussion of specific errors into the mainstream of assessing the personality of the child. In these cases, students are afraid to go to the board, and they are afraid of the very possibility of a mistake during an oral response.
The formation of school anxiety also occurs when the requirements of the teacher to students are exaggerated. Indeed, most often they do not correspond to the age characteristics that children possess. Researchers note that some teachers view school anxiety as a positive characteristic of the child. Teachers believe that such emotionality testifies to the student's diligence, his responsibility and interest in learning. At the same time, they try to artificially escalate tension in the classroom, which in fact gives only one negative effect.
Sometimes, a diagnosis of the level of school anxiety reveals it in cases of the teacherâs selective attitude to a particular child, which is associated with the systematic violation by the student of the requirements of behavior during the lesson. But it is worth bearing in mind that a teacher who constantly pays negative attention to a child only fixes, strengthens and reinforces undesirable forms of behavior in him.
Permanent assessment examinations
Such uncomfortable situations for a child also have a negative effect on their emotional state. Particularly high levels of anxiety are observed in the student when checking his social status. This assessment situation is characterized by emotional tension due to considerations of prestige, desire for authority and respect among peers, teachers and parents. In addition, the child always has a desire to receive a high assessment of his knowledge, which would justify the effort spent on preparing the material.
For some children, a stressful factor can be any answer to a teacherâs question, including one that was made from the spot. Researchers attribute this to the increased shyness of such a student and his lack of necessary communication skills. And sometimes the formation of school anxiety contributes to the conflict of self-esteem, when the child certainly wants to become the best and be the smartest.
But in most cases, negative emotions arise in children when writing tests or during exams. The main cause of anxiety in this case is the uncertainty of the results that will occur at the end of the test.
Change of the children's team
This factor leads to a powerful stressful situation. The change of team necessitates the establishment of new contacts with still unfamiliar children. At the same time, the final result of such subjective efforts cannot be determined in advance, since it mainly depends on the students of whom the new class is composed. Consequently, the formation of anxiety is facilitated by the transfer of the child from one school to another, and sometimes the transfer from class to class. If relations with new comrades develop successfully, then this will become one of the most important motivation resources for attending school.
Anxious children
How to identify troubled students? This is not so simple. After all, aggressive and hyperactive children are always in sight, and these try not to show their problems to surrounding people. Nevertheless, the diagnosis of school anxiety is possible with the help of teacher observations. Children with negative emotions are distinguished by excessive anxiety. And sometimes they are afraid of not an upcoming event. They are afraid of a premonition of something bad. More often than not, they expect only the worst.
Anxious children feel completely helpless. They are frightened by new games and previously undeveloped activities. Disturbing children have excessive demands on themselves. This is expressed in their self-criticism. But their self-esteem is at a low level. Such students believe that they are worse than others literally in everything, that they are the most clumsy, unnecessary and ugly among their peers. That is why the approval and encouragement of adults is so important to them.
In anxious children, somatic problems are often observed in the form of dizziness and abdominal pain, cramping in the throat, difficulty breathing, etc. With the manifestation of negative emotions, they often complain of a lump in the throat, dry mouth, palpitations and weakness in the legs.
Diagnosis of Anxiety
It will not be difficult for an experienced teacher in the early days of meeting children to identify emotionally disadvantaged children. However, unambiguous conclusions should be made by the teacher only after he observes the child who caused him concern. And you need to do this in different situations, on different days of the week, as well as during breaks and training.
For the correct diagnosis of school anxiety, psychologists M. Alward and P. Baker advise to pay attention to such signs:
- constant concern;
- the impossibility or difficulty of concentration;
- muscle tension, which is observed in the neck and face;
- excessive irritability;
- sleep disturbance.
It is possible to assume that the child is anxious if at least one of these criteria is present. The main thing is that he is constantly manifested in the behavior of the student.
There are other techniques. School anxiety, for example, can be determined using a questionnaire by T. Titarenko and G. Lavrentiev. The results of this study will allow one hundred percent accuracy to identify emotionally disadvantaged children.
For adolescents (from 8 to 11 grade), there are methods. School anxiety at this age is detected using the scale developed by O. Kondash. The advantage of this method is to identify the root causes of the problem.
There is also a development of a school anxiety scale. A. Parishioners Its principle coincides with the one that underlies the method of O. Kondash. The advantage of these two scales is that they are able to identify the anxiety of a person based on the assessment of various situations taken from everyday life. Also, these techniques allow you to highlight the area of ââreality that causes negative emotions, and at the same time they practically do not depend on how students are able to recognize their feelings and feelings.
Phillips Questionnaire
Issues of child anxiety worried the British psychotherapist Adam Phillips. In the middle of the 20th century. he conducted more than a dozen observations of children of different ages studying in classrooms. The result of these works was the development of a diagnosis of the level of school anxiety of Phillips.
The British psychotherapist has advanced the theory. Its main provisions were that in order to make a comprehensively developed personality out of a child, it is necessary to diagnose in a timely manner, and then reduce the level of detected anxiety. Indeed, the state of the psyche that accompanies a person in the event of severe excitement can cause significant damage to self-esteem and have a negative impact on the emotional sphere of a person.
Using the school anxiety test is of particular relevance for children in the period of primary school age, as well as students in grades 5-8. The fact is that such a child needs to understand and accept, first of all, himself. Only after that he will be able to adequately socialize among his peers.
Determining the level of school anxiety according to the Phillips method is based on the use of a questionnaire, which includes 58 points. For each of them, the child must give a definite answer: âYesâ or âNoâ.
Based on the results of the diagnosis of school anxiety of Phillips, a conclusion can be made about the extent to which negative emotions have taken possession of the child, and also what is the nature of their manifestation. According to the last of these two indicators, the test allows you to identify those feelings of the student that are associated with various forms of participation in the classroom and school life, namely:
? . , . , 6 13 . . , . - .
To identify school anxiety by Phillips, children are given forms that contain questions. For oral diagnosis, they are replaced with leaflets affixed with numbers from 1 to 58.
In this case, some recommendations should be voiced by the teacher. So, he offers children to put âYesâ or âNoâ in front of questions or their numbers. The teacher also warns the children that everything they write should be true. There should not be any errors or inaccuracies in the Phillips school anxiety test. In addition to this, it is important for children to be warned that the answer should be given without hesitation. You will need to write what immediately comes to mind.
Based on the results obtained, unambiguous conclusions can be made. If they become disappointing, then the child will need to show a qualified specialist.
For the correction of school anxiety can be used:
- Role-playing games. They will help demonstrate to the children that the teacher is the same person as everyone else. So you should not be afraid of him.
- Conversations. The teacher will need to convince the student that if he wants to succeed, then interest in him must be by all means.
- Situations of success. Correction of school anxiety in this case is carried out when the child is given a task with which he will surely cope. These achievements will be known to classmates and loved ones, which will allow them to cultivate self-confidence in the student.
Parents are advised to:
- every day to praise the child for his successes, reporting them to other family members;
- refuse words that could degrade the dignity of their child;
- not to require the child to apologize for his act, let him better explain why he did just that;
- never threaten with impossible punishments;
- reduce the number of comments made to the student;
- more often hug the child, because the gentle touch of the parents will allow him to become more confident and begin to trust the world;
- be unanimous and consistent in encouraging and punishing the child;
- Avoid competitions and any work that takes into account speed;
- Do not compare your child with others;
- Demonstrate confidence in the student, which will be a positive example for him;
- trust the child and be honest with him;
- accept your son or daughter as they are.
By reducing the level of anxiety, you can achieve the most effective training. The correction will activate perception, attention and memory, as well as the intellectual abilities of the student. At the same time, it is worth taking all the necessary measures so that the level of anxiety never exceeds the norm again. After all, a negative emotional state contributes to a child's panic. He begins to fear failure, while moving away from his studies. For this reason, he may even begin to miss school.