HEALTH PLUS:AS SURELY as the arrival of swallows heralds summertime, the sight of school uniforms in the shops proclaims its end, and the imminence of the next school year.
Mid-August is a strange time, a winding down and a gearing up. It is a time to relax and a time to plan for the new school term. It is time for eking out the last of the latitude of summer while preparing for the autocracy of the academic year ahead.
This year the sediments of summer are bitter because summer was sparse, is virtually over and soon we will return to the tyranny of time, of traffic, of timetables, of dark evenings, unpredictable weather and long winter nights. It is a time when it would be easy to be pessimistic. But this is also a time of opportunity.
Mid-August provides the opportunity to better prepare children who will be starting school for the first time this year. It's a time to motivate children returning to school after the summer break about the joys of structure, the benefits of change, the challenge of new learning, the importance of adaptability and embracing optimistically whatever is new. Our attitude will be their attitude. We shape their view in this important fortnight ahead.
Children are as comfortable with new situations as we are. They look to their parents for emotional cues. They look forward to what we anticipate joyously. They fear what makes us afraid, are anxious about what makes us apprehensive, and they are comfortable with those activities with which we are at ease. They value those things to which we accord worth and they discard what we dismiss and this is most evident educationally.
Our attitude to school is seminal in shaping children's educational expectations. It is communicated in how we approach the school year, as well as our more macro educational beliefs. That is why these last two weeks before school begins are curiously important. How they are spent influences children's perception of this time, and whether or not it will become a time of positive preparation for the year ahead.
For example, if not yet undertaken, the shopping expedition for new school shoes, gym gear, uniforms, stationary, the booklist and the endless educational accoutrements, that even the youngest child seems to require these days, can either be fun or frenetic in the weeks ahead. It can become a day of hauling tired, thirsty, recalcitrant children around shops, squirming in queue lines and bemoaning the exorbitant prices of everything, or it can be a series of planned enjoyable expeditions and some online activities decided upon in a co-ordinated way.
Back-to-school shopping can be done in stages. It can be done over several days. It can be done as a learning activity with children, according to a grand plan drawn up by children, by showing them a map of their town or city, deciding what streets and shops to go to. And when to start shopping, the sequence of shops to be visited, how to get there, when to rest, eat and what else to do or see on the expedition of that day.
Children who draw up a timetable of the proposed shopping days, whether it be iconic or written, learn the principles of forward planning, good time management and general organisational skills. The list of required purchases can be identified, drawn, coloured, counted and decided upon in advance. A segment of the city map can be extracted, copied and coloured, and the proposed shopping route marked with arrows and symbols of the objects to be purchased there.
Savouring each article as it is bought is important for children when it comes to educational acquisitions. Each new item and how it is purchased can have emotional importance for the child who knows instinctively if it is valued or simply another task done. Young children have been found to be educationally motivated by brightly coloured pencil cases, vibrant stationary, lively name stickers, cheerfully covered books and by attention being paid to the importance of their educational "tools".
Young children love when their schoolbooks are admired by adults: when they are examined attentively, extolled upon enthusiastically, read from excitedly and made familiar to the child before the school year begins.
They love to rehearse what will happen at school, to pack and unpack their new schoolbags, to use their new lunch boxes, to practise changing into their new shoes and taking on and off their new blazers or coats. All these activities help their emotional attitude towards school when they are there.
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of the Student Counselling Services in University College Dublin