The characteristics of a child’s social adaptation differ significantly from the same process in adults. However, childhood is the most important period for acquiring these skills and learning to interact with society in all areas of life.
Of course, this is done by psychologists, social workers, educators and many others, but the effectiveness will be significantly reduced if parents do not take part in the process, because they are the ones who regulate and direct the child’s life, and without them he is unlikely to find outside help before problems will become serious.
What is social adaptation?
Social adaptation is a person’s ability to live in society, to build correct and appropriate relationships with people around him, and the ability to behave in society according to the characteristics of the situation. That is, if the socialization process is successful, then the individual will be able to feel comfortable surrounded by any company, regardless of the age, gender, profession and other parameters of the people composing it.
Such a person will behave in accordance with accepted standards, without suppressing his personal qualities, which will help him interact competently with the environment and be able to achieve his goals without psychological discomfort.
Causes of social maladjustment
Social maladjustment of the individual is not a congenital process and never occurs spontaneously or unexpectedly. Its formation is preceded by a whole stage-by-stage complex of negative personality developments. There are also 5 significant reasons that influence the occurrence of maladaptive disorders. Such reasons include: social, biological, psychological, age, socio-economic.
Today, most scientists consider social causes to be the primary source of behavioral deviations. As a result of improper family upbringing and disruption of interpersonal communication, the so-called deformation of the processes of accumulating social experience occurs. This deformation often occurs in adolescence and childhood due to erroneous upbringing, poor relationships with parents, lack of mutual understanding, and mental trauma in childhood.
Biological causes include congenital pathology or brain injury, which affects the emotional and volitional sphere of children. Children with pathology or previous trauma are characterized by increased fatigue, difficulties in communication processes, irritability, inability to perform long-term and regular exercise, and inability to exercise volitional efforts. If such a child grows up in a dysfunctional family, this only strengthens the tendency towards deviant behavior.
Psychological causes of occurrence are determined by the peculiarities of the nervous system, accentuations of character, which, under unfavorable circumstances of upbringing, form abnormal character traits and pathologies in behavior (impulsivity, high excitability, imbalance, unrestraint, excessive activity, etc.)
Age-related reasons are the lability and excitability characteristic of a teenager, accelerating the formation of hedonism, the desire for idleness and carelessness.
Socio-economic reasons include excessive commercialization of society, low family income, and criminalization of society.
Social adaptation of the child
The difficulty of children's social adaptation lies in the fact that the child still knows little about the world and the mechanisms operating in it, and therefore has no idea how to behave in a given situation.
Even if you explain to him how to act in one case, the next time he may forget this model of behavior or use it in a completely different situation when it is inappropriate. Therefore, the task of adults is to help the little person adapt to society and intuitively sense the norms of behavior in different types of society.
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An important role in this process is played by the kindergarten, school, yard or playground where the child walks, and the various clubs he attends. These are places where a person is forced to interact with a large number of people from an early age, which allows him to develop communication skills.
But at the same time, the question arises of the child’s psychological adaptation in society, because he may not always feel comfortable, and this problem cannot always be solved by changing the environment. What to do?
Adaptation to the world from birth to one year
While still in the mother’s tummy, the baby “gets used” to the limited space and after birth needs an equally limited state. He calms down in his mother’s arms, in a tight diaper, next to his chest (the halo of which smells like amniotic fluid). That is, in order to “come to your senses” you need to feel yourself in an environment close to the previous one - then there will be an understanding - I AM SAFE.
After one and a half months, the child looks around the room with interest... in the arms of his mother. This is still an important condition for his adaptation in a large space - to be close to safety.
Then he begins to crawl, not far from his mother and loved ones. He can independently study the things he likes, looking around so that the “fulcrum” is nearby. No? Scream!
Walking on the street, a mother puts her child on the ground for the first time. No matter how interested he is in the birds in the yard, the swing, or other children, he will not stray far from his mother. He looks at all this, “gets used to it”, gets used to it. Day after day, the baby will move further and further - study and interact with everything that comes his way, knowing that in case of danger, pain, he will find where to return.
Do you get the point? The main thing in adaptation is a sense of security. If it is not there – fear, panic, hysteria.
Early years
Immediately after birth, a person “communicates” with a small number of people: mainly only parents, their close friends and relatives. At this time, safety is paramount.
The child knows his parents well, so he feels protected in their arms. This factor should be used to show him the world around him: carry him around the apartment, street and other surrounding places more often. Then the child studies the world, begins to intuitively understand it, but at the same time is not afraid of new things, because he knows that his mother is nearby and is not afraid, which means that nothing from the environment is hostile.
It would seem that these are insignificant actions, but in fact they are important for human development, because the child’s psyche is not at all the same as that of adults, and he has no life experience at all, so it is necessary to organize an acquaintance with the environment where he will live.
The same is with the child’s first steps and independent walks: to make him feel comfortable, you should hold his hand or at least not go far - then he will explore the world without fear.
The child is initially good.
All his motives and motivations are initially correct, aimed at satisfying his needs. Adults, so wise and intelligent, whom they initially trust and WANT to listen to, must understand the true needs of the child and provide opportunities for their implementation or show the way how to take these opportunities yourself.
In general, the good-bad rating system is very relative. When I ask parents: “What do you want to get in the end?” I hear - kind, obedient, purposeful, independent and blah blah blah. A sort of Plus Plusovich Plusov. Another excellent student in combat and some other training. Let's go from the other side.
Kindness borders on sacrifice. Purposefulness with meanness, obedience with humiliation. And the line is very thin. Every coin has two sides.
The child has no “bad” manifestations. There are adequate and inadequate. All human qualities are given to man as tools for interacting with this world.
I repeat – there is no good and bad, there is adequate and inadequate.
Greed is a wonderful quality when you need to defend yours. You also need to be able to lie when you keep secrets, for example. And which of you has never lied in your life? At least to yourself))) What else? Aggressiveness? When you need to protect yourself and your loved ones, it’s not a sin to punch them in the face.
All “bad” qualities are not actually bad. And not good ones. They are nothing. They simply exist in fact in our dual world. But their use may simply be inadequate.
Well, now the child... The child is initially good, as we have indicated. And he learns to live in this world. He learns by using all the tools available to him to interact with him and chooses those with the help of which he achieves quick and effective results, according to his goals.
Entering society
In the family, the child communicates not only with his parents, but also with relatives, neighbors, friends, and often goes with his mother to the store or clinic. These are the first people he interacts with outside the apartment. It is very important that he sees that his parents treat them kindly - then these are “safe” people.
Then there is acquaintance with peers, first friendship, children's games... Parents should control this communication, but unobtrusively, without showing their role.
The child must learn to build relationships on his own, and the role of mom or dad is to catch in time the moment when something went wrong and correct it. Under no circumstances should you solve problems for your child; you can only help him, but not replace him.
It is important to create conditions for the child to communicate with peers: kindergarten, playground, children of friends. Interaction with relatives is important, but the social world is much wider than even the largest and most friendly family.
Parental fears
“Most parents and the society that surrounds them (both children and parents) raise their children based on fears. That is, they take actions that are not aimed at the specific result they want to get, but do something so as not to get a negative result. I don’t know if the depth of this thought is clear, but it is fundamental in my picture of the world. I even voice it before unconditional love and security.
There are maternal expectations and there is maternal intention. Expectation is a vision of a picture of the future based on fears. Intention is a vision of the future based on faith. Which part of the person (child) you turn to, that is the part that answers you.
If you think he is angry and aggressive, he will answer you. If you think that it is adequate, over time you will get a dose of this part, even if it has gone far. The power of intention works wonders not only in visualizing desires.
How to help your child adapt to kindergarten?
Most adults are worried about leaving their child in kindergarten. This is quite normal, since the baby is there alone among unfamiliar adults and equally confused peers.
But every parent wants to help their child easily overcome such a difficult period! How to do it? Teachers and psychologists give the following recommendations:
- Parents' anxiety increases the baby's fears, so try to be calm and balanced, surrounding your child with a sense of security.
- Talk to your child about kindergarten. This is good to do at the preparatory stage of adaptation: arouse his interest, tell him how many children there are and how much fun they have, what games he can play with them.
- While walking, pass by a kindergarten, draw your child’s attention to the bright playgrounds and children frolicking there, making him want to join. Try to walk more often in any weather, let your child get used to the fact that you will go to preschool in both snow and rain. The purpose of conversations and walks around the kindergarten is to create a positive image, an understanding of how fun, calm and safe it is, even in the absence of parents.
- Talk through your baby's daily routine: breakfast, games, walk, lunch, sleep, dinner, and so on. Let him know at what point you will come for him today, so that the child is calm and knows that after dinner he will see his mother again. And be sure to come at the specified time.
- Together with your child, come up with a farewell ritual. It can be anything: a kiss, a handshake, clapping your hands, tickling or funny sounds. It is important to adhere to this ritual before parting in the garden and outside it. This will give the baby a feeling of security.
- If the kindergarten rules allow, allow your child to take his favorite toy with him. In the absence of parents, it will give peace and remind you of home, where it is so warm and cozy.
- If it is difficult for a child to part with his mother, then the father or another family member can take him to kindergarten.
- During the adaptation period, try not to start something new and generally change your usual way of life (for example, travel, moving, long business trips for parents, divorce) so that the child does not have reasons for additional stress.
- Read books in which the main characters started attending kindergarten. Publications with such stories can be easily found in any bookstore. Create different situations with your baby’s favorite toys: “Tim the Rabbit with the children on a walk”, “Nina the Horse sleeps in a quiet hour” and so on. Let these stories become familiar and understandable to the child.
Correction of social maladjustment
In childhood, the main directions for correcting social maladjustment of the individual should be: development of communication skills, harmonization of interpersonal communication in the family and in peer groups, adjustment of certain personality traits that impede communication, or transformation of the manifestations of traits in such a way that in the future they cannot negatively affect communication. sphere, adjusting children’s self-esteem to bring it closer to normal.
Currently, trainings that are especially popular in the correction of social maladaptation are: psychotechnical games aimed at developing various mental functions that are associated with transformations in consciousness, and role-playing socio-psychological training.
This training is aimed at resolving the internal contradictions of the subject in the conditions of developing certain skills in performing specific social functions (formation and consolidation of the necessary social and cultural norms). The training takes place in the form of a game.
Main functions of the training:
- training, which consists in the development of skills and abilities necessary for learning, such as: attention, memory, reproduction of received information, foreign speech skills;
- entertaining, serves to create a more favorable atmosphere during the training, which transforms training into an exciting and entertaining adventure;
- communicative, which consists in establishing emotional contacts;
- relaxation – aimed at relieving emotional stress;
- psychotechnical, characterized by the formation of skills to prepare one’s own physiological state in order to obtain more information;
- preventive, aimed at preventing unwanted behavior;
- developmental, characterized by the development of personality from different sides, the development of character traits through playing out all possible situations.
Social-psychological training consists of a specific psychological impact, which is based on active methods of working in groups. It is characterized by the intensity of the individual’s preparation for a more fulfilling and active life. The essence of the training is specially organized training for the purpose of self-improvement of the individual’s personality. It is aimed at solving such problems as: mastering social and pedagogical knowledge, developing the ability to know oneself and others, increasing ideas about one’s importance, and developing a variety of abilities, skills, and abilities.
Training is a whole complex of sequential classes with one group. Tasks and exercises are selected individually for each group.
Perform developmental exercises from Ikyusha
Mathematics
Reading
The world
Logics
English language
Stages of addiction
We talked about the degrees and stages of children’s adaptation to kindergarten, but also every baby goes through a period of adjustment. What is important to know about this?
Stage 1 - maladjustment.
No matter how successful the preparatory adaptation is, at first the baby will still be in a state of stress and anxiety. Even the most active and sociable children need time to get used to parting with their parents. Colds appear.
Stage 2 - adaptation.
The child begins to gradually get used to the new regime, other children and adults, and participates in games, although he continues to miss his family and ask if they will take him away. Changeable moods, whims, and refusal to comply with the teacher’s requests may be observed.
Stage 3 - compensation.
At the final stage of adaptation, the baby is already emotionally stable and calmly remains in the garden for the whole day, eats and sleeps well. The child begins to get sick less often.
