With a first-grader comes new worries in the home: adapting to school takes up a lot of everyone’s time and energy, and the day’s to-do schedule is often overwhelming. In first grade, it is especially important to remember to keep children healthy and maintain a good self-esteem in the child.
When you add in the social and emotional complexities of adjustment, and sometimes the first signs of the onset of puberty, it becomes difficult to keep track of everything.
Kids don’t come into the world with an instruction manual, so how do you figure out if you’re making mistakes in raising your first grader? Here are the most common problems parents may encounter and strategies for dealing with them: follow them throughout the year.
Overweight denial
Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that many parents of overweight children believe that the child will outgrow it or it’s just that type of figure. And this is a serious mistake.
A lot of physical changes occur in a child’s body over the years of schooling, including puberty. But many children do not outgrow excess weight, but carry it with them into adulthood. So you can’t relax, elementary school is the period when it’s not too late to introduce and encourage physical activity and healthy eating habits.
Most parents think that high blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and diabetes are diseases of adults and the elderly. However, this is a misconception, and a dangerous one: today, more and more “adult” diseases are being identified in children.
Fact!
During the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of children with type 2 diabetes increased 1.77 times over previous years. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center who conducted the study don’t yet know whether it was the virus itself or changes in lifestyle during lockdowns, but the fact remains.
Many parents don’t realize that first-graders are already big enough to not only develop diabetes, but also to develop complications. And experts say that children develop them faster than adults.
If your child has extra pounds, don’t shame him or her or fixate on the numbers. This is a direct path to eating disorders. Set a goal for your child’s health and act on that program.
Fact!
Cambridge scientists have proven that the judgement “everyone in our family is obese and it’s heredity” interferes with everyone and is a myth. Hereditary transmission of genes of tendency to obesity does not lead to overweight as long as the family does not overeat or neglect physical activity. So the obese children of obese parents “inherit” the family lifestyle.
Not following a sleep schedule.
Yes, the older a child gets, the less sleep he needs. And in adolescence, the biological clock shifts altogether, causing many teenagers to become “midnighters.
However, sleep is important, and a first-grader does not yet understand enough why, and can’t relate a constant little lack of sleep and feeling unwell. So the care of sleep falls on the shoulders of parents.
Make sure your child goes to bed at the same time and actually falls asleep (rather than playing quietly on a brand-new smartphone). Maintain evening rituals – yes, just like with babies. The emotional overload of school days needs help calming down.
Saying one thing and doing another.
The quickest way to get a child to disobey his parents is to say one thing and do another. Take a good look at yourself and make sure that you are a good role model and that you are doing what you want the child to do.
This includes every aspect of your lifestyle, from whether you smoke, drink, or constantly sit with gadgets to how you handle stress and how you relate to others in your family and community.
Procrastinating about talking “about it” for too long
Although it’s only first grade, for one thing, the age of onset of puberty has changed since your youth, with boys now having their first change at age 9 on average, and girls even earlier.
In addition, scientists from The Fuller Project conducted a large-scale study of the data and found that during the same covid pandemic, the number of girls with precocious puberty increased dramatically – 3.4 times.
Second, access to information on the Internet is difficult to limit: even if you have a password on all devices, a child at school may have more informed friends.
Finally, you don’t want your child to have no one to talk to about the molas, the chest pain, the hair under his arms, or the blood on his panties.
Although it is not easy to start such a conversation, and some parents prefer to wait until the child is older to find out for themselves, this is a big mistake.
Tip!
Buy and put in a prominent place a book about what happens to a teenager’s body. When the child is interested, tell him you are willing to answer questions, if he has any.
Skipping a checkup
It’s not just preschoolers who need these routine exams. And don’t rely on school nurses: under the new conditions, they help mostly in acute situations, rather than examining all children as before. So every year you should go through all the required specialists, and do it for the sake of health, not for the sake of a certificate.
Overloading your child with activities
In most schools, children are offered many clubs and sections from the first grade on, not to mention the fact that 7 years old is the age for starting a sports, art, or music school.
It may seem tempting to enroll your child in a variety of classes in order to raise a versatile personality, but you have to remember that personality can grow up to be a sick person because of overload, as well as get pretty average knowledge in school because of the abundance of clubs.
Strike a balance so that your child meets academic expectations and participates in a select number of extracurricular activities. Different children have different needs, and there are really no hard-and-fast rules about how many extracurricular activities can be considered excessive. Be guided by your child’s well-being and academic performance.
Ignore signs of bullying
Bullying can and does happen even in elementary school. In addition, a child can be bullied and intimidated by older people on social media, the Internet, and even through text messages.
Watch for signs of emotional distress in your child, especially if he or she is in unexplained pain or suddenly no longer wants to go to school.
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