School maladjustment: signs, causes, consequences

School maladjustment: signs, causes, consequences

With the beginning of educational activities, big changes appear in the child’s life. At this stage, his psyche may experience stress due to changes in lifestyle, new demands from parents and teachers.

Therefore, it is extremely important to monitor the general condition of the student and help him avoid difficulties in the process of adaptation to the school environment.

This article will discuss the concept school maladjustment, its main causes, types of manifestation, as well as recommendations for correction and prevention developed by psychologists and teachers.

School maladjustment does not have an unambiguous definition in science, because in every science, be it pedagogy, psychology and social pedagogy, this process studied from a certain professional angle.

School maladjustment is a violation of the child’s adequate adaptation mechanisms to the school environment, affecting his educational productivity and relationships with the outside world. If we bypass scientific terminology, then in other words, school maladjustment is nothing more than a psychosomatic deviation that prevents a child from adapting to the school environment.

According to psychologists, schoolchildren who experience difficulties in adaptation may have problems in mastering school material, resulting in low academic performance, as well as difficulties in developing social contacts both with peers and with adults.

The personal development of such children, as a rule, is delayed; they sometimes do not hear their “I”. Most often, younger schoolchildren face maladaptation, but in some cases, high school students as well.

As a rule, children with this kind of problems junior school stand out from the entire team:

  • emotional instability;
  • frequent absence from school;
  • sudden transitions from passivity to activity;
  • frequent complaints of feeling unwell;
  • lagging behind the curriculum.

Children high school those experiencing difficulties in adaptation are more likely to:

  • - increased sensitivity, sudden outbursts of emotions;
  • - the emergence of aggressiveness, conflicts with others;
  • - negativism and protest;
  • - manifestation of character through appearance;
  • - can keep up with the training course.

Causes of school maladjustment

Psychologists studying the phenomenon of maladjustment identify the following among the main reasons:

  • strong suppression by parents and teachers - (fear of failure, shame, fear of making mistakes);
  • disorders of a somatic nature (weak immunity, diseases internal organs, physical fatigue);
  • poor preparation for school (lack of certain knowledge and skills, poor motor skills);
  • poorly formed foundation of some mental functions, as well as cognitive processes (inadequately high or low self-esteem, inattention, poor memory);
  • specifically organized educational process (complex program, special bias, fast pace).

Types of manifestation of school maladjustment

1. Cognitive– manifests itself as the student’s general poor performance. There may be chronic underachievement, lack of skills, fragmentary acquisition of knowledge. Lack of adaptation to the collective pace - being late for lessons, taking a long time to complete a task, getting tired quickly.

2. Emotionally - evaluative– there are disturbances in the emotional attitude to individual lessons, teachers, and possibly to learning in general. “Fear of school” - anxiety, tension. Uncontrolled manifestation of violent emotions.

3. Behavioral– weak self-regulation, inability to control one’s own behavior, conflict appears. Lack of study - manifests itself in a reluctance to do homework and a desire to engage in other activities.

Correction of maladaptation in school-age children

Currently, there is no unified method for solving problems with the adaptation of a schoolchild, since this problem includes several aspects of a child’s life. Here you need to take into account the medical, pedagogical, psychological and social aspects.

It is for this reason that it is necessary to understand the seriousness of this problem and solve it through qualified specialists.

Because the psychological help in the decision this issue is the main one, either a school psychologist or a private psychologist, or in some cases a psychotherapist, can work with a child experiencing difficulties.

Specialists, in turn, to determine methods for correcting school maladaptation, conduct a detailed study of the student’s life and identify the main points:

  • learn in detail about the child’s social environment, the conditions of his development, collecting a detailed anamnesis;
  • assess the level of psychophysical development of the child, taking into account his individual characteristics, carry out special testing appropriate to the child’s age;
  • determine the nature of the student’s internal conflict leading to crisis situations;
  • identify factors that provoke manifestations of signs of maladjustment;
  • draw up a program of psychological and pedagogical correction, focusing specifically on the individual characteristics of a given child.

Teachers are also inextricably linked with the process of formation positive conditions for student adaptation. It is necessary to focus on creating comfort in the lesson, a favorable emotional climate in the class, and to be more restrained.

But it is important to understand that without family support, the chances of developing positive dynamics are quite limited. That is why parents need to build friendly relationships with their children, encourage them more often, try to help and, of course, praise them. It is necessary to spend time together, play, come up with joint activities, and help develop the necessary skills.

If a child does not have a good relationship with a teacher at school or with peers (option), parents are advised to consider options for transferring to another school. There is a possibility that in another school the child will become interested in educational activities and will also be able to establish contacts with others.

Prevention of school maladjustment

In solving this problem, both correction methods and prevention methods should be comprehensive. To date, there are various measures to help a child with maladjustment.

These are compensatory classes, social trainings, qualified consultations for parents, special techniques special education, which are taught to school teachers.

Adaptation to the school environment– the process is stressful not only for the child, but also for parents and teachers. That is why the task of adults at this stage of a child’s life is to try to help him together.

Here all efforts are devoted to only one important result - to restore the child’s positive attitude towards life, teachers and the educational activity itself.

With the advent of this, the student will develop an interest in lessons, perhaps in creativity and in others. When it is clear that the child has begun to experience joy in the school environment and educational process, then school will cease to be a problem.

2.3. Mechanisms of development of adaptation disorders and their types in children school age

We can, of course, talk about a violation of balance and harmonious relations with the environment only in those cases when at a certain stage this balance and harmony existed and were, due to certain circumstances, disturbed. However, more frequent in school life There are cases when harmonious relationships between the child and the school environment do not arise initially. The initial phases of adaptation do not transition into the phase of sustainable adaptation, optimal functioning, but, on the contrary, mechanisms of maladaptation come into play, ultimately leading to a more or less pronounced conflict between the individual and the environment. And time in these cases only works against the child.

Based on modern ideas about a person as a bio-psychosocial unity, it can be argued that the mechanisms of maladaptation affect all of the listed floors individual organization and manifest themselves respectively at the social (pedagogical), psychological and physiological levels, reflecting the child’s ways of responding to aggression from the environment or protecting him from this aggression. The signs by which these methods reveal themselves are considered as adaptation disorders. Depending on the level at which adaptation disorders manifest themselves, we can talk about risk conditions for school maladjustment, highlighting states of academic risk, social risk, health risk, as well as complex risk.

Primary adaptation disorders manifest themselves, naturally, at the highest, most environmentally dependent stage of the individual organization - the social one - and are revealed accordingly at the pedagogical level. However, in case of failure to take the measures necessary to eliminate them, adaptation measures

the destruction naturally extends to deeper levels - psychological and physiological. Pedagogical level of school maladjustment.

The pedagogical level of development of school maladaptation is the most obvious and conscious for school workers. He discovers himself with the child's problems in learning (activity plan) and mastering a new social role for him - the role of a student (relational plan).

In terms of activity, if the development of events is unfavorable for the child, his primary difficulties in learning (stage I) develop into gaps in knowledge (stage II), into a lag in mastering educational material in one or more subjects (stage III), into partial or general failure ( Stage IV) and, as a possible extreme case, refusal of educational activities (stage V).

In relational terms, the negative dynamics are expressed in the fact that the tensions in the child’s relationship with the teacher and parents that initially arose on the basis of failures in educational activities (stage I) develop into semantic barriers (stage II), into episodic ones (stage III) and then into systematic conflicts (Stage IV), as an extreme case - into a severance of these personally significant relationships for him (Stage V).

Statistics show that both educational and relational problems show persistent persistence and do not soften over the years, but, on the contrary, get worse. Generalized data recent years note an increase among schoolchildren in the number of children experiencing difficulties in learning program material. Among junior schoolchildren they make up 30-40%, among primary school students - up to 50%.

Sociological surveys of schoolchildren show that only 20% of them feel comfortable as students at school and at home. More than 60% report a state of dissatisfaction, which to a large extent characterizes trouble in relationships that develop on the basis of educational activities. Pedagogical plan school problems the child has been studied quite well and is reflected in well-known publications (Yu. K. Babansky, 1972; N. A. Menchinskaya, 1971; Z. I. Kalmykova, 1982; V. S. Tsetlin, 1977, etc.). At the same time, this level of development of school maladaptation, obvious to school workers, can only be compared with the tip of the iceberg. It is only a signal of those deep deformations that occur at the psychological and physiological levels of the individual organization of a growing person - in his personal structures, in character, in mental and somatic health. These deformations are hidden and, as a rule, do not correlate with

the nature of school influences. At the same time, the role of the school in their emergence and development is very great.

Psychological level of school maladjustment.

Failure to succeed in educational activities and troubles in relationships with personally significant people that arise on its basis cannot leave a child indifferent. Experienced by a child, they negatively affect the deeper level of his individual organization - psychological, and directly affect the formation of the character of a growing person, his life attitudes, the orientation of the personality as a whole, and his socialization.

First, the child develops a feeling of anxiety, insecurity, and vulnerability in situations related to educational activities. The child is passive in the lesson, tense and constrained when answering; during recess he cannot find something to do; he prefers to be near children, but does not come into contact with them; V emotional sphere anxiety predominates, cries easily, blushes, gets lost even at the slightest remark from the teacher (stage I of the development of adaptation disorders at the psychological level).

Trying to the best of his ability to change the situation and seeing the futility of his efforts, the child, acting in self-preservation mode, begins to instinctively defend himself from extremely high loads for him, from unbearable demands. The initial tension is reduced due to a change in attitude towards learning activities, which are no longer considered significant. The child develops (stage II of the development of adaptation disorders) and strengthens (stage III) various psychoprotective reactions: during lessons he is constantly distracted, looks out the window, and does other things. And since the choice of ways to compensate for the naturally unsatisfied need for success in younger schoolchildren is limited, self-actualization and self-affirmation often occur in opposition to school norms and violations of discipline (IV stage of development of adaptation disorders). More or less conscious ways for the child to protest against a non-prestigious position in the social environment are being formed.

There are methods of active and passive protest, probably correlated with the mental constitution of the child - his strong or weak type nervous system.

At primary school age, the reaction of active protest is expressed in the fact that the child is often disobedient and violates discipline in class; During recess he shows negativism towards his classmates, quarrels with them, interferes with their play, and the children reject him. In the emotional sphere, affective tension is expressed in the form of outbursts of irritation and anger.

As they grow older, the reaction of active protest is expressed in the fact that the child seeks and asserts himself in some other type of activity. And it is precisely this activity that replaces teaching that becomes leading and personally significant for him. In it he asserts himself as a person and receives recognition. The activity itself may have a different social orientation. It may well fit within the framework of what is socially approved - for example, classes in some studios, clubs, sports sections. But it can also have an asocial orientation - participation in feasible roles in robbery, theft, and criminal business.

Reactions of passive protest, as a rule, are chosen by uninitiated, driven individuals. For a younger schoolchild, this manifests itself in the fact that he rarely raises his hand in class and formally fulfills the teacher’s requirements; during recess he is passive, prefers to be alone, does not show interest in group games; in the emotional sphere, he is dominated by depressive moods and fears. Not receiving the much-needed and inextricably linked joy in learning from life in the current situation at school and at home, these children seek it, often becoming substance abusers at this age and later turning to drugs. Sometimes such children at some stage realize the futility of their possible future and a self-destructive internal conflict between “I want” and “I can” matures in their souls (V stage of development of adaptation disorders). If circumstances develop in such a way that this conflict matures against the backdrop of complete mental loneliness, the rupture of all social connections, then the way to resolve it can be the most unpredictable. It is in such cases that we encounter the phenomenon of child suicide. The deformation of personal structures arising under the influence of an unfavorable social and pedagogical situation is reflected in such an integrating concept as social and pedagogical neglect. Researchers note that this phenomenon begins in a child's early childhood, around the age of three, coinciding with the beginning of the development of his self-awareness. Signs of neglect gradually accumulate and turn into quality education- symptom complexes. In preschool childhood, they manifest themselves only in the child’s behavior, without affecting his personality, which is in the process of formation. But already in a junior schoolchild, given an unfavorable developmental situation in the family and school, socio-pedagogical neglect extends to the personal level. The processes of formation of a person’s self-awareness are disrupted, the development of his subjective properties is inhibited, and disharmonies in psychosocial development begin to emerge.

Presenting the characteristics of socially and pedagogically neglected junior schoolchildren, R.V. Ovcharova, in a monograph devoted to the analysis of this phenomenon, notes that, as a rule, such children are characterized by inadequate self-esteem, in the vast majority of cases underestimated. They are less socially adjusted, distrustful, overly touchy, and have poor intuition in interpersonal relationships. Their behavior is often characterized by negativism, stubbornness, and self-centeredness. Neglected children take a primitive approach to solving their problems. They have poor attention and get tired easily. They react sharply to failures, lack self-confidence, have an unstable mood, and find it difficult to adapt to new conditions.

Many such children are characterized by hyperactivity, expressed in poor concentration, increased motor restlessness and distractibility, lack of fear in high-risk situations, ignoring social requirements and cultural norms of behavior.

In relationships with adults, neglected children are sensitive to threats, shy, and timid. They easily lose their state of balance, are full of forebodings of failure, often have a low mood, but they are characterized by an excess of impulses that find release in practical activities. A neglected child tries to compensate for his situation by aggressiveness and a tendency to take risky actions in order to attract attention to himself.

Neglected junior schoolchildren are overly sensitive to the attitude of others, and they associate the attitude of adults towards themselves primarily with the teacher’s evaluative activity. In most cases, they feel stupid, bad students, unaccepted, unloved. These sensations increase their anxiety, make them socially timid, and reduce their level of aspirations.

As a subject of educational activity, a socially and pedagogically neglected junior schoolchild is characterized by disharmony of learning motives, an inadequate level of aspirations, low educational and cognitive activity, imbalance in the development of cognitive processes, poor mastery of the basic methods of educational actions, high level school anxiety. The dominant motives for learning are the motives of avoiding troubles and striving for well-being in the educational situation, which is associated with school failure and corresponding sanctions from teachers and parents.

The accumulation of negatively colored emotional reactions in a child leads to a disruption of his mental balance, which is expressed in depression, depression, lethargy, crying.

nauseousness, irritability, manifestations of unmotivated fear, anxiety in some children and disinhibition, increased motor activity, and uncontrollability in others. Such conditions disorganize the child, cause inadequate reactions to pedagogical influences, and make him pedagogically difficult (R.V. Ovcharova, 1995).

A child’s psychological reaction to school difficulties develops differently if he finds understanding from close, significant people - teachers, parents - and the latter actively help him. In this case, the initially manifested anxiety gives way to one’s own active desire to meet the expectations of adults, mobilization, and, as educational requirements become more complex, over-mobilization of volitional resources.

Physiological level of school maladjustment.

The mechanism of influence of school problems on a child’s health should be considered the most studied to date, but at the same time least understood by teachers. Ultimately, it is here, at the physiological level, the deepest level of a person’s individual organization, that both the experiences caused by failure in educational activities, the conflictual nature of relationships, and the exorbitant expenditure of time and effort on learning are confined.

The question of how school and school life affect children’s health is the subject of research by school hygiene specialists. However, we note that even before such specialists appeared, the visionary classics of pedagogy left to their descendants their assessments of the influence of the school on the health of those who study there. Thus, G. Pestalozzi noted back in 1805 that with traditionally established school uniforms learning, there is an incomprehensible “suffocation” of children’s development, “killing their health.”

In 1886, Professor N.I. Bystrov spoke at the first congress of the Moscow-Petersburg Medical Society with the message “Headache in school-age children.” The enormous material that the scientist had at his disposal, conducting five-year observations of 8 - 17-year-old girls and boys, pupils of educational institutions in St. Petersburg, allowed him to state that headache noted in 12% of children. Moreover, in 8-year-old children this disease occurred in 5% of cases, and in 14-17 year olds - in 28-40% of cases. N.I. Bystrov considered excessive, tedious training sessions to be the main cause of prolonged headaches. They required intensive work of the brain, which then caused a disruption of blood circulation in one or another part of it. The author believed that the curriculum did not correspond to the conditions of children's nature and the basics of hygiene (M.V. Antropova, 1968).

The negative impact of school on children’s health was also noted by other scientists both in Russia and abroad. Today, a large scientific and journalistic community is ringing the alarm bell.

In children who have just crossed the threshold of school, already in the first grade there is a clear increase in deviations in the neuropsychic sphere (up to 54%), visual impairment (45%), posture and feet (38%), diseases of the digestive system (up to 30%). ). By the ninth grade, the number of healthy children is reduced by 4-5 times. At the stage of leaving school, only 10% of students can be considered healthy. 40-50% of graduates have chronic pathology, 45-50% have morphofunctional abnormalities. It is noted that in the overwhelming majority of cases, chronic diseases in children “grew” from previously existing morphofunctional abnormalities.

The dynamics of children's health in recent years are especially alarming. Thus, in 1993, compared to 1991, among schoolchildren under 14 years of age, there was an increase in diseases of the digestive system by 15%. endocrine system - by 10, circulatory system - by 16, genitourinary system - by 12, musculoskeletal system - by 15%. Among high school students, the increase in diseases over these two years was even more intense.

With all the complexity of the question of when, where, under what circumstances health turns into illness, what are the mechanisms of this transition, it has already become clear to scientists, perhaps the most important thing for us, teachers, that in preventing illness, in maintaining health, in an ideal case In its multiplication, the decisive role does not belong to medicine or the health care system. The decisive role belongs to those social institutions that predetermine the conditions and lifestyle of the child - family and school. Therefore, today, including from the side of doctors, the opinion is increasingly expressed that at the stage of school life it is the school and teachers that should play a decisive role both in the diagnosis and in the prevention of disorders of the mental and psychosomatic health of children (S. M. Trombach, 1988).

This conclusion looks especially reasonable against the backdrop of the changes that have occurred over the past half century in the structure of morbidity. Such deadly diseases that at the beginning of the century claimed hundreds of thousands of lives - plague, smallpox, cholera, typhus - have been replaced by diseases that in everyday life they are often called diseases of civilization. These include disorders of the musculoskeletal system and vision, hypertension with all its terrible complications, angina pectoris, tumors, gastric ulcers and two-

duodenum, bronchial asthma and other diseases of an allergic nature, eczema and neurodermatitis, neuroses and mental disorders, as well as alcoholism and drug addiction.

Most of these diseases fall into the category of so-called psychosomatic (soma translated from Greek. - body). This term means that doctors associate the changes that occur with these diseases in the internal organs and systems of the body (cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory, nervous) with more or less prolonged mental and emotional stress, which manifests itself in the form of dissatisfaction , anxiety, resentment, despair, fear, melancholy, impotent anger, hatred that arise in response to life’s difficulties and conflicts. It is noted that many psychosomatic diseases have become “younger”, and the blame for this largely lies with the school.

In the works of both domestic and foreign authors, adaptation disorders are considered as prerequisites for the development of various kinds of pathological conditions. From the position of doctors in clinical practice, the already mentioned reactions of children to school difficulties, such as fear of failure to complete school assignments, teachers, classmates, feelings of inferiority, negativism, withdrawal, aggressive actions or general lethargy, excessive shyness, tearfulness, and lack of interest to games, complaints of headaches, stomach pains are considered as symptoms of pre-neurotic conditions and fit into the area of ​​so-called pre-pathology or pre-disease (V. E. Kagan, 1984).

It has also been noted that the consolidation of protest reactions and the aggravation of feelings of anxiety are the main mechanism of psychogenic pathological formation of personality (V.V. Kovalev, 1985; A.E. Lichko, 1983), as well as the fact that a long stay of the body in a state of acute chronic stress contributes to the weakening of functions or damage to structures, i.e., the development of the disease (V.P. Kaznacheev, 1980).

In one study, a group of 100 children, whose adaptation process was specially monitored, was examined by a neuropsychiatrist at the end of the school year. It was revealed that schoolchildren with unstable adaptation have individual subclinical disorders of the neuropsychic sphere, and some of them have an increased incidence rate. In children who did not adapt during the school year, a psychoneurologist recorded pronounced astheno-neurotic deviations in the form of borderline neuropsychic disorders (E.M. Aleksandrovskaya, 1988).

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Mechanisms of development of adaptation disorders and their types in primary school age

We can, of course, talk about a violation of balance and harmonious relations with the environment only in those cases when at a certain stage this balance and harmony existed and were, due to certain circumstances, disturbed. However, more frequent in school life are cases when harmonious relationships between the child and the school environment do not arise initially. The initial phases of adaptation do not transition into the phase of sustainable adaptation, optimal functioning, but, on the contrary, mechanisms of maladaptation come into play, ultimately leading to a more or less pronounced conflict between the individual and the environment. And time in these cases only works against the child.

Based on modern ideas about a person as a bio-psychosocial unity, it can be argued that the mechanisms of maladaptation affect all of the listed levels of individual organization and manifest themselves, respectively, at the social (pedagogical), psychological and physiological levels, reflecting the child’s ways of responding to aggression from the environment or protection him from this aggression. The signs by which these methods reveal themselves are considered as adaptation disorders. Depending on the level at which adaptation disorders manifest themselves, we can talk about risk conditions for school maladjustment, highlighting states of academic risk, social risk, health risk, as well as complex risk.

Primary adaptation disorders manifest themselves, naturally, at the highest, most environmentally dependent stage of the individual organization - the social one - and are revealed accordingly at the pedagogical level. However, in case of failure to take the measures necessary to eliminate them, adaptation measures

the destruction naturally extends to deeper levels - psychological and physiological. Pedagogical level of school maladjustment.



The pedagogical level of development of school maladaptation is the most obvious and conscious for school workers. He discovers himself with the child's problems in learning (activity plan) and mastering a new social role for him - the role of a student (relational plan).

In terms of activity, if the development of events is unfavorable for the child, his primary difficulties in learning (stage I) develop into gaps in knowledge (stage II), into a lag in mastering educational material in one or more subjects (stage III), into partial or general failure ( Stage IV) and, as a possible extreme case, refusal of educational activities (stage V).

In relational terms, the negative dynamics are expressed in the fact that the tensions in the child’s relationship with the teacher and parents that initially arose on the basis of failures in educational activities (stage I) develop into semantic barriers (stage II), into episodic ones (stage III) and then into systematic conflicts (Stage IV), as an extreme case - into a severance of these personally significant relationships for him (Stage V).

Statistics show that both educational and relational problems show persistent persistence and do not soften over the years, but, on the contrary, get worse. Generalized data from recent years indicate an increase in the number of children experiencing difficulties in mastering program material among school students. Among junior schoolchildren they make up 30-40%, among primary school students - up to 50%.

Opinion polls schoolchildren show that only 20% of them feel comfortable as students at school and at home. More than 60% report a state of dissatisfaction, which to a large extent characterizes trouble in relationships that develop on the basis of educational activities. The pedagogical plan for a child’s school problems has been studied quite well and is reflected in well-known publications (Yu. K. Babansky, 1972; N. A. Menchinskaya, 1971; Z. I. Kalmykova, 1982; V. S. Tsetlin, 1977, etc.) . At the same time, this level of development of school maladaptation, obvious to school workers, can only be compared with the tip of the iceberg. It is only a signal of those deep deformations that occur at the psychological and physiological levels of the individual organization of a growing person - in his personal structures, in character, in mental and somatic health. These deformations are hidden and, as a rule, do not correlate with

character school influences. At the same time, the role of the school in their emergence and development is very great.

Psychological level school maladjustment.

Failure to succeed in educational activities and troubles in relationships with personally significant people that arise on its basis cannot leave a child indifferent. Experienced by a child, they negatively affect the deeper level of his individual organization - psychological, and directly affect the formation of the character of a growing person, his life attitudes, the orientation of the personality as a whole, and his socialization.

First, the child develops a feeling of anxiety, insecurity, and vulnerability in situations related to educational activities. The child is passive in the lesson, tense and constrained when answering; during recess he cannot find something to do; he prefers to be near children, but does not come into contact with them; in the emotional sphere, anxiety predominates, she cries easily, blushes, and gets lost even at the slightest remark from the teacher (stage I of the development of adaptation disorders at the psychological level).

Trying to the best of his ability to change the situation and seeing the futility of his efforts, the child, acting in self-preservation mode, begins to instinctively defend himself from extremely high loads for him, from unbearable demands. The initial tension is reduced due to a change in attitude towards learning activities, which are no longer considered significant. The child develops (stage II of the development of adaptation disorders) and strengthens (stage III) various psychoprotective reactions: during lessons he is constantly distracted, looks out the window, and does other things. And since the choice of ways to compensate for the naturally unsatisfied need for success in younger schoolchildren is limited, self-actualization and self-affirmation often occur in opposition to school norms and violations of discipline (IV stage of development of adaptation disorders). More or less conscious ways for the child to protest against a non-prestigious position in the social environment are being formed.

There are methods of active and passive protest, probably correlated with the mental constitution of the child - the strong or weak type of his nervous system.

At primary school age, the reaction of active protest is expressed in the fact that the child is often disobedient and violates discipline in class; During recess he shows negativism towards his classmates, quarrels with them, interferes with their play, and the children reject him. In the emotional sphere, affective tension is expressed in the form of outbursts of irritation and anger.

As they grow older, the reaction of active protest is expressed in the fact that the child seeks and asserts himself in some other type of activity. And it is precisely this activity that replaces teaching that becomes leading and personally significant for him. In it he asserts himself as a person and receives recognition. The activity itself may have a different social orientation. It may well fit within the framework of what is socially approved - for example, classes in some studios, clubs, sports sections. But it can also have an asocial orientation - participation in feasible roles in robbery, theft, and criminal business.

Reactions of passive protest, as a rule, are chosen by uninitiated, driven individuals. For a younger schoolchild, this manifests itself in the fact that he rarely raises his hand in class and formally fulfills the teacher’s requirements; during recess he is passive, prefers to be alone, does not show interest in group games; in the emotional sphere, he is dominated by depressive moods and fears. Not receiving the much-needed and inextricably linked joy in learning from life in the current situation at school and at home, these children seek it, often becoming substance abusers at this age and later turning to drugs. Sometimes such children at some stage realize the futility of their possible future and a self-destructive internal conflict between “I want” and “I can” matures in their souls (V stage of development of adaptation disorders). If circumstances are such that this conflict is brewing against the backdrop of complete mental loneliness, the severance of all social ties, then the method of resolving it can be the most unpredictable. It is in such cases that we encounter the phenomenon of child suicide. The deformation of personal structures arising under the influence of an unfavorable social and pedagogical situation is reflected in such an integrating concept as social and pedagogical neglect. Researchers note that this phenomenon begins in a child's early childhood, around the age of three, coinciding with the beginning of the development of his self-awareness. Signs of neglect gradually accumulate and turn into quality education - symptom complexes. IN preschool childhood they manifest themselves only in the child’s behavior, without affecting his personality, which is in the process of formation. But already in a junior schoolchild, given an unfavorable developmental situation in the family and school, socio-pedagogical neglect extends to the personal level. The processes of formation of a person’s self-awareness are disrupted, the development of his subjective properties is inhibited, and disharmonies in psychosocial development begin to emerge.

Presenting the characteristics of socially and pedagogically neglected junior schoolchildren, R.V. Ovcharova, in a monograph devoted to the analysis of this phenomenon, notes that, as a rule, such children are characterized by inadequate self-esteem, in the vast majority of cases underestimated. They are less socially adjusted, distrustful, overly touchy, have poor intuition in interpersonal relationships. Their behavior is often characterized by negativism, stubbornness, and self-centeredness. Neglected children take a primitive approach to solving their problems. They have poor attention and get tired easily. They react sharply to failures, lack self-confidence, have an unstable mood, and find it difficult to adapt to new conditions.

Many such children are characterized by hyperactivity, expressed in poor concentration, increased motor restlessness and distractibility, lack of fear in high-risk situations, ignoring social requirements and cultural norms of behavior.

In relationships with adults, neglected children are sensitive to threats, shy, and timid. They easily lose their state of balance, are full of forebodings of failure, often have a low mood, but they are characterized by an excess of motivations that find release in practical activities. A neglected child tries to compensate for his situation by aggressiveness and a tendency to take risky actions in order to attract attention to himself.

Neglected junior schoolchildren are overly sensitive to the attitude of others, and they associate the attitude of adults towards themselves primarily with the teacher’s evaluative activity. In most cases, they feel stupid, bad students, unaccepted, unloved. These sensations increase their anxiety, make them socially timid, and reduce their level of aspirations.

As a subject of educational activity, a socially and pedagogically neglected junior schoolchild is characterized by disharmony of learning motives, an inadequate level of aspirations, low educational and cognitive activity, an imbalance in the development of cognitive processes, and poor mastery of basic methods. educational activities, high levels of school anxiety. The dominant motives for learning are the motives of avoiding troubles and striving for well-being in the educational situation, which is associated with school failure and corresponding sanctions from teachers and parents.

The accumulation of negatively colored emotional reactions in a child leads to a disruption of his mental balance, which is expressed in depression, depression, lethargy, crying.

nauseousness, irritability, manifestations of unmotivated fear, anxiety in some children and disinhibition, increased motor activity, and uncontrollability in others. Such conditions disorganize the child, cause inadequate reactions to pedagogical influences, and make him pedagogically difficult (R.V. Ovcharova, 1995).

A child’s psychological reaction to school difficulties develops differently if he finds understanding from close, significant people - teachers, parents - and the latter actively help him. In this case, the initially manifested anxiety gives way to one’s own active desire to meet the expectations of adults, mobilization, and, as educational requirements become more complex, over-mobilization of volitional resources.

The concept of school maladjustment.

Prerequisites for school maladjustment.

Situational, environmental and pedagogical factors of school maladjustment, their characteristics taking into account the age stages of personality development. Individual prerequisites for the development of adaptation disorders. Typical variants of adaptation disorders at different age stages of children's development.

Children at risk of school maladjustment in accordance with the main types of disorders, relationships, activities and health of children in schooling. Pedagogical, psychological, physiological levels of school maladjustment.

Pedagogical criteria for assessing the nature of school adaptation and maladjustment.

Basic concepts: adaptation, affect, maladjustment. Children at risk, factors of school maladjustment.

Leading ideas:

Adaptability depends on the physical, psychological, and moral health of a person.

In order to determine the optimal school regime, form of education, and workload for a child, the teacher needs to know, take into account and competently assess the child’s adaptive capabilities at the stage of his admission to school.

1.3. School maladjustment as a pedagogical phenomenon

1.The concept of adaptation Adaptation (lat.abapto-adapt). Adaptability, ability to adapt different people different. It reflects the level of both innate and acquired qualities of an individual during life. In general, the dependence of adaptability on the physical, psychological, and moral health of a person is noted.

Unfortunately, child health indicators in last decades are decreasing. The prerequisites for this phenomenon are:

1) disturbance of ecological balance in the environment.

2) weakening of the reproductive health of girls, physical and emotional overload of women,

3) increase in alcoholism, drug addiction,

4) low culture of family education,

5) vulnerability of certain groups of the population (unemployment, refugees),

6) deficiencies in medical care,

7) imperfection of the preschool education system.

Czech scientists I. Langmeyer and Z. Matejcek identify the following types of mental deprivation:

    motor deprivation (chronic physical inactivity leads to emotional lethargy);

    sensory deprivation (lack of or monotony of sensory stimuli);

    emotional (maternal deprivation) - it is experienced by orphans, unwanted children, abandoned.

The educational environment is of greatest importance in early preschool childhood.

A child’s entry into school is the moment of his socialization.

In order to determine what is optimal for the child preschool age, mode, form of education, academic load, one must know, take into account and competently evaluate the child’s adaptive capabilities at the stage of his admission to school.

Indicators low level The child’s adaptive capabilities can be:

    deviations in psychosomatic development and health;

    insufficient level of social and psychological-pedagogical readiness for school;

    lack of formation of psychophysiological and psychological prerequisites for educational activities.

Let us clarify specifically for each indicator.

    Over the past 20 years, the number of children with chronic pathology has more than quadrupled. The majority of poorly performing children have somatic and mental disorders, they have increased fatigue, decreased performance;

    signs of insufficient social and psychological-pedagogical readiness for school:

a) reluctance to go to school, lack of educational motivation,

b) lack of organization and responsibility of the child; inability to communicate, behave appropriately,

c) low cognitive activity,

d) limited horizons,

e) low level of speech development.

3) indicators of unformed psychophysiological and mental prerequisites for educational activities:

a) lack of formation of intellectual prerequisites for educational activities,

b) underdevelopment of voluntary attention,

c) insufficient development of fine motor skills of the hand,

d) lack of formation of spatial orientation, coordination in the “hand-eye” system,

e) low level of development of phonemic hearing.

2Children at risk.

Individual differences between children, due to different degrees of development of aspects of their individuality that are significant for adaptation, and different health conditions, appear from the first days of school.

Group 1 of children - entry into school life occurs naturally and painlessly. They quickly adapt to the school regime. The learning process takes place against a background of positive emotions. High level of social qualities; high level of development of cognitive activity.

Group 2 children – the nature of adaptation is quite satisfactory. Individual difficulties may arise in any area of ​​their new school life; Over time, problems are smoothed out. Good preparation for school, a high sense of responsibility: they quickly get involved in educational activities and successfully master the educational material.

Group 3 children - performance is not bad, but noticeably drops at the end of the day or week, signs of overwork and malaise are noted.

Cognitive interest is underdeveloped and appears when knowledge is given in a playful, entertaining form. Many of them do not have enough study time (at school) to acquire knowledge. Almost all of them additionally study with their parents.

Group 4 children – difficulties in adapting to school are clearly manifested. Performance is reduced. Fatigue accumulates quickly; inattention, distractibility, exhaustion of activity; uncertainty, anxiety; problems in communication, constantly being offended; the majority have low academic performance.

Group 5 children – adaptation difficulties are clearly expressed. Performance is low. Children do not meet educational requirements in regular classes. Socio-psychological immaturity; persistent difficulties in learning, lag, failure.

Group 6 children are the lowest stage of development.

Children of groups 4-6 are, to varying degrees, in a situation of pedagogical risk of school and social maladjustment.

Factors of school maladjustment

School maladaptation - “school maladjustment” - any difficulties, violations, deviations that arise in a child in his school life. “Social and psychological disadaptation” is a broader concept.

Pedagogical factors leading to school maladjustment:

      inconsistency of the school regime and sanitary and hygienic conditions of education with the psychophysiological characteristics of children at risk.

      tempo discrepancy academic work During the lesson, the educational capabilities of children at risk are 2-3 times behind their peers in terms of the pace of activity.

      extensive nature of training loads.

      predominance of negative evaluative stimulation.

Conflict relationships in the family arising from educational failures of schoolchildren.

4. Types of adaptation disorders

1) pedagogical level of school maladaptation problems in learning),

2) psychological level of school maladaptation (feelings of anxiety, insecurity),

3) physiological level of school maladjustment (negative impact of school on children’s health).

Seminar lesson

Problems of school failure in the theory and practice of teaching.

Practical lesson

Manifestation of school maladjustment.

System of psychological and pedagogical correction of pedagogical neglect.

Independent work of students

Preparation of reports on the problem of school maladjustment.

Questions for self-control

    Reveal the prerequisites for school maladjustment.

    What are the indicators of a low level of adaptation capabilities of a child.

    What pedagogical factors can lead to school maladaptation.

    What measures of corrective and preventive work with children at risk can you propose to eliminate adaptation disorders?

Literature for independent work

    Zaitseva, A.D. and etc. Corrective pedagogy, [Text] – Rostov n/a. - 2003.-S. 79-121.

    Corrective pedagogy in primary education[Text]/Ed. G.F. Kumarina. – M., 2003.- p.17-48.

    Kulagina, I.Yu. The personality of a schoolchild from mental retardation to giftedness. [Text] - M., 1999. - pp. 107-122, 157-168.

    Shevchenko S.G. Corrective and developmental training. [Text] – M., 1999. – p.8-26.