Is my child ready for school?

Is my child ready for school?

How to identify if your child is prepared for school and how to prepare your child?

School admission is a very sensitive topic. Parents are often confused as to when to send their children to school and school admission criteria. In our society schools accepts admissions as early as 2.5-3 years. Some schools often ask parents to get their children enrolled even before they are born which seems ridiculous. Hence in the quest of providing the best education to their children, the parents start running in the mad race of school admissions and fulfilling their criteria as early as when the child is 1 or 2 years. They get their children enrolled in playgroups or preparatory schools.

However, it’s always better to initially home school a child until the age of 5 years from a mental health practitioner’s perspective. The first 5 years also the foundation years of a child is the prime time of growth which requires maximum attention and nurturance from parents and caregivers. Love, affection and parental attention are all that a child requires before the age of 4 years. This also develops trust in a child which is the core foundation of all the other relationships in their life. The above-mentioned components play a significant role in personality development in later years. Starting schooling early takes away the opportunity of children to be brought up in good parenting skills. However, homeschooling is very crucial and requires a lot of hard work and practice. Considering the current academic situation in the country this seems almost impossible. So let us review a few goals that can be achieved after which a parent can decide to send their children to school.

The first thing to keep in mind is how ready the child is to leave the home environment and spend a few hours in playgroup or school. Readiness for a structured environment with a bunch of other children ensures a child’s social, emotional and physical development and growth. Research by National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development claims that a child’s performance is at its best when dealt with genuinely concerned teachers and who make sure to provide activities and learning of their interest. Readiness for a school environment can be assessed through checking if your child has spent some time away from you. If yes then how did he handle it? This will give an idea of how the child will respond if sent to school. Hence parents should develop some level of independence in their children in early years.

The second thing to be checked his how independent is the child in his activities. Schools generally focus a lot on art, play and social activities with other children. Play times can be set up with other same age children through which independence and creativity can be developed. This will also help the child to develop social skills like participating in group activities, developing a habit of sharing etc. It is advisable to allow your child to make his small decisions of like what to wear, which colour to wear, what to eat, which cartoon to wear etc.

It is also very important for the child to develop some basic adaptive skills like toilet skills, eating skills, washing his hands before and after meals, dressing and undressing etc. Most of the pre-school teach these strategies to the children since they take students at such an early stage but as mentioned earlier this is required to be done under good parenting skills.
In the end, whatever decision is taken by the parents should be in the best interest of the child.

Child Neglect And Psychological Disturbances In Children

Child Neglect And Psychological Disturbances In Children

Child neglect comes in a form of child abuse, and it is actually a lack of meeting the child’s basic needs, which involves the parental/guardian’s failure to provide sufficient health care, supervision, nutrition, protection, their physical, emotional, social, and educational safety needs. In some child neglect cases, it is difficult to recognize, which makes it hard for the mental health care professionals to take early action in protecting the child.
The signs and symptoms of child neglect can be in terms of emotional, behavioral and physical in nature.

  • Emotional symptoms involve; isolation, fear, and an inability to trust which can transfer into lifelong psychological consequences including low self-esteem, depression, and relationship difficulties. Cognitive delay at some level, lower IQ scores, and language difficulties are also related. Individuals who experience parental neglect are more prone to develop antisocial personality traits as they grow up. Parental neglect is often associated with borderline personality disorder, attachment issues, inappropriate modeling of adult behavior, and aggressive temperament.
  •  Behavioral Consequences: Not all victims of child abuse and child neglect will experience behavioral consequences. However, behavioral problems appear most often in child neglect cases. Child abuse or neglect appears to make the experience difficulties during adolescence. Aggressive behaviors, rebelliousness, hyperactivity, and inattentiveness can be observed.
  • Physical health: an individual who experienced abuse or neglect during childhood is more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, lungs disease and liver malfunctioning, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, and obesity. Additionally, child maltreatment has been shown to increase adolescent obesity.
    Observing one of the signs in a child from the above domains doesn’t confirm that a child is being neglected, though ever notice multiple or relentless signs then it could indicate a serious problem.
    Together we can prevent child neglect by identifying circumstances which put parents or caregivers under stress and getting them the right help at the right time.

Written By:

Zohra Batool (M.Phil, Clinical Psychology)

Student Advisor at Institute of Professional Psychology, Bahria University

Edited By:

Mehwish Mursaleen (Ph.D. Clinical Psychology)

Sr. Psychologist (Consult-a-psychologist.com & iCliniq.com)

 

How Family Therapy Helps To Assess And Resolve Family Problems

How Family Therapy Helps To Assess And Resolve Family Problems

Family therapy is supposed to be very effective treatment for problems within families such as disturbed communication, criticism, parent-child relational problem, partner related issues, lack of bonding between members, stagnant relationships, interpersonal problems, problems between subsystems of joint or extended families or any kind of problems our families are facing in today’s life. Different types of family therapies are proposed by renowned theorists such as Bowen, Virginia Satir, and Milton Erickson. A practicing family therapist considers all aspects of these theories and designs an eclectic approach to fit family problems. Specific strategies are then formulated to treat their problems in direct or indirect manner.
There are three phases of family therapy. The first is family assessment, secondly, members are prepared for the treatment, and in the third phase, strategies are implemented by the members and their problems are resolved. A family therapist considers the following aspects at the time of family assessment
1. Family Structure (Nuclear, Joint, Step Family system, Single parent-led Family or Remarried family)
2. Family Developmental Stage (Married couples, child bearing, pre-school children, school children, teenagers, launching children, middle-aged parents or aging family)
3. Family Systems (Systems: individual, marital, or dyadic; Interconnected systems: extended family, schools, industry, religious systems)
4. Family Environment (Interpersonal relationships: cohesion, expressiveness, conflict; Personal growth: independence, achievement orientation, intellectual-cultural orientation, active recreational orientation, moral-religious emphasis; System maintenance: organization, control)
5. Family Attachment and Cohesion (Attachment: trust, communication, and alienation within members; Cohesion: emotional bonding members have with each other)
6. Family Adaptability (Morphogenesis: how far family permits change; Morphostasis: how far it is characterized by stability)
7. Family Functioning (current functioning level, views, beliefs, and concerns of family)
8. Family Problem Solving (Instrumental: daily life management of food, clothing, and housing; Affective: handling of emotions such as anger or depression)
9. Family Task Accomplishment (Basic tasks: provision of food, shelter, clothing, and health care; Developmental tasks: members’ needs and adjustment in family developmental stage; Hazardous tasks: dealing with unusual or unexpected events and crisis such as death, illness, job loss, natural disasters etc.)
10. Family Communication (verbal and nonverbal messages; Effective, instrumental or simple expression of opinions; clear vs. masked and direct vs. indirect communication)
11. Family Roles (roles related to Provision of resources; Nurturance and support; Adult sexual gratification/partner satisfaction; Personal development: social and life skills related to school or career; Maintenance and management: decision making, boundary, behavior control, finance and health-related functions; Role allocation and Accountability)
12. Family Affective Responsiveness (manner in which members convey feelings; cultural influence of family responses; quality, quantity, and appropriateness of effective response)
13. Family Affective Involvement (Uninvolved, interest devoid of feelings, narcissistic involvement, empathic involvement, over-involvement, symbiotic involvement)
14. Family Behavior Control (standards and rules for family members: in physically dangerous situations, meeting psychobiological needs, socialization behaviors within and outside family; parental control styles: flexible, Rigid, Laissez-faire or Chaotic)
15. Family Values and Norms (expression of values; judgment of appropriate or inappropriate behaviors; ethnic and cultural value system of family; family myths or secrets)
16. Family Rules and Boundaries (Descriptive, prescriptive, meta-rules; Open, close system boundaries)
17. Family Transnational Patterns (Functional, Dysfunctional patterns; marital schism, skew, pseudo-mutuality and hostility, mystification; Double-bind or Meta-communication; Placator, Blamer, Super-reasonable, irrelevant stance)
18. Family Issues (distressed family: referred for treatment; non-distressed family: with no history of treatment and/ or satisfactory relationships)
During the initial interview, a family therapist assesses the above-mentioned problem areas and clinically observes the behaviors of family members during the interview. Family members may be open, secretive, anxious, relaxed, withdrawn, cooperative, timid, aggressive, compliant, or oppositional, which gives the idea about their family patterns and what things need to be changed in the family to make the members fully functioning. The therapist also considers the strengths of the whole family such as the degree of insight regarding problems, the intellectual level of members, mitigating circumstances of the family, self-differentiated individual(s), and other talents or resources of the family which can help them thrive during the treatment.
After the assessment is done, members are introduced to the effective strategies they can use to handle their problems. Various strategies are used by family therapists such as effective communication patterns, role plays, sculpturing, family stories, metaphors, contracts, and other direct or indirect methods of behavior change.
When a therapist observes that family members are skilled in effective communication and problem solving, various tasks are assigned to them regarding their roles in family and community. At this stage, the confidence of family members is enhanced and they are encouraged to solve their problem on their own so that little facilitation is provided by the therapist. In the end, the family becomes equipped with all the necessary tools and strategies to resolve their daily life issues.
When the family is able to handle life problems without the support of a family therapist, it is a stage where therapy is bilaterally terminated with the consent of therapist and all the family members.
Hence, it is ensured that family therapy proves to be effective for struggling families who want support and help. Get help from our expert therapists if you have one of those families struggling hard in life.

Written By:
Mehwish Mursaleen (Ph.D., Clinical Psychology)
Clinical Psychologist,
Online Psychotherapist (Consult-a-psychologist.com & iCliniq.com)

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