Why school overload should not be allowed in children and how it manifests itself. How to choose the optimal mode of classes and “clubs” for a child, so that, on the one hand, he is passionate about something, and on the other, is not overloaded? What a teacher faces for overloading children

Start school year getting close. Gazeta.Ru looked at the children who still feel free and felt sorry for the poor things. Soon they will be burdened with school, extra lessons, sports clubs and other responsibilities. How do you know which activity is right for your child? What to encourage, how to praise and what is really important to teach? We talked about this with systemic family therapist Maria Antipova.

- From your point of view, does every child have some kind of talent?

— There are no completely mediocre people. Every person has something that they like to do. It's not necessarily talent. But the predisposition is certain. The question is how to reveal it, and poor parents have to solve it: the demands of society are quite high, it is imperative that the child do something.

Often parents, not paying attention to the child, begin to figure out what to do for him.

Maria Antipova

Consulting psychologist, teacher at the Moscow Center for Systemic Family Therapy, presenter of the seminar “Peculiarities of experiencing loss”, a group for spouses “We are good together”.

Because of this, children today are very overloaded - school, sports section, music, extracurricular activities. A child’s whole life is planned out, but there is no time or opportunity to play, express himself, or somehow open up. It turns out that during all these activities, parents do not see the child himself, do not pay attention to what he is inclined to, and he does not have the opportunity to show it.

- How to understand what exactly he is inclined to?

- Watch him, play, talk, give him the opportunity to talk about himself. If you give him free time, when he does not fulfill someone else's demands, does not act according to a pre-determined plan, but does what he wants, he will definitely prove himself.

True, there is another problem: children whose parents are overloaded with activities in clubs and sections often simply do not know what to do with their free time.

They are accustomed to the fact that their whole life is planned out and everything is decided for them, but once they are “free”, they are lost and do not know what to do with themselves.

- Yes, and many parents complain that their child sits at the computer all day long.

- This is true. But I have a question for parents: why do their children sit at the computer for a long time? Who regulates the process of a child’s life? Because if there are clear established rules, the child does not sit anywhere. That is, he sits exactly as long as mom or dad says. Before adolescence Setting boundaries is within the competence of the parents. If there is no framework, apparently the hierarchy in the family is broken.

— Does a parent have the right to interfere with a child’s work, for example, creative work? For example, when a mother makes her corrections to a child’s drawing, explaining that something is not working out for him, is she right?

“Here I see the mother’s anxiety - she thinks that she knows what is right and takes responsibility for what her son or daughter does. It's not very good. After all, what does the parent say with such a message? “You can’t cope, I know you better.” If a child receives such a message many times, hears a message that he is doing something wrong, then his creative potential, of course, is closed.

— It turns out that it is impossible to control the child?

- Any control has its limit. If we worry all the time, control, protect, do for the child, say the right thing, then we, of course, deprive the child of a share of responsibility for his life. And this, it seems to me, is exactly the most important thing - to teach children to be responsible for themselves.

Do you know how it happens? Until the age of 16, we were kept under constant supervision, assigned to various sections, checked his briefcase and did homework with him, but at 16 the child rebelled, we refuse to control him - and he does whatever he wants. These are extremes that should not be allowed.

We need to slowly teach him to take responsibility, from the first grade - for his briefcase, his notebooks, his homework.

It is advisable that by the tenth grade he is already responsible for a lot of things. Also in some additional activities. Somewhere he chooses himself, somewhere we suggest. It is always difficult to maintain this golden mean - but here it is very important.

— How can you force yourself to learn to keep balance?

- This is a question of personal concerns. Parents are under pressure from teachers, society, their own parents, experiences, good or not. But we need to understand that children do not have to be responsible for our fears. We need to deal with them ourselves. It seems to me that parents should not try to cram more skills and knowledge into their child.

There are other things that need to be taught: to think logically and creatively, to develop research activities. You need to teach your child to learn. By my own example.

And if a child has a desire to draw, he will do it himself. The main thing is to give him the message to do it without fear of making mistakes, without fear of doing something wrong. If the learning process is enjoyable, then the child will be able to use all the potential that he has.

— How to evaluate the results of a child’s work?

- Positive. And if there are comments, they need to be expressed tactfully - and about the work, and not about the child’s personality. You can evaluate the result of labor, or you can evaluate the path by which he came to it. You can say: “What a beautiful picture you painted!” Or you can - “How well you chose the colors, chose the plot, came up with the composition, saw how the light falls.” In this way, you will break down the general praise into its components and evaluate how he did it, how he made the effort. The process is very important. Often we ignore the child’s path, and our own. If we devalue it all the time, we devalue pieces of our life.

— How to understand: a child does not want to do something or simply cannot?

- Talk to your child. We often evaluate children's success based on our own criteria. We come up with results for them that they should achieve, and if they don’t exist, we decide that nothing worked. But there is another participant in this process - this is, in fact, the child himself.

In my practice, I meet many people who come to a psychologist and start talking about their child. And when you ask them a basic question: “What does your child think about this?” - this confuses people. We live a lot with ourselves, with our thoughts, emotions, projects - and we turn very little to our children.

Children can tell you a lot about themselves from a fairly early age. Ask your children.

— In Soviet times, the idea was especially widespread that if a son or daughter does not succeed in something, it is because he is lazy. We need to force you to do more.

— It’s difficult to talk about children in general. There are indeed children who are lazy, and there are those who have their own characteristics. For example, emotional children need more rest.

— And when he cannot master some science because he is not capable? For example, English?

— If you want your child to learn English, lower the bar for him! Let him master basic knowledge, maybe in adulthood he will have motivation for further study. Don't press him - otherwise he won't even want to come close to your tongue.

The more we rape our children with our worries, the more they close themselves off. In my opinion, every parent knows when a child is lazy and when he really can’t. And besides, laziness often protects against overload. Parents should pay attention to this. Otherwise, they “form” their child in such a way that there will be nothing left of him at all.

— What happens to a person if he minds his own business?

“It’s quite difficult to force an adult to mind his own business.” If this does happen, it means that he is not very self-aware. As a rule, such people suffer from depression and neuroses - it is clear that they do not get pleasure, do not feel satisfaction from their activities, they are disappointed in life. By the way, they get sick more often - somatic illnesses express hidden protest or withdrawal from activities that do not bring pleasure.

- That is, if a child is often sick, this may be due to the fact that there is too much pressure on him?

- Well, of course! When mom, grandma, dad, the whole family demands something from a child, the child cannot say “no.” And if he gets sick, they retreat from him, start paying more attention to him, everyone jumps around him, he is in charge. Illness becomes a good way to get away from problems, from activities that are imposed, and to express your protest without entering into open communication.

By the way, hooliganism is also a way to get rid of pressure: an offense is followed by punishment, and this also allows you not to do what you don’t like.

In general, when parents force a child to do something he doesn’t want, then the question probably goes to the parents. Why do they want him to do this so badly?

- Well, for example, I want my child to become a doctor, because it is a good profession.

“You can, of course, stand your ground and force your child to go to medical school.” But the scenario that follows is either he listens and then does it his way when he breaks away from parental care, or he becomes a doctor and hates all his patients, himself and you. Another possibility is that he will like it someday.

But in general, when a person acts under pressure, he does not have the opportunity to comprehend what he is doing. He always either resists or follows the script of obedience. If he resists, it’s not his choice either.

— How to make sure that a child is still hardworking?

- Hard work cannot be taught on purpose. It is inculcated from childhood. Clean up after yourself, help mom, help dad, do some housework. We first protect our child from everything, and then we want him to grow up hardworking. Well, that doesn't happen. I understand that having a child help clean up can lead to a bigger mess.

But what is important to you - to restore order or to introduce your child to work? Just don’t use labor as a punishment: if you misbehave, you wash the dishes for 10 days. This will develop an aversion to work. And, on the contrary, it is very important to set an example. Children don't do much of what we say. They do what we do.

Autumn is a time for study and new knowledge. Besides school and kindergarten, modern parents are especially attentive to the choice of clubs and sections for their child. Everyone remembers that children need to be developed and not be late in discovering their talents. But in reality, everything works out from what mothers conceive. There are many additional activities, but there is only one child. No matter how much we would like to give him everything at once, this may end badly.

Psychologist and mother of eleven children Ekaterina Burmistrova says that young children cannot always feel their level of fatigue. In addition, not all families have enough resources to develop a child and attend all the fashionable clubs. Therefore, all factors must be taken into account before enrolling children in additional classes. Often, excessive activity is too much for the child and has a detrimental effect on his curiosity.

School, sports, drawing, mathematics - when a family has one child and three sets of grandmothers

There are four factors that parents need to consider when creating a plan for extracurricular activities:

• child's age;
• child's potential, amount of strength,
• his psychophysical type, stability, abilities;
• parent resources.

These are emotional, physical, material, organizational resources. Another factor is how many resources the family as a whole has, not just the parents.

That is, when thinking about additional classes, you need to look at what it will be like for the child and, above all, what it will be like for the family.

There are two types of potential risks here.

The first is when the family has too many resources, more than the child needs.

Let’s take the most incorrect combination of factors - the child is small, he doesn’t really want or be able to do it yet, but the family has a lot of resources, since he is the only one in a family with three sets of grandmothers. And with so many adults per one unresourceful child, he can be very overloaded, and this will turn out to be extremely unhelpful for him. Because it is not the child’s capabilities, interests and abilities that are in the center of attention, but the ambitions of adults.

The opposite situation may be true.

More often, with parents with many children or low-income parents, it happens that, on the contrary, the child is capable, with a high learning ability, but the family does not have any resources. No strength, no money, no health, all additional classes have already been completed with the older children.

I can't say which is more harmful. It would seem that the second situation is sadder. But she retains the desire to do something, and then the child, when he can, will probably catch up. The situation when there is too much is similar to hypervitaminosis, which is more dangerous than vitamin deficiency.

That’s why it’s important to consider each child’s individual trajectory. Let's say there is a second child in the family. With the first, there was one trajectory for additional classes. It seems that the path has been completed and the family can follow this trajectory. But the second child is growing up, and it turns out that this trajectory of extracurricular activities is not suitable. Because this is a different child, the age of the parents has changed and the vision of what is useful and necessary has changed.

If an intellectual and sports race arises with the first-born, and everything falls on him, then in the case of second and subsequent children the situation develops with some delay. That is, it even seems like more could be done, but it’s not so interesting, it’s not so important, my parents have already played this.

It seems to me that you need to distinguish your ambitions for your child from his needs, desires, and capabilities.

What this individual trajectory should be can only be formulated by parents at a family council. It is up to them to determine what they want, what they consider right for this particular child at a particular age.

I emphasize that this issue should not be decided by mother alone. Often the question of additional classes is usurped, and dad finds himself on the sidelines, acting only as a sponsor of all these endless circles. But men are often much more sensible about the loads for small children and are more strategic.

Kindergarten and evening classes are like two bets

There are issues of child development that have been the subject of public hysteria for a long time. For example, children begin to be offered a foreign language not when they are already ripe for it, but when the mother deems it necessary, without focusing on the age or personal characteristics of the child.

But it is better to start learning a foreign language no earlier than three years old, or even four for children with slow speech. It is possible after seven years. In any case, until seven - only playful forms of language learning. The rest will only harm.

For children who are not planning to be sent to kindergarten, starting from the age of three, it is very important to have some kind of activities where they are without their mother at least a couple of times a week, so that the child can learn to “work” in a group format.

If a child goes to kindergarten, the picture is completely different. Very often I have consultations with children with neurotic signs, and we start by looking at the child’s schedule. It often turns out that the child is terribly overloaded. He is three and a half years old, and he goes to a regular kindergarten every day, and after that, since his mother is worried that she has gone to work and the child is not developing, she takes him to classes four times in the evenings. Or grandma does it. As a result, overload occurs. You need to understand that, say, until the age of five, kindergarten is a full-time job. Anything more is like a second bid.

Nowadays there is a tendency in relation to preschoolers and primary schoolchildren - to give them as much as possible as early as possible. This is still the ticking time bomb of the statement “after three it’s too late.”

But in the end, from this overload before school and in elementary school, the child develops a great aversion to all activities.

Preschoolers and primary schoolchildren should not be overloaded or overstimulated. Oddly enough, this especially affects those who really want to study. There are children who go to three clubs, but say they want to do something else. Such children are very excited in the evenings. Lip biting, nail biting, sleep disturbances, and hysteria may occur. All because of the overload, which the child himself does not feel, does not realize, and therefore wants more classes.

Parents need to remember that the child is not very able to regulate his workload until adolescence, until 12–13 years old, and even then it is questionable.
I usually give a simple example when talking with parents. For example, eating one banana is good, but eating 20 bananas is very bad, and eating 7 is also not good. Although bananas themselves are good. Moreover, for some, say, 3 bananas will cause indigestion, while for others, 4 will be fine. And the question of dosing is in the hands of adults. This is very important, especially for children who tend to overdo it. It is important to teach children themselves to determine the threshold of fatigue.

Indicators of whether the workload is excessive are the evening of the working day, Friday evening, the end of the quarter or trimester.

He hates studying, he just wants to sit and listen to audio

If we talk about which club or activity to choose, then we probably shouldn’t forget about sports sections. We all, and especially residents of big cities, live in a situation of physical inactivity and intellectual overload. In an era when we work with our heads, playing sports is almost like hygiene, almost like brushing your teeth.

When a child goes to school, he needs some activities related to movement. You need to understand that just sports sections, like “something related to movement,” and professional sports are different things. Professional sports is a big load, which, in theory, should not be combined with anything else. The picture when a child first goes to school and then spends the entire afternoon training like an adult is wrong. This is a time bomb. First, you will have a high-achieving, high-achieving child. Overloads do not affect you immediately, somewhere in adolescence, high school age, in the general asthenia of the nervous system.

My experience, both professional and parental, suggests that until adolescence, it is better to slightly underfeed a child with loads, so that the desire to do something consciously remains. If you overfeed, an overloaded child in adolescence simply loses the load. A slightly overloaded child begins to increase the load in teenage protest. But this does not mean that all the time before this he can be completely relaxed, like a seal, and do nothing at all. Otherwise, in adolescence there may be a complete refusal of any activity.

So the workload of preschoolers and primary schoolchildren needs to be built taking into account adolescence and further growing up. Think not about a year, but about the entire period.

Yes, now the child is five years old, and he cannot resist. You take him first to sports, then to drawing, then to English. And everything is fine: he draws well, swims well and can understand English by ear. Yes, everything seems to have worked out for you. These are tactical consequences. Now look at the strategic implications. He didn’t play, didn’t go out, he has reduced some areas of contact with his peers, and he also hates studying, he has only one desire - to sit and listen to audio, and this is a completely normal reaction.

But if the child is not busy at all, he comes home and only watches cartoons, there is a danger of virtualization, when the virtual world becomes significant for the child, and not real activity.

So that “golden mean” is important. Before puberty, the child should not be very overtired from the point of view of the nervous system. There should be a healthy load, but not overload.

For a preschool child, a minimum of three half-free days per week is required, excluding weekends. The main thing a child should do outside of kindergarten is play, including role-playing games, communicate with parents, and not run around like a robot in classes.

For younger schoolchildren, you need at least two free evenings a week, without additional classes, and preferably, like preschoolers, three. Sunday is a completely free day from classes. Very often, parents who do not have time on weekdays plan several clubs for Saturday and Sunday.

Make a choice: sports and what really asks

So what should you choose? As I already said, sports are a hygienic minimum. Plus the fact that the child really asks for it and for which he clearly has the ability. Let's say he sings or counts early. You should try to support this if possible. If this is not possible, today there are many options for online learning. I'm not a supporter of virtualization, but in some cases, classes at some online mathematics school are sometimes worth a trip to the other side of the city. Although, of course, live contact with a teacher is better than virtual contact. Here we need to look at where we started - how old the child is, what his capabilities and the capabilities of the family are.

It’s very cool if a child in preschool manages to somehow engage in creative things: drawing, modeling, appliqué, sculpture - this is the age when creative abilities develop and intelligence is formed. That is, I am in favor of developing a child’s creativity at this age, and not burdening him with logic and so on.

An important point is that throughout our lives we learn not something, but from someone. Here the role of the master, the role of the teacher in most cases is higher than the content of the classes.

Let's say, if you know that you have an amazing person teaching, for example, some kind of burning or the basics of physical training, and this does not attract you at all, and you dream of sending your child to Wushu, then it is still better to send it to a good teacher.

Moreover, it is important that the classes are as close to home as possible, preferably within walking distance, without unnecessary traffic.

Tired or doesn't want to – be flexible to understand

It happens that a child is just tired, but he wouldn’t want to quit classes, he likes it, it works out. But at some point he doesn’t want to go precisely because he’s tired. But sometimes it’s the other way around: he doesn’t like his classes and begins to come up with reasons to avoid them. Only parents can understand the degree of fatigue: whether the child is overloaded, whether it is fatigue or just manipulation; this is a purely individual question. And, oddly enough, especially workaholic parents often cannot figure out how tired the child is. For example, if a mother does not see the threshold of fatigue in herself, she does not see it in her child, and the child does not learn to recognize it.

In September, everyone vigorously begins to exercise, gains a million loads, then in November, December they are blown away, and in March they can come to complete asthenia. The rhythms of the school year and the climate of the middle zone influence this. In August we cannot imagine the amount of forces we will have in December.

In order to safely reach first the long winter holidays, and then the summer, you need to count on your strength - somewhere to let the child get a little sick, to miss something, without giving up. At this time, feed the child with vitamins.

Sometimes a child can manipulate: cough, clutch his stomach so as not to go to class. Here, too, you need to select an individual strategy.

Show flexibility - good way learn to see the child’s workload, teach him to rest, relax, and recover.

Say, for example, one day: “Let’s skip it and you can play at home.” Or: “Today we will go here, there is an important lesson here, but we will come to school for the third period, we will agree with the teacher.” That is, not to be such cogs in the machine, but to understand that the personal is higher than the public, that we can adapt these rigid systems to suit ourselves, and no one will actually mind. If you are in dialogue with a teacher, with an educator, then usually they understand that there is a decline and the child needs to be helped.

Sometimes you can say: “Yes, you don’t want to go to solfeggio or training, but let’s make an effort, and we’ll add 10 more bonuses to you, and then you’ll be able to quickly buy yourself a game that you’ve been planning for a long time.” But somewhere else it needs to be different: “That’s it, let’s not go. I see that your eyes are tired.”

Often, due to overload, spontaneous headaches start, which then take a long time to heal. You don't have to chase your child around like a soldier. The time when he will work is ahead, you must prepare him for this and not overload him.

The topic in the title is very relevant today. Today's parents, that is, you and me, on the one hand, trying to better prepare their child for future adult life, and on the other, partly competing with each other whose child is smarter, more developed and better, sometimes lose their measure in organizing additional activities. “Karate three times a week, he’s a boy, English twice - this is necessary, dancing twice - he succeeds, and theater twice - he loves it.” This is the weekly workload of one third grader. Quite a normal load. Additional, I emphasize, load! Because the main one is a five- or six-day school week plus homework.

Such overloads, of course, do not pass without leaving a trace. Children get tired, get sick, have breakdowns, and at an older age, for example, they simply lose any desire to attend clubs and sections. There are also less obvious, more delayed consequences. Growing up in such a frantic rhythm, a person never learns to meet himself, discover his desires, analyze his life, dream and simply relax. When he becomes an adult, he also fills his day to capacity with work, a sports club, any meetings and activities that allow him to avoid moments of loneliness. If such a person gets sick and cannot spin like that squirrel in a wheel, he may experience panic or depression - he does not know how to be alone with himself. Communication skills also suffer - you can’t really make friends in English or at the pool, and the schedule drawn up by parents does not leave the student any time for “idleness.”

So, how to understand whether your child is adequately loaded:

Does he sleep enough? Does he get enough sleep? To paraphrase the classic, no additional activities are worth a child’s sleep.
does he have time for walks?
Does the child have 1-2 hours a day for himself? When he himself chooses what to do, and no one interferes or regulates his behavior. This allows you not only to restore strength, but also to feel like the master of your own time, and not a hostage to the schedule.
Does the child like his clubs, sections, etc.? Don’t forget that a child’s main activity is learning. And in it he often does a lot of things that he doesn’t like and things that he doesn’t choose.
Does your child have the opportunity to communicate with peers outside of school or in extracurricular activities? Chat on the phone, make an appointment, go on a visit, organize a game?
Does the child have at least 1-2 days a week when he doesn’t go anywhere or almost anywhere (except school)? Just being at home, in your own safe and comfortable space, slowing down and recuperating is a need for most children and adults.

DO NOT OVERLOAD YOUR CHILD WITH CLUBS AND SECTIONS #note to parents@logopedexpert 🙁If a child begins to study worse, does his homework carelessly, becomes inattentive, and teachers reproach him for laxity, then we, as a rule, give the child a thrashing, scolding him for laziness. Meanwhile, the child may not be to blame: what if he is simply tired? School psychologist Juliet Esipyan comments on the situation. “It often doesn’t occur to parents that the child can also get tired, that studying overloads him,” the psychologist comments. - They are usually convinced that if any problems arise in their studies, it is due to laziness and lack of diligence. As a result, adults force the student to study under pressure, and nervous stress is added to overwork.” Nowadays, it is considered good form to send children to different clubs. In addition, schools often offer extra classes. The little man is busy from morning to evening: in the first half of the day there is school, in the afternoon - electives, in the evening - clubs... It is not surprising that when it comes to preparing school lessons, the child does them formally, he may leave something unlearned or not complete it to the end... At school it is also difficult for him to get ready, his attention is scattered, he can solve a problem incorrectly, read a text with a hesitation, answer the teacher’s question inappropriately, earning a reprimand... Alas, parents often scold the child without really understanding the situation . Once, the mother of one girl complained to me that her Ksyusha studied well in the first grade, but in the second she constantly earned criticism from the teacher: either she did not have time to write a test on time, or during the explanation of the material she did not listen, but looked out the window. .. The schoolgirl’s performance has decreased. From the conversation it turned out that the girl, in addition to regular lessons, also attends an elective in English language, and also goes to art, music and dance classes. Ksyusha’s working day, as a rule, began at eight in the morning and ended at eight in the evening. In addition, she attended some clubs even on Saturdays. Not every adult has to deal with such stress! Fortunately, after I talked with Ksyusha’s mother, the family abandoned the music school and choreography club, which the girl attended only at the request of her parents, without having any particular inclination for this, and continued to go only to English and to the art studio, which she liked . In another family, parents constantly yelled at their son if he didn’t do his homework well enough. The boy was constantly under stress and could not concentrate in school. Finally, they decided to seek advice from a psychologist. After the adults changed their behavior, began to talk to the child in a calmer tone, and stopped putting pressure on him, the situation at school improved significantly. ️So, what should be done to prevent your child from getting tired during school hours? Here are the recommendations the psychologist gives. 1. Avoid overload! Two mugs a week is quite enough. If there are more of them, your studies may begin to suffer. Of course, there are such wonderful children who always manage to do everything. But you shouldn’t count on your child being one of them. Everyone has their own “ceiling”. 2. Follow your daily routine! Into the diet baby food Must include fruits and vegetables. The child should receive them daily. In winter you should give him vitamins. Teach your child to do morning exercises. Don’t neglect walks: it’s better to let him run around with friends for an extra half hour than spend this time poring over his homework. 3. Don't forget that the child should rest! Therefore, between coming home from school and going to a study group or preparing homework, there should be a break of at least two hours. 4. Teach your child to plan his time. Make a schedule with him for every day of the week, taking into account not only classes and clubs, but also time for food, sports, relaxation and communication with friends. 5. Get a pet that your child can care for. Experience shows that this is good discipline. In addition, communication with an animal relieves fatigue and gives a boost of energy. 6. If a child, for no apparent reason, suddenly begins to study worse, becomes absent-minded and inattentive, and receives comments from the teacher, before scolding him, ask him about the reasons for this. Perhaps he is not lazy at all, but really tired. Then you need to take appropriate measures as indicated above.