Child psychologist: “Five-year-olds have no place at the desk”

Physical development Physical development has many things – height, weight, coordination, but most adults do not take into account the important proprioceptive function. Little is said about it, but it is very important for a child who goes to school. Proprioception is the ability to navigate in your body and space, and therefore, the ability not to get lost in the classroom, school and on a sheet of paper – where right, where left, where the top, where the bottom. It is also the coordination of simultaneous actions: to hear and write, to see and draw. Of course, all children develop differently, but at the age of 5 most children still do not have enough of these functions.

And they develop only through spatial play. If we put a 5-year-old child at a desk, she will “freeze”: the child will be very embarrassed and scared, because she will not be able to master the space. It is also important to remember the height and weight of the body – it gives the child enough energy to spend it on intellectual development. Imagine a child who is given a conditional three liters of energy: one liter can be given to physical development, one – to intellectual and another – to emotional. If we put a child at a desk to study, we will “pour” two and a half liters of energy on intellectual development. Thus, the child will lack strength in other areas of development. I have seen children who have practically stopped in physical development because they spend too much energy on mental activity.

As a result, emotional development also suffers: children become either completely emotional, or hypersensitive and impulsive, and later anxious. In a class where there are children with a difference in age of one year, the speed of response is very different: 7-year-old responds quickly and correctly, 5-year-old – “slows down”: not because he is less able, but because he other speed of reaction and information processing. After some time, such a child will begin to complex: because something does not work out in learning, he does not keep up with others. Do you know what is the most difficult for children in the 1st grade? Not an intellectual load at all, but a requirement to sit still for 35 minutes.

For a 5-year-old child, sitting in one place is stagnation: as soon as we put him in one place, his development stops. After all, children learn about the world through movement and kinesthetic activities: that is why in kindergarten letters are not written, but drawn, sculpted, cut out. If we offer 5-year-olds a school where you can run, jump, spend a lot of time outdoors, that is, learn while moving, this first grade will suit them. In order for the school not to harm the development of 5-year-old children, all methodological materials must be changed, teachers retrained, not only classrooms but also schools in general re-equipped, because it is very important for young children to spend as much time playing outdoors.

Emotional development I often see children who seem to be “frozen” – they seem emotionless. This is a sign that the child keeps all the feelings inside, because at school he was told: you need to sit quietly, you can not make mistakes, you can not ask, you can not move freely. The child pinches the emotion and begins to commit aggression directed at himself: pulls out his eyelashes, eyebrows or tears on his head, bites his nails. We risk getting a huge number of children who are plunged into emotional fear. The first thing we need to teach children is to feel their emotional state, share it, relieve tension. Intellectual development If we give an excess of intellectual load on a child of 5 years, we suppress his creative potential. In art schools, children under the age of 10 should not be taught to draw, but should be given the freedom to create.

A child’s creativity can be killed by structure and rules. If we send children to school at the age of 5, we will not allow children to fully realize their preschool creativity. Following the instructions can also be too difficult for 5-year-olds. Instructions must be heard, understood, passed through and followed. The teacher says, “Take out the notebooks, open the book to page 25, and start writing Exercise 7, stepping back two lines.” This is a rather complex design of actions for a first-grader. For a 5-year-old, you need to radically change the way teachers give instructions – at least, there should be no textbooks. Communication and self-service In the school space, the child should be able to calmly ask for help from an adult, turn to the teacher and remember the names of different teachers, not be afraid to meet, as well as be able to change clothes, blow his nose and use the toilet. Do you know why most elementary school students don’t like physical education? Because it is necessary to change clothes, and it is difficult for them: the child sits in a stupor and cries because he still cannot and does not know how to ask for help.