Young learners experience difficulties especially when they are in the new settings because they need to adjust and adapt to their surroundings. When It’s the beginning of school, They may have social and learning struggles some of them have some experience of a pre-school or nursery setting, may cry and have separation anxiety to their parents. And most of the time, the behavior they showed in the class are influenced by their parenting practices of their parents, peers, past experiences, learning style or difficulties, social skills and other family issues such as illness, divorce or having a dysfunctional family and homelessness.
It is expected that they will experience and encounter unfamiliar people, schedules and routines, rules. There are students who can easily adapt and interact with other kids and environment but there are some that are slow and needs to takes time to be able to be comfortable. It is important to a teacher to create and manage an environment wherein they are safe, a child-friendly, fun, healthy and they can feel the sense of belongingness. It is truly a challenge to every early childhood teacher to know and be aware about the student’s need, appropriate response and curriculum that will ensure positive experience of every students.
It is important for the young learners to have confidence, curiosity, intentionality, self-control, relatedness, capacity to communicate and cooperativeness to be able to adapt and to absorb the richness of cognitive, social and emotional environment. Developmental discipline with a well-established comprehensive curriculum and maintaining consistency with the schedule and rules ensures the positive optimal educational experience of learners. Communication between parents and teachers is the key to have shared observation, collaboration on problem solving and to have a better understanding on the underlying reason for the Child’s behavior.
Teachers plays a vital role to the adjustment, behavior, social and learning difficulties of the young learners. It is recommended for them to: Anticipate that children need time to adjust to separations, Avoid labeling children’s differences as behavior problem, Look for positive attributes in children, Pay attention to children’s nonverbal communication, Recognize the importance of peer interactions and friendships, Use behavior modification strategies sparingly, and always customize them to the particular child and Invite parents to engage in formal observations of their children. Parents are responsible for the child's behavior because their parenting styles reflects on their child action and attitude.
REFERENCE BOOK:
Guiding children’s behavior : developmental discipline in the classroom (Chapter 5) / Eileen S. Flicker, Janet Andron Hoffman.
interesting article. It's when we are new students at school. We must be able to adapt to new environments and friends. Self-control is also very important.