In Catalonia, children are celebrating their second day of school today, although I know that in many other places in Spain they have been more than a week. It is enough time to start assessing a little how the children are doing, how they are adapting and what side effects appear as a consequence.
Some children go to the sea of happy and even ask, when they leave, when they will go again, others go a little more reluctantly, although they end up finding their place and having a relatively good time and others go fatal, and at school they can calm down and be fine, but then at home they mount some episodes of scary movie. To try to help the parents of the latter a little today I ask you this question: After a few days at school, do you behave worse at home?
How do you get into school?
There is no need to talk much about the former, they are happy and ask when they return. I don't think this seems like a problem to any parent. Of the seconds, either, they are the ones that are gradually getting used to the dynamics of the school, that some days are happier and others not so much, but that in general they are fine and, although there are harder and better seasons, they go getting ahead On the other hand, on the other hand, it is necessary to speak, because if then at home the children behave worse, if they are unbearable, irritable and when they have finished doing one they are already doing another one to you, something is happening to him.
The first question is, How do you get into school? Because many people come to school to look for the child and that is when they evaluate their face. "He is happy, he had a great time today!" And this is a beginner's mistake. If a child is in disgust in a place and suddenly the door that leads to the outside and to the arms of his father or mother, saviors of that place and situation, do not you think he will leave happy yes or yes ?. Some will be so touched psychologically that they will come out as sunk as they have been in class, but then the problem can be already terribly fat. I'm talking about those who still hope that something can change, and that's why they react to see you and then.
That is why the important thing is not to know if you are happy to leave, but to know if you are happy to enter. Now you will tell me, "Yes, but the majority of 3-year-olds are in disgust," and it may be true. Then we have a clue. If you go into disgust, we already have a sign that the child may need our help.
How are you at school?
We cannot know this except by the words of the teacher. When the child has been going to school badly for several days, with tears and saying no (or making it difficult) our concern goes beyond for the time we don't see it. Because we are with them to the door and we can see that seconds after they pass it they are still pouting or crestfallen, but then the door is closed and we are left with the doubt of whether that sadness is extended until the time of leaving or if it only lasts a few minutes. Then we ask the teacher: "Hey, let's see if you can tell me how my daughter is in class, because in the morning it costs us a lot to dress her and bring her, that she doesn't want to come ...". To which the teacher responds to you, "I have already noticed it, I wanted to talk to you because it seems not very participatory and sad, as absent" (bad, there is a lot to do here) or a "well I don't know, it is true that you enter without desire , but then immediately he does what he has to do and does not complain or reproach "(bad also if later in the afternoon the mess at home, but well if in the afternoon she is fine).
What do you do next at home?
Once we know what happens during the day, and bypassing the issue of departure a bit from what we have explained, we focus on knowing what happens next at home. We are saying that in the afternoon the children (of whom we are going to talk) cry, complain, hit us, tell us that they do not do everything, they ask us for things that they do not want afterwards, they tell us that they want to go home when they are in the park and they want to go to the park when we get home and all because they have no better way of telling us that "For me, you can go to the club, mom and dad, who left me alone in a place I don't like".
Was all that? Yes, everything is that. When a child misbehaves it is usually because he does not know how to say things. Sometimes he is even unable to know what he is feeling, so the way to ask for a change is to do as much damage as he can in the situations he knows how to handle, which are those of day to day. Asking, asking again, bothering, despairing and continually seeking our limit. And so it will continue until you understand him.
I don't know if you've ever lived it, but it's very common for children to do it. We lived in his time with the medium, Aran, when he started school, and the teacher's response was "I do not see any problem or anything to solve, because here it is very good." Come on, it didn't help us at all when we said "we have a problem, our son is not well in school". He kept what he saw, and we kept what happened next at home. All the rage contained, all the tension of being alone in an unknown place, with strangers, doing things he didn't want because that guy seemed to be the one who carried the singing voice, without having given him authority (authority does not assume one for being who she is, but she earns it with her actions), she released us in the afternoon. It showed us how little he understood he felt, how lonely and betrayed he felt and how much he hated us for insisting day after day to take him there.
You already have why. You know why many children, despite going well to school, or being well (they say) in class, then behave worse than ever.
What to do?
Now comes the difficult. Try to fix it. In my situation we asked the teacher for help because we understood that it was a thing of three: the child, his teacher and his parents. But the teacher, as an educator, failed in the equation believing himself superior and placing himself in another line. Come on, by excluding ourselves and not sharing the concern. As he saw it well in class, what happened outside was our business. He was not to blame or anything to do. We opted to return the command to the child. We had taken away his freedom, we had decided for him what was better and since the teacher was not going to help us we could only do one thing: make you feel understood. We told him to go to school whenever he wanted, and when he didn't want to, he wouldn't go. He missed a few days because he did not want to go, but he decided to go many more days than we expected. From that moment our family relationship was much better.
Obviously, we could do it. Miriam didn't work and could stay with him at home, so we could opt for it. Anyway, I do not say that it is the best solution. Simply, seeing ourselves alone, we opt for it. Ideally, what I suggest is to do what we did at first, discuss it with the teacher (or teacher), explain what it costs to take it in the morning and what happens at home in the afternoon and ask for help and commitment. If she is a good educator and has a little common sense, she will know that the child, for lack of trust, is accepting everything that happens in school without complaining and will have to work on it to make herself known and try to establish a relationship with the child, a communication, that allows him, little by little, to give his opinion and say what he feels. A relationship with the teacher and the children so that all those strangers go, little by little, becoming acquaintances and companions of joys. It is not that difficult, but sometimes what is missing is knowing what the problem is to find the solution.
By the way, if you ask me about Aran, I already told you a year later that I was happy at school every day and yesterday, after his first day of class at P5 He was very happy to know that this school is not two or three days a week, but five.
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