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17
Miss E.M. Smith, the Educational Psychologist, has given a
number of talks to groups concerned with psychological and
educational development of children and considers that closer
links should be established between the parents of young children
and their teachers. Commenting on the new methods of education
she writes
"Security is accepted as one of the basic needs
of children, who quickly demonstrate its lack by
regressing in behaviour to the point in their development
at which they knew maximum security. Starting
school is often unsettling for a five-year-old, with
consequent recurrence of bed-wetting, thumb-sucking
and the like, symptoms which disappear as the child
adjusts to the wider environment. In the reception
class most children seem happy and parents accept the
play regime.
With the introduction of more formal learning
anxiety may show itself again in both children and
parents. The child may find the discipline of book
learning difficult, while parents begin to look for
results, because the child is no longer a baby, and.
work is important. Unfortunately, most parents lack
information or understanding of normal learning
processes and current standards of attainment. Their
yardstick of attainment is generally their very
fallible adult memory of their own school experience,
with Education given the narrow connotation of the
three R s. They naturally want to help their children,
or test their progress, but in trying to do so they
create a situation fraught with emotion and anxiety.
It is baffling to find that the child, who at the age
of four could recognise A(aye), B(bee), C(see) etc.
cannot now cope with Janet and John, or that another
who was counting to 100 at home, cannot settle to a
page of easy sums set by father. "We don't do this
kind at school," he says. The child finds that parents
are no longer trusty sources of support, and begins to
manipulate a divided world. Parents, still wanting
ultimate success for their child, begin to feel inad
equate, and to rationalise their failure in aggressive
criticism of school. This attitude of mind is often
caught by the child. Here could be one. of the causes
of school failure and truancy.