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Back to School

IF YOU PREPARE, The Only Thing YOUR CHILD will have to ADJUST TO at a NEW SCHOOL are the CHAIRS

By Caroline Clauss-Ehlers

A new job. A new house. A new school. Every time you start something new, it’s hard, but for a child it can be even harder when they’re the new kid in class.

For older kids, it’s very difficult, because they want to find a social niche. They’ve left their network behind, the one they were used to. They had a certain role in their former school, and they felt good about the work they accomplished there.

Any move to a new school involves social and educational challenges for both younger and older students. Younger children will be concerned about, well, kids’ stuff like recess. They’ll wonder, ‘Who are my friends going to be?’ ‘Who am I going to play with?’ Older students will worry about what clique or group they’ll belong to and what activities they’ll pursue.

Beyond the social issues, educational challenges for all new kids will involve connecting with their teachers and learning the culture of the new school and how it works.

You can play a significant role in easing a child’s transition. We know from research that parental involvement in the school increases a child’s academic success. The parent of a young child should meet the child’s teacher and have the child meet the teacher. In addition, arranging for the child to meet neighborhood children enables the child to form relationships with classmates over the summer. Then when they get to school, they’ll already have an established social network.

Such measures can help decrease the child’s feelings of being left out, and, for you, it’s going to increase the sense of knowing where the child is going. Suddenly, the school is not such an unknown.

Parents of older students should be just as involved in their child’s education. Even though adolescents act like they don’t need parental involvement, they really do, especially in this age of the Internet, kidnappings and substance abuse.

I advise parents to meet the principal and the child’s teacher, join the parent-teacher association, and monitor the child’s development as the school year progresses. If the parent notices that the child is acting differently when the he or she starts making new friends, then that’s worth looking into. If the child’s grades start to drop or if the parents smell alcohol on the child’s breath, then they should talk to the parents of the kids that the child is hanging out with to find out what’s going on. The way to deal with peer pressure is supervision of your child’s friends.

It’s important for you to trust your instincts, especially when your child is making a tough transition. If you have a feeling that something’s off, something’s not right—whether it’s a kindergartener or a high school senior—then go talk to your child, the principal and the teacher. Find out what’s going on. You know your kids better than you probably even know yourself, so it’s important to listen to those instincts.

Caroline Clauss-Ehlers is an assistant professor of counseling psychology at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.