Four-year-olds 'fret for months about starting school'

[Honey]

Young children fret about starting primary school for up to six months before their first day, a study warns today.


Researchers say exposure to such prolonged stress could saddle children with long-term health problems.
And the stress could be rubbing off on the youngsters from over-anxious parents, according to the experts behind the government-funded report.
While pushy parents have long been blamed for burdening their offspring with high expectations, the claim that children as young as four could be suffering is a worrying development.
For the study, academics from the universities of Bath and Bristol measured levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the saliva of 105 four-year-olds.

At the start of term, average cortisol levels were 5.47 nanograms per millilitre of saliva, expectedly high in a natural response to a new situation.
Six months on, as the children became used to their new surroundings, this had fallen to normal levels of 1.42ng/ml.
However, the readings from three to six months before the start of school also showed alarmingly heightened cortisol levels of 4.48ng/ml, more than three times the normal amount.
Bath University's Dr Julie Turner-Cobb, who led the study, said: "This suggests that stress levels in anticipation of starting school begin to rise much earlier than we expected."

She surmised that "stress was being passed on to the children" by parents worried about how their offspring would cope.
Warning that this was likely to induce a "more long-term stress response that could lead to poorer health", Dr Turner-Cobb said parents should do all they could to make the transition to school a calm and happy one.
Perhaps unusually, the study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, indicated that shy children were likely to be less stressed by starting school.
Outgoing children displayed higher cortisol levels at the start of term, and were more likely to still have high levels after six months.
This was "possibly because their more impulsive nature gets them into more confrontational situations", said Dr Turner-Cobb.
These children were, however, less likely to catch colds in the six months after starting school and took fewer days off when they did fall ill. The researchers believe this shows that, although damaging in the long term, higher stress levels provide some short-term protection against colds and flu.

Four-year-olds 'fret for months about starting school' | the Daily Mail

[AliceInWonderland]

thats totally understandable, its the scariest thing you ever experience as a kid, that very first day. You clam up so bad that you dont even speak or look around...its awful! but that goes away soon and soon you feel quite natural in a school environment.

[crumpet]

Seems to me I remember myself and other kids being really excited about starting school because it made us feel like 'big kids'. We were excited to ride the bus,too.
I suspect, if this is true, it is due in no small part to what seems like an alarming number of moms who have adopted all this new age attachment parenting crap where their children are literally treated as appendages. I honestly think many moms don't want their babies to grow up and not need them anymore, so they do little to foster a developing sense of independence.

[Grimmlok]

oh pfft, i was terrified and so were a lot of other kids. Big deal.

Now all of a sudden it's some MONSTROUS EVIL THING THAT WILL KILL YOUR CHILD.. let me guess the solution: no kids go to school because it's a wee bit intimidating for the first day, right? It 'hurts their feelings'.

They also all get a trophy for not going.

[VenusInFauxFurs]

First day of kindergarten was scary. But we all survived unscathed. I hope people don't use this as a reason to homeskooool.

[Grimmlok]

Well logically we can't do ANYTHING that might make Junior nervous, excited, anxious or otherwise. Also, letting him outside is entirely out of the question unless he's going to pick up a trophy for something he didn't even participate in. Even then he'll be shellacked into a hazmat suit and accompanied by his mother.

Homeschool will guarantee that the child only learns what mommy and daddy think is acceptable, not factual. You can't have accurate historical facts upsetting precious Junior so everything will have a sugar coated patina of political correctness on it, ensuring that when Junior finally gets a job (that mommy and daddy set up for him) he'll be firmly ensconced in the warm bosom of lifelong delusion.

(i'm not bitter, really.)

[crumpet]

Well logically we can't do ANYTHING that might make Junior nervous, excited, anxious or otherwise.
Yep. The only okay feelings are happy and lovey-dovey. All other emotions are bad. Life should be perfect. Any good mom will make sure her kid never suffers a second of anything other than pure bliss!!!!

[DitaPage*]

School is much worse today also because kids are bigger pricks than ever.

[KrisNine]

I can imagine kids being scared, but I can't imagine them worrying for months over it. Kids just aren't like that.

[nwgirl]

A friend of mine keeps saying "little Jimmy is starting school next week (has been counting it down for months now) and it's all gonna be awwright, isn't it Jimmy?" The kid just sits with a dumb look on his face. I think mommies may be putting a lot of the fear in the kids. It's scary, but it can be approached way better than doing a countdown to D-Day type of thing.