Emotional development
The individual emotions and feelings that the four-year-old child experienced were fleeting, situational, and did not leave a noticeable trace in his memory. The fact that he periodically encountered failures did not affect the development of his personality. Only a few preschoolers develop high levels of anxiety and low self-image; For this to happen, there must be a special atmosphere of discontent and high demands in the family. And, on the contrary, in an atmosphere of praise and admiration, children grow up with self-esteem that is prohibitively high even for preschool age; there are few of them either. All these cases are the result of assimilation of the constantly repeated assessment of close adults, and not of a generalization of one’s own emotional experience.
From the moment a child starts school, his emotional development depends more on the experiences he acquires outside the home
.
The child’s fears reflect the perception of the world around him, the scope of which is expanding. Inexplicable and imaginary fears of past years are replaced by more conscious ones: lessons, natural phenomena, relationships between peers. Fear can take the form of anxiety
or
anxiety
.
From time to time, school-age children become reluctant to go to school. The symptoms (headache, stomach cramps, vomiting, dizziness) are widely known. This is not a simulation, and in such cases it is important to find out the cause as quickly as possible. This could be fear of failure, fear of criticism, fear of being rejected by parents or peers. In such cases, the parents’ friendly, persistent interest helps.
in the child's attendance at school.
The restructuring of the emotional and motivational sphere is not limited to the emergence of new motives and rearrangements in the child’s hierarchical motivational system. During a crisis period, profound changes occur in terms of experiences.
prepared by the entire course of personal development in preschool age.
At the end of preschool childhood, the child to become aware experiences . Now conscious experiences form stable affective complexes .
During the crisis period of 7 years, it becomes clear that L.S. Vygotsky calls it generalization of experiences . A chain of failures or successes, each time experienced approximately equally by the child, leads to the formation of a stable affective complex - a feeling of inferiority
, humiliation, offended pride or feelings of self-worth, competence, exclusivity.
In the future, these formations may change, even disappear, as experience of a different kind is accumulated. But some of them, reinforced by events and assessments, will be recorded in the personality structure and influence the development of self-esteem
and his
level of aspirations
.
the logic of feelings appears . Experiences acquire a new meaning for the child, connections are established between them, and a struggle between experiences
.
This complication of the emotional and motivational sphere leads to the emergence inner life . Although external events, situations, relationships
constitute the content of experiences, they are refracted in consciousness, and emotional ideas about them are formed depending on the logic of the child’s feelings, his level of aspirations, expectations, etc. The same mark received in a lesson by different children will cause a completely different emotional response in them: a “B” for one is a source of intense joy, for another - disappointment and resentment. On the other hand, inner life influences behavior and the outline of events in which the child is involved.
The differentiation of a child’s external and internal life is associated with a change in the structure of his behavior
.
A semantic orienting basis for an action
appears —a link between the desire to do something and the unfolding actions.
This is an intellectual moment
that allows you to evaluate a future action in terms of its results and long-term consequences.
But at the same time, this is also an emotional moment
, since the personal meaning of the action and probable experiences are determined. Meaningful orientation in one’s own actions becomes an important aspect of inner life. At the same time, it excludes the spontaneity of the child’s behavior. Thanks to this mechanism, children's spontaneity is lost. The child is no longer the same externally as he is “internally,” although throughout primary school age there will still be a significant degree of openness and the desire to throw out all the emotions on children and close adults, to do what one really wants.
A pure crisis manifestation of the differentiation between the external and internal life of children usually becomes antics, mannerisms, and artificial tension in behavior. These external characteristics, as well as the tendency to whims, affective reactions, and conflicts, begin to disappear when the child emerges from the crisis and enters a new age.
Feelings. Educational activity changes the content of the feelings of a primary school student and determines the general trend of their development - greater awareness and restraint .
The change in the emotional sphere is caused by the fact that when a child comes to school, the sorrows and joys of a child are determined not by play and communication with children in play activities, not by a fairy-tale character or plot, but by the process and result of his educational activity, the need that he satisfies in it, and the teacher’s assessment of his successes and failures, grades and the associated attitude of others.
Positive feelings now arise from solving an intellectual problem
, and
in the process of rivalry
.
The plot of role-playing collective games continues to develop in terms of reflecting various aspects of social life. As the plot becomes more complex, it reflects different relationships between people, and in the process of resolving conflict situations that arise during the game, moral feelings . However, one should not overestimate the capabilities of younger schoolchildren. Their awareness of their feelings and understanding of the feelings of others is not yet perfect
.
They are often not yet able to correctly perceive facial expressions that express this or that feeling, and they misinterpret the expression of certain feelings of others, which entails an inadequate response from the child.
Participation in educational activities in the classroom and communication with the teacher and staff during the learning process require great restraint in feelings , which is difficult at first. However, school responsibilities and demands force us to behave more and more restrained.
Motor reactions expressing feelings begin to be replaced
speech.
By grade III, speech expressiveness
and intonation becomes richer.
The youngest schoolchild, starting from the first grade, tries to cope with strong anxiety, can already overcome his desires, and obeys the teacher’s demands. In general, his general emotional tone and mood are characterized by cheerfulness, cheerfulness, cheerful animation
.
However, dissatisfaction with the level of aspirations in educational activities can lead to affects in behavior and, in the absence of the teacher’s attention, become fixed as negative character traits (rudeness, unkindness, etc.). Great impressionability
also remains . Dramatic events seen in the theater, cinema, or experienced in the family lead to fear, fright and can worry the child for a long time, distracting him from school.
Younger schoolchildren show greater differentiation in the direction of feelings
.
Moral, intellectual and aesthetic feelings develop. , feelings of collectivism are intensively formed as a result of satisfying the need for communication, under the influence of life in a group of peers, and joint educational activities.
At the beginning of training, all of these factors influence through the personality of the teacher, who is an authority. Younger schoolchildren begin to develop their intellectual senses . Active cognition in the process of educational activity is associated with overcoming difficulties, successes and failures, therefore a whole range of feelings
: surprise, doubt, joy of learning and, in connection with them, intellectual feelings leading to success in educational activities, such as curiosity, a sense of the new.
The emergence of intellectual feelings is associated with cognitive interest. In the first grade, factors and events arouse interest, which means that for the development of intellectual feelings it is important
to rely on vivid ideas and clarity, and then joy and satisfaction arise in the child from insight into the essence of facts and cause-and-effect dependencies.
Work on experimental programs for primary classes has made it possible to raise the theoretical level of presentation of educational material and requires a lot of mental effort, which helps to increase the level of development of intellectual feelings. And if overly simplified tasks appear against this background, then the children develop a feeling of bewilderment, dissatisfaction, and the stimulus for learning disappears. As the experience of the school shows, the intellectual feelings of students, with proper organization of learning, become a necessity for them.
The aesthetic feelings of a primary school student develop in the process of perceiving literary works, and the most fertile material is poetry. Studies by a number of domestic psychologists emphasize that thanks to this type of literary work, children develop an emotional attitude towards poetry. It is in poetry that they more often capture the emotional character, subtly note the general mood, the attitude of the author to the picture depicted. At the same time, the aesthetic side of a work of art should be highlighted and emphasized by teachers. Only with appropriate training are primary schoolchildren able to give an emotional assessment of a piece of music. The same is true with the perception of works of art.
The formation of educational activity does not develop in the same way for all children. There are groups of children with learning difficulties, the so-called “risk groups”, who have difficulty adapting to school. Children with attention deficits, left-handed children, as well as children with emotional disorders may be subject to disaptation
For left-handers, the transition to school life is much slower and more painful than for most peers. Therefore, left-handed first-graders require close attention from teachers, parents and school psychologists.
A left-handed child can have a lot of problems at school. However, left-handedness is a risk factor not in itself, but in connection with those specific disorders and deviations and developmental deviations that may occur in a particular child. Not all left-handed children, especially if attention was paid to their full mental development in preschool childhood, will have serious problems in mastering educational activities.
Nevertheless, it is fair to note that modern school programs, focused primarily on the development of logical-sign, i.e. left-hemisphere components of thinking do not make it possible to realize the potential of a left-handed child with a right-hemisphere orientation.
One of the specific features of children with hyperactive syndrome is excessive activity, excessive mobility, fussiness, and the inability to concentrate on anything for a long time. Hyperactivity acts as one of the manifestations of a whole complex of disorders observed in such children. The main defect is the insufficiency of the mechanisms of attention and inhibitory control. Such disorders are classified as “attention deficit disorders . This form of disorder is considered the most common among children of primary school age.
Hyperactivity and lack of attention appear in children already at preschool age, but at this age they do not seem so problematic, since they are partially compensated by the normal level of development. However, entering school poses serious difficulties, since educational activities place increased demands on the development of attention.
Hyperactive children are very difficult children who often lead both parents and teachers to despair. There is no clear prognosis for the further development of such children. For many, serious problems may persist into adolescence, and then school disruption will develop into social disruption. Therefore, from the first days of such a child’s stay at school, the psychologist needs to establish joint work with his parents and teachers.
One of the most common requests to a school psychologist from teachers, according to I. V. Dubrovina, is the problem of emotional instability and imbalance of students. Teachers do not know how to behave with students who are overly stubborn, touchy, pugnacious, or, for example, with children who are too sensitive to any remark, whiny, or anxious. In such cases, the school psychologist should try to understand the possible reasons for such manifestations of emotional experiences in each specific situation.
Conventionally, we can distinguish three groups of so-called difficult children who have problems in the emotional sphere.
Aggressive children. Of course, in the life of every child there are times when he shows aggression, but when identifying this group, you need to pay attention, first of all, to the degree of manifestation of the aggressive reaction, the duration of the action and the nature of the possible reasons, sometimes implicit, causing affective behavior.
Emotionally disinhibited children. Children belonging to this type react too violently to everything: if they express delight, then as a result of their expressive behavior they turn on the whole class; if they suffer, their crying and moaning will be too loud and provocative.
Too shy, vulnerable, touchy, timid, anxious children. They are embarrassed to loudly and clearly express their emotions, quietly experiencing their problems, afraid to draw attention to themselves (these difficulties are a personal component of the individual and its development is of a psychoprophylactic nature for these problems).
At the diagnostic stage, a school psychologist working with children who have difficulties in developing the emotional sphere needs to determine the characteristics of family upbringing, the attitude of others towards the child, the level of his self-esteem, and the psychological climate in the classroom.
Will. During the learning process, the child must constantly act in accordance with the teacher’s requirements or according to the model.
Will reveals itself in the ability to perform actions or restrain them, overcoming external or internal obstacles, in the formation of additional motives and incentives for weakly motivated activities.
Learning activities require the use of volitional efforts . Thus, a student, wanting to earn the teacher’s praise and get a good grade, performs an exercise aimed at teaching the correct writing of letters, or learns the multiplication table, which in itself does not attract him.
The student’s volitional action develops if:
1) the goals that he must achieve in his activity are understood and realized by him; only then do his actions become purposeful;
2) these goals are not too far delayed, they are visible to the child - therefore he must see the beginning and end of his activity;
3) the activity that the child must carry out is commensurate with his capabilities in terms of complexity - this ensures the experience of success from its implementation already at the very beginning, anticipating the achievement of the goal; therefore, both very easy and very difficult tasks do not contribute to the development of the will, but, on the contrary, cause either negative experiences or indifference, since the activity does not require effort;
4) the child knows and understands the way to perform an activity, see the stages of achieving a goal;
5) external control over the child’s activities is gradually replaced by internal control.
The more an adult trusts a child and expands the boundaries of his freedom within the limits of what is permitted, the faster the child learns to act independently and rely on his own strengths. And vice versa, guardianship always inhibits the development of will and creates the idea that there is an external controller who has taken full responsibility for the child’s actions.
Arbitrariness of actions , formed in the learning process, becomes a new formation of primary school age. But the formation of volitional actions that require overcoming external or internal obstacles is a long and complex process.
. During the assimilation of knowledge, abilities and skills, a primary school student not only improves his volitional act, but also develops volitional qualities, and the improvement of the volitional act in educational activities occurs constantly because new and more complex goals arise before him, which he strives to achieve.
At the beginning of training, the goal, as the first stage of a volitional act, arises in accordance with verbal instructions
, which come from the teacher or obtained from textbooks and literature.
In the course of mental development, with the emergence of certain relationships of the student to himself and to others and his relationship with the team, the younger schoolchild performs an act of will in accordance with his own needs,
interests, and motives.
Such development of the need-motivational sphere is the most important condition for the formation
of his volitional actions and volitional character traits.
An essential strong-willed character trait is independence .
The younger the students, the less able they are to act independently. They are able to manage themselves, guided by their views and beliefs (they still need to be formed), and therefore often imitate others. In this regard, the teacher and people around them should show them positive examples of behavior. The leading role in shaping the appropriate behavior of schoolchildren belongs to adults. Another very important strong-willed character trait of a junior schoolchild is endurance . It manifests itself first in the ability to obey the demands of adults. Later, the younger schoolchild develops the ability to restrain himself, obeying the regime and routine, independently organizing his homework and his leisure time. He also exhibits the opposite of restraint - impulsiveness as a result of increased emotionality. At this age, it manifests itself in distraction of attention to bright, unexpected stimuli. By grade III, it is less common in children. However, in some cases, impulsiveness becomes an individual characteristic of the child.
Persistence as the most important volitional trait develops by the third grade and allows students to achieve success in their studies even in the face of great difficulties. This trait manifests itself most clearly when doing homework, during labor lessons, while cleaning the classroom, school premises, and yard.
Most children, however, do not draw this line, considering themselves persistent, but not stubborn.
Stubbornness
at primary school age it can manifest itself as a protest or defensive reaction, especially in cases where the teacher poorly motivates his assessments and opinions, focuses not on the achievements and positive qualities of the child, but on his failures, miscalculations, negative character traits,
