Getting Kids Ready For School

I received a telephone call from a mother who was moving with her family to a new town. She wanted some advice about how to help her children make the transition. I explained the idea of “anticipatory anxiety” to her and suggested that if it were possible she could travel to the town, take her children to their new school, walk into the school, walk down the halls to their rooms, and even visit their teacher. “What will that do?” she asked. I proposed that the initial visit would be easier for the kids because they knew it was of short duration. But when the real entry into the new school took place they would see familiar things and feel more secure. Their adjustment would be easier and they would be less likely to have difficulty with friends and school.

I don’t know how good that advice was but she said her kids didn’t get upset when they finally went to school. You might ask what that experience has to do with children who have been to school and are returning. It is true they are already familiar with school and with some friends but the story illustrates an important but less obvious principle. All humans measure themselves by their ability to adapt to situations and be successful in them. The “adapting” motivation shows up as early as eighteen months of age and continues throughout life. When that idea is applied to “going to school” children are faced with the need to leave home and adapt successfully at school. Let me show you what I mean.

In the classroom children are asked to apply methods of learning. These include listening, paying attention, asking and answering questions, regulating themselves to persist until a task is completed, remembering, using logic, and understand their own thought processes such as memory methods and etc. They are also invited to engage in achievement skills where goal setting and time management lead to success. Further, they are in a situation that is structured for cooperation, good communication, feeling and showing respect, being responsible and accountable. Now imagine that your home and family prepares children by teaching these practices. Or, imagine that you do not teach them? Will your children likely be successful at school? If you teach them they will feel less anxiety because they know how to participate and succeed. They will feel more confident and be more successful. If you do not teach them they will likely turn their anticipatory anxiety into something worse and could begin to imagine failure. What might have been a success opportunity can turn into something else.

One of the most startling research outcomes is the finding that high achieving students come from homes where the families’ achievement attitudes and etc. match those of the school. This suggests that low achieving students are not so fortunate. Instead of thinking of themselves as dumb or unable succeed our children deserve something better. We should take a look at how well family life and school life match.

This principle can be applied to whether children develop religious faith, whether they learn and apply work habits between home and work, and social skills in the home and elsewhere. Families provide a “cognitive map” for kids that lead them to pick those situations where they think they can succeed. Prepare your children for school by helping them go with the tools for success.

Families who do these sorts of things as part of their family life will help their children find more success.