Study of anxiety in children of primary school age. Causes of school anxiety in children of primary school age List of used literature

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Introduction

anxiety school age

The relevance of research. Currently, the number of anxious children characterized by increased anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional instability has increased.

The current situation of children in our society is characterized by social deprivation, i.e. deprivation, restriction, insufficiency of certain conditions necessary for the survival and development of each child.

The Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation notes that the number of children at risk has increased; every third schoolchild has deviations in the neuropsychic system.

The psychological self-awareness of children entering school is characterized by a lack of love, warm, reliable relationships in the family, and emotional attachment. Signs of trouble, tension in contacts, fears, anxiety, and regressive tendencies appear.

The emergence and consolidation of anxiety is associated with the dissatisfaction of the child’s age-related needs. Anxiety becomes a stable personality formation in adolescence. Before this, it is a derivative of a wide range of disorders. The consolidation and strengthening of anxiety occurs through the mechanism of a “closed psychological circle”, leading to the accumulation and deepening of negative emotional experience, which, in turn, generates negative prognostic assessments and largely determines the modality of actual experiences, contributes to the increase and maintenance of anxiety.

Anxiety has a pronounced age specificity, revealed in its sources, content, forms of manifestation of compensation and protection. For each age period, there are certain areas, objects of reality that cause increased anxiety in most children, regardless of the presence of a real threat or anxiety as a stable formation. These “age-related peaks of anxiety” are a consequence of the most significant sociogenic needs.

During “age-related peaks of anxiety,” anxiety appears as non-constructive, which causes a state of panic and despondency. The child begins to doubt his abilities and strengths. But anxiety disorganizes not only educational activities, it begins to destroy personal structures. Therefore, knowledge of the causes of increased anxiety will lead to the creation and timely implementation of correctional and developmental work, helping to reduce anxiety and the formation of adequate behavior in children of primary school age.

The purpose of the study is to examine the characteristics of anxiety in children of primary school age.

The object of the study is the manifestation of anxiety in children of primary school age.

The subject of the study is the causes of anxiety in children of primary school age.

Research hypothesis -

To achieve the goal and test the research hypothesis, the following tasks were identified:

1. Analyze and systematize theoretical sources on the problem under consideration.

2. Investigate the characteristics of anxiety in children of primary school age and establish the causes of increased anxiety.

Research base: 4th grade (8 people) of the Center for Curative Pedagogy and Differentiated Education No. 10 in the city of Krasnoyarsk.

Psychological and pedagogicalcharacteristicanxiety.Definitionconcepts"anxiety".DomesticAndforeignviewsongivenissues

In the psychological literature one can find different definitions of this concept, although most studies agree on the need to consider it differentially - as a situational phenomenon and as a personal characteristic, taking into account the transition state and its dynamics.

The word "anxious" has been noted in dictionaries since 1771. There are many versions explaining the origin of this term. The author of one of them believes that the word “alarm” means a thrice repeated signal about danger from the enemy.

The psychological dictionary gives the following definition of anxiety: it is “an individual psychological characteristic consisting in an increased tendency to experience anxiety in a wide variety of life situations, including those that do not predispose one to this.”

It is necessary to distinguish anxiety from anxiety. If anxiety is episodic manifestations of a child’s restlessness and excitement, then anxiety is a stable condition.

For example, it happens that a child gets nervous before speaking at a party or answering questions at the blackboard. But this anxiety does not always manifest itself; sometimes in the same situations he remains calm. These are manifestations of anxiety. If the state of anxiety is repeated frequently and in a variety of situations (when answering at the board, communicating with unfamiliar adults, etc.), then we should talk about anxiety.

Anxiety is not associated with any specific situation and appears almost always. This condition accompanies a person in any type of activity. When a person is afraid of something specific, we talk about the manifestation of fear. For example, fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of enclosed spaces.

K. Izard explains the difference between the terms “fear” and “anxiety” in this way: anxiety is a combination of some emotions, and fear is only one of them.

Anxiety is a state of expedient preparatory increase in sensory attention and motor tension in a situation of possible danger, ensuring an appropriate reaction to fear. A personality trait manifested by mild and frequent expression of anxiety. The individual’s tendency to experience anxiety, characterized by a low threshold for the manifestation of anxiety; one of the main parameters of individual differences.

In general, anxiety is a subjective manifestation of personal distress. Anxiety occurs under a favorable background of the properties of the nervous and endocrine systems, but is formed during life, primarily due to disruption of forms of intrapersonal and interpersonal communication.

Anxiety is negative emotional experiences caused by the expectation of something dangerous, having a diffuse nature, not associated with specific events. An emotional state that arises in situations of uncertain danger and manifests itself in anticipation of an unfavorable development of events. In contrast to fear as a reaction to a specific threat, it is generalized, diffuse or pointless fear. Usually associated with the expectation of failure in social interaction and often due to unawareness of the source of danger.

In the presence of anxiety, increased breathing, increased heart rate, increased blood flow, increased blood pressure, increased general excitability, and a decreased perception threshold are recorded at the physiological level.

Functionally, anxiety not only warns of a possible danger, but also encourages the search and specification of this danger, the active exploration of reality with the goal (installation) of identifying a threatening object. It can manifest itself as a feeling of helplessness, self-doubt, powerlessness in the face of external factors, an exaggeration of their power and threatening nature. Behavioral manifestations of anxiety consist in a general disorganization of activity, disrupting its direction and productivity.

Anxiety as a mechanism for the development of neuroses - neurotic anxiety - is formed on the basis of internal contradictions in the development and structure of the psyche - for example, from an inflated level of claims, insufficient moral validity of motives, etc.; it can lead to an inappropriate belief in the existence of a threat to one's own actions.

A. M. Prikhozhan points out that anxiety is the experience of emotional discomfort associated with the expectation of trouble, with a premonition of impending danger. Anxiety is distinguished as an emotional state and as a stable property, personality trait or temperament.

According to the definition of R. S. Nemov, “anxiety is a constantly or situationally manifested ability of a person to enter a state of increased anxiety, to experience fear and anxiety in specific social situations”

E. Savina, Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology at Oryol State Pedagogical University, believes that anxiety is defined as a persistent negative experience of concern and expectation of trouble on the part of others.

According to the definition of S.S. Stepanov, “anxiety is the experience of emotional distress associated with a premonition of danger or failure.”

According to the definition of A.V. Petrovsky: “Anxiety is an individual’s tendency to experience anxiety, characterized by a low threshold for the occurrence of an anxiety reaction; one of the main parameters of individual differences. Anxiety is usually increased in neuropsychic and severe somatic diseases, as well as in healthy people experiencing the consequences of psychotrauma, in many groups of people with deviant subjective manifestations of personal distress.”
Modern anxiety research is aimed at distinguishing situational anxiety, associated with a specific external situation, and personal anxiety, which is a stable property of the individual, as well as developing methods for analyzing anxiety as a result of the interaction of the individual and his environment

G.G. Arakelov, N.E. Lysenko, E.E. Schott, in turn, note that anxiety is a multi-valued psychological term that describes both a certain state of individuals at a limited point in time, and a stable property of any person. An analysis of the literature of recent years allows us to consider anxiety from different points of view, allowing for the assertion that increased anxiety arises and is realized as a result of a complex interaction of cognitive, affective and behavioral reactions provoked when a person is exposed to various stresses.

Anxiety - as a personality trait is associated with the genetically determined properties of the functioning human brain, causing a constantly heightened sense of emotional arousal, emotions of anxiety.

In a study of the level of aspirations in adolescents, M.Z. Neymark discovered a negative emotional state in the form of anxiety, fear, aggression, which was caused by dissatisfaction of their claims to success. Also, emotional distress such as anxiety was observed in children with high self-esteem. They claimed to be the “best” students, or to occupy the highest position in the team, that is, they had high aspirations in certain areas, although they had no real opportunities to realize their aspirations.

Domestic psychologists believe that inadequately high self-esteem in children develops as a result of improper upbringing, inflated estimates by adults of the child’s successes, praise, and exaggeration of his achievements, and not as a manifestation of an innate desire for superiority.

The high assessment of others and the self-esteem based on it suits the child quite well. Confrontations with difficulties and new demands reveal its inconsistency. However, the child strives with all his might to maintain his high self-esteem, since it provides him with self-respect and a good attitude towards himself. However, the child does not always succeed in this. Claiming a high level of academic achievement, he may not have sufficient knowledge and skills to achieve them; negative qualities or character traits may not allow him to take the desired position among his peers in the class. Thus, contradictions between high aspirations and real possibilities can lead to a difficult emotional state.

From unsatisfaction of needs, the child develops defense mechanisms that do not allow recognition of failure, uncertainty and loss of self-esteem into the consciousness. He tries to find the reasons for his failures in other people: parents, teachers, comrades. He tries not to admit even to himself that the reason for his failure lies in himself, comes into conflict with everyone who points out his shortcomings, and shows irritability, touchiness, and aggressiveness.

M.S. Neimark calls this “the affect of inadequacy” - “... an acute emotional desire to protect oneself from one’s own weakness, by any means to prevent self-doubt, repulsion from the truth, anger and irritation against everything and everyone from entering the consciousness.” This condition can become chronic and last for months or years. The strong need for self-affirmation leads to the fact that the interests of these children are directed only towards themselves.

This condition cannot but cause anxiety in the child. Initially, the anxiety is justified, it is caused by real difficulties for the child, but constantly as the inadequacy of the child’s attitude towards himself, his capabilities, people becomes stronger, inadequacy will become a stable feature of his attitude to the world, and then distrust, suspicion and other similar traits that real anxiety will become anxiety, when the child expects trouble in any cases that are objectively negative for him.

The understanding of anxiety was introduced into psychology by psychoanalysts and psychiatrists. Many representatives of psychoanalysis considered anxiety as an innate personality trait, as an initially inherent state of a person.

The founder of psychoanalysis, S. Freud, argued that a person has several innate drives - instincts that are the driving force of human behavior and determine his mood. S. Freud believed that the collision of biological drives with social prohibitions gives rise to neuroses and anxiety. As a person grows up, the original instincts receive new forms of manifestation. However, in new forms they encounter the prohibitions of civilization, and a person is forced to mask and suppress his desires. The drama of an individual's mental life begins at birth and continues throughout life. Freud saw a natural way out of this situation in the sublimation of “libidinal energy,” that is, in the direction of energy towards other life goals: production and creative. Successful sublimation frees a person from anxiety.

A feeling of inferiority can arise from a subjective feeling of physical weakness or any deficiencies in the body, or from those mental properties and personality traits that interfere with satisfying the need for communication. The need for communication is at the same time the need to belong to a group. The feeling of inferiority, of inability to do anything, gives a person certain suffering, and he tries to get rid of it either through compensation, or by capitulation, renunciation of desires. In the first case, the individual directs all his energy to overcome his inferiority. Those who did not understand their difficulties and whose energy was directed towards themselves fail.

Striving for superiority, the individual develops a “way of life,” a line of life and behavior. Already by the age of 4-5, a child may develop a feeling of failure, inadequacy, dissatisfaction, inferiority, which can lead to the fact that in the future the person will suffer defeat.

The problem of anxiety became the subject of special research among neo-Freudians and, above all, K. Horney. In Horney's theory, the main sources of anxiety and restlessness of the individual are not rooted in the conflict between biological drives and social prohibitions, but are the result of incorrect human relationships. In the book “The Neurotic Personality of Our Time,” Horney lists 11 neurotic needs:

1. Neurotic need for affection and approval, the desire to please others, to be pleasant.

2. Neurotic need for a “partner” who fulfills all desires, expectations, fear of being left alone.

3. Neurotic need to limit one's life to narrow boundaries, to remain unnoticed.

4. Neurotic need for power over others through intelligence and foresight.

5. Neurotic need to exploit others, to get the best from them.

6. The need for social recognition or prestige.

7. The need for personal adoration. Inflated self-image.

8. Neurotic claims to personal achievements, the need to surpass others.

9. Neurotic need for self-satisfaction and independence, the need not to need anyone.

10. Neurotic need for love.

11. Neurotic need for superiority, perfection, inaccessibility.

K. Horney believes that by satisfying these needs, a person strives to get rid of anxiety, but neurotic needs are insatiable, they cannot be satisfied, and, therefore, there are no ways to get rid of anxiety.

To a large extent, K. Horney is close to S. Sullivan. He is known as the creator of “interpersonal theory.” A person cannot be isolated from other people or interpersonal situations. From the first day of birth, a child enters into relationships with people and, first of all, with his mother. All further development and behavior of an individual is determined by interpersonal relationships. Sullivan believes that a person has an initial anxiety, anxiety, which is a product of interpersonal (interpersonal) relationships.

Sullivan views the body as an energy system of tension that can fluctuate between certain limits - a state of rest, relaxation (euphoria) and the highest degree of tension. The sources of tension are the body's needs and anxiety. Anxiety is caused by real or imaginary threats to human safety.

Sullivan, like Horney, considers anxiety not only as one of the basic properties of personality, but also as a factor determining its development. Having arisen at an early age as a result of contact with an unfavorable social environment, anxiety is constantly and invariably present throughout a person’s life. Getting rid of anxiety for an individual becomes a “central need” and the determining force of his behavior. A person develops various “dynamisms”, which are a way of getting rid of fear and anxiety.

E. Fromm approaches the understanding of anxiety differently. Unlike Horney and Sullivan, Fromm approaches the problem of mental discomfort from the position of the historical development of society.

E. Fromm believes that in the era of medieval society, with its method of production and class structure, man was not free, but he was not isolated and alone, did not feel in such danger and did not experience such anxieties as under capitalism, because he did not was “alienated” from things, from nature, from people. Man was connected to the world by primary ties, which Fromm calls “natural social ties” that exist in primitive society. With the growth of capitalism, primary bonds are broken, a free individual appears, cut off from nature, from people, as a result of which he experiences a deep sense of uncertainty, powerlessness, doubt, loneliness and anxiety. To get rid of the anxiety generated by “negative freedom,” a person strives to get rid of this freedom itself. He sees the only way out in escaping from freedom, that is, escaping from himself, in an effort to forget himself and thereby suppress the state of anxiety in himself. Fromm, Horney and Sullivan are trying to show various mechanisms for getting rid of anxiety.

Fromm believes that all these mechanisms, including “flight into oneself,” only cover up the feeling of anxiety, but do not completely rid the individual of it. On the contrary, the feeling of isolation intensifies, since the loss of one’s “I” is the most painful condition. Mental mechanisms of escape from freedom are irrational; according to Fromm, they are not a reaction to environmental conditions, and therefore are not able to eliminate the causes of suffering and anxiety.

Thus, we can conclude that anxiety is based on the fear reaction, and fear is an innate reaction to certain situations related to maintaining the integrity of the body.

The authors do not differentiate between worry and anxiety. Both appear as an expectation of trouble, which one day causes fear in the child. Anxiety or worry is the anticipation of something that can cause fear. With the help of anxiety, a child can avoid fear.

Analyzing and systematizing the considered theories, we can identify several sources of anxiety, which the authors highlight in their works:

1. Anxiety about potential physical harm. This type of anxiety arises as a result of the association of certain stimuli that threaten pain, danger, or physical distress.

2. Anxiety due to loss of love (mother’s love, the affection of peers).

3. Anxiety can be caused by feelings of guilt, which usually does not appear earlier than 4 years. In older children, guilt is characterized by feelings of self-humiliation, annoyance with oneself, and the experience of oneself as unworthy.

4. Anxiety due to inability to master the environment. It occurs when a person feels that he cannot cope with the problems that the environment poses. Anxiety is related to, but not identical to, feelings of inferiority.

5. Anxiety can also arise in a state of frustration. Frustration is defined as the experience that occurs when there is an obstacle to achieving a desired goal or a strong need. There is no complete independence between situations that cause frustration and those that lead to a state of anxiety (loss of parental love, etc.) and the authors do not provide a clear distinction between these concepts.

6. Anxiety is common to every person to one degree or another. Minor anxiety acts as a mobilizer to achieve a goal. Severe feelings of anxiety can be “emotionally crippling” and lead to despair. Anxiety for a person presents problems that need to be dealt with. For this purpose, various protective mechanisms (methods) are used.

7. In the occurrence of anxiety, great importance is attached to family upbringing, the role of the mother, and the relationship between the child and the mother. The period of childhood predetermines the subsequent development of personality.

Thus, Masser, Korner and Kagan, on the one hand, consider anxiety as an innate reaction to the danger inherent in each individual, on the other hand, they put the degree of a person’s anxiety depending on the degree of intensity of the circumstances (stimuli) causing anxiety that the person faces , interacting with the environment.

Thus, the concept of “anxiety” is used by psychologists to denote a human condition that is characterized by an increased tendency to worry, fear and worry, which has a negative emotional connotation.

Classificationspeciesanxiety

There are two main types of anxiety. The first of them is the so-called situational anxiety, i.e. generated by some specific situation that objectively causes concern. This condition can occur in any person in anticipation of possible troubles and life complications. This condition is not only completely normal, but also plays a positive role. It acts as a kind of mobilizing mechanism that allows a person to approach emerging problems seriously and responsibly. What is more abnormal is a decrease in situational anxiety, when a person, in the face of serious circumstances, demonstrates carelessness and irresponsibility, which most often indicates an infantile life position and insufficient formation of self-awareness.

Another type is the so-called personal anxiety. It can be considered as a personal trait, manifested in a constant tendency to experience anxiety in a wide variety of life situations, including those that objectively do not lead to this. It is characterized by a state of unaccountable fear, an uncertain sense of threat, and a readiness to perceive any event as unfavorable and dangerous. A child susceptible to this condition is constantly in a wary and depressed mood; it is difficult for him to contact the outside world, which he perceives as frightening and hostile. Consolidated in the process of character formation to the formation of low self-esteem and gloomy pessimism.

CausesappearanceAnddevelopmentanxietyatchildren

Among the causes of childhood anxiety, in the first place, according to E. Savina, is improper upbringing and unfavorable relationships between the child and his parents, especially with his mother. Thus, rejection and rejection by the mother of the child causes anxiety in him due to the impossibility of satisfying the need for love, affection and protection. In this case, fear arises: the child feels the conditionality of material love (“If I do something bad, they won’t love me”). Failure to satisfy the child's need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means.

Childhood anxiety can also be a consequence of the symbiotic relationship between the child and the mother, when the mother feels like one with the child and tries to protect him from the difficulties and troubles of life. It “ties” you to yourself, protecting you from imaginary, non-existent dangers. As a result, the child experiences anxiety when left without a mother, is easily lost, worried and afraid. Instead of activity and independence, passivity and dependence develop.

In cases where upbringing is based on excessive demands that the child is unable to cope with or copes with difficulty, anxiety can be caused by the fear of not being able to cope, of doing the wrong thing; parents often cultivate “correct” behavior: the attitude towards the child may include includes strict control, a strict system of norms and rules, deviation from which entails censure and punishment. In these cases, the child’s anxiety may be generated by fear of deviation from the norms and rules established by adults (“If I do not do as my mother said, she will not love me,” “If I do not do what I should, I will be punished”).

A child’s anxiety can also be caused by the peculiarities of the teacher’s (educator’s) interaction with the child, the prevalence of an authoritarian communication style, or inconsistency of requirements and assessments. In both the first and second cases, the child is in constant tension because of the fear of not fulfilling the demands of adults, of not “pleasing” them, of setting strict limits.

When we talk about strict limits, we mean the restrictions set by the teacher. These include restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, in outdoor games), in activities, on walks, etc.; limiting children's spontaneity in the classroom, for example, cutting off children (“Nina Petrovna, but I have... Quiet! I see everything! I’ll come up to everyone myself!”); suppression of children's initiative (“put it down now, I didn’t say take the leaves in your hands!”, “Shut up immediately, I’m saying!”). Restrictions can also include interrupting the emotional manifestations of children. So, if emotions arise in a child during an activity, they need to be thrown out, which can be prevented by an authoritarian teacher (“who’s funny there, Petrov?! I’ll laugh when I look at your drawings,” “Why are you crying? You’ve tortured everyone with your tears!").

Disciplinary measures applied by such a teacher most often come down to reprimands, shouting, negative assessments, and punishments.

An inconsistent teacher (educator) causes anxiety in the child by not giving him the opportunity to predict his own behavior. The constant variability of the teacher's (educator's) demands, the dependence of his behavior on his mood, emotional lability entail confusion in the child, the inability to decide what he should do in a particular case.

The teacher (educator) also needs to know situations that can cause children's anxiety, especially the situation of non-acceptance from peers; the child believes that it is his fault that he is not loved, he is bad (“they love good people”) to deserve love, the child will strive with the help of positive results, success in activities. If this desire is not justified, then the child’s anxiety increases.

The next situation is a situation of rivalry, competition; it will cause especially strong anxiety in children whose upbringing takes place in conditions of hypersocialization. In this case, children, finding themselves in a situation of competition, will strive to be first, to achieve the highest results at any cost.

Another situation is a situation of suspended responsibility. When an anxious child falls into it, his anxiety is caused by the fear of not meeting the hopes and expectations of an adult and of being rejected by him. In such situations, anxious children usually have an inadequate reaction. If they are anticipated, expected, or frequently repeated in the same situation, causing anxiety, the child develops a behavioral stereotype, a certain pattern that allows him to avoid anxiety or reduce it as much as possible. Such patterns include systematic fear of participating in activities that cause anxiety, as well as the child’s silence instead of answering questions from unfamiliar adults or those towards whom the child has a negative attitude.

In general, anxiety is a manifestation of personal distress. In some cases, it is literally nurtured in the anxious and suspicious psychological atmosphere of the family, in which the parents themselves are prone to constant fears and anxiety. The child becomes infected with their moods and adopts an unhealthy form of response to the outside world.

However, such an unpleasant individual trait sometimes manifests itself in children whose parents are not susceptible to suspiciousness and are generally optimistic. Such parents, as a rule, know well what they want to achieve from their children. They pay special attention to the discipline and cognitive achievements of the child. Therefore, they are constantly presented with various tasks that they must solve in order to meet the high expectations of their parents. It is not always possible for a child to cope with all the tasks, and this causes dissatisfaction among elders. As a result, the child finds himself in a situation of constant tense anticipation: whether he managed to please his parents or made some kind of omission, for which disapproval and censure will follow. The situation may be aggravated by inconsistency of parental demands. If a child does not know for sure how one or another of his steps will be evaluated, but in principle foresees possible dissatisfaction, then his entire existence is colored by tense alertness and anxiety.

Also, the emergence and development of anxiety and fear can intensively influence the developing imagination of children in fairy tales. At 2 years old, this is a Wolf - a crack with teeth that can cause pain, bite, eat, like Little Red Riding Hood. At the turn of 2-3 years, children are afraid of Barmaley. At 3 years old for boys and at 4 years old for girls, the “monopoly on fear” belongs to the images of Baba Yaga and Kashchei the Immortal. All these characters can introduce children to the negative, negative sides of human relationships, to cruelty and treachery, callousness and greed, as well as danger in general. At the same time, the life-affirming mood of fairy tales, in which good triumphs over evil, life over death, makes it possible to show the child how to overcome the difficulties and dangers that arise.

Anxiety has a pronounced age specificity, revealed in its sources, content, forms of manifestation and prohibition.

For each age period, there are certain areas, objects of reality that cause increased anxiety in most children, regardless of the presence of a real threat or anxiety as a stable formation.

These “age-related anxieties” are a consequence of the most significant social needs. In young children, anxiety is caused by separation from their mother. At the age of 6-7 years, the main role is played by adaptation to school, in early adolescence - communication with adults (parents and teachers), in early adolescence - attitude to the future and problems associated with gender relations.

Peculiaritiesbehavioralarmingchildren

Anxious children are often characterized by low self-esteem, due to which they have an expectation of trouble from others. This is typical for those children whose parents set impossible tasks for them, demanding that the children are not able to complete, and in case of failure, they are usually punished and humiliated (“You can’t do anything! You can’t do anything!” ").

Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities, such as drawing, in which they have difficulty.

In such children, you can notice a noticeable difference in behavior in and outside of class. Outside of class, these are lively, sociable and spontaneous children; in class they are tense and tense. They answer the teacher’s questions in a quiet and muffled voice, and may even begin to stutter. Their speech can be either very fast and hasty, or slow and labored. As a rule, prolonged excitement occurs: the child fiddles with clothes with his hands, manipulates something.

Anxious children tend to develop bad habits of a neurotic nature (they bite their nails, suck their fingers, pull out hair). Manipulating their own body reduces their emotional stress and calms them down.

Drawing helps to recognize anxious children. Their drawings are distinguished by an abundance of shading, strong pressure, and small image sizes. Often such children “get stuck” on details, especially small ones. Anxious children have a serious, restrained expression on their face, lowered eyes, sit neatly on a chair, try not to make unnecessary movements, not make noise, and prefer not to attract the attention of others. Such children are called modest, shy. Parents of their peers usually set them as an example to their tomboys: “Look how well Sasha behaves. He doesn't play around while walking. He neatly puts away his toys every day. He listens to his mother." And, oddly enough, this entire list of virtues can be true - these children behave “correctly.” But some parents are concerned about their children's behavior. (“Lyuba is very nervous. Anything brings her to tears. And she doesn’t want to play with the guys - she’s afraid that they will break her toys.” “Alyosha constantly clings to her mother’s skirt - you can’t pull her away.”) Thus, the behavior of anxious children is characterized by frequent manifestations of worry and anxiety; such children live in constant tension, all the time, feeling threatened, feeling that they could face failure at any moment.

AscertainingexperimentAndhisanalysis.Organization,methodsAndtechniquesresearch

The study was conducted at the Center for Curative Pedagogy and Differentiated Education No. 10 in the city of Krasnoyarsk, 4th grade.

Methods used:

Anxiety test (V. Amen)

Goal: Determine the child’s anxiety level.

Experimental material: 14 drawings (8.5x11 cm) made in two versions: for a girl (the picture shows a girl) and for a boy (the picture shows a boy). Each drawing represents some typical situation in a child’s life. The child's face is not drawn in the drawing, only the outline of the head is given. Each drawing is accompanied by two additional drawings of a child's head, sized exactly to match the contour of the face in the drawing. One of the additional drawings shows a smiling face of a child, the other a sad one. Conducting the study: The drawings are shown to the child in a strictly listed order, one after another. The conversation takes place in a separate room. After presenting the child with the drawing, the researcher gives instructions. Instructions.

1. Playing with younger children. “What kind of face do you think the child will have: happy or sad? He (she) plays with the kids"

2. Child and mother with baby. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: sad or happy? He (she) is walking with his mother and baby"

3. Object of aggression. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: happy or sad?”

4. Dressing. “What kind of face do you think this child will have, sad or happy? He (she) gets dressed"

5. Playing with older children. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: happy or sad? He (she) plays with older children"

6. Going to bed alone. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: sad or happy? He (she) is going to bed."

7. Washing. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: happy or sad? He (she) is in the bathroom"

8. Reprimand. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: sad or happy?”

9. Ignoring. “What kind of face do you think this baby will have: happy or sad?”

10. Aggressive attack “What kind of face do you think this child will have: sad or happy?”

11. Collecting toys. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: happy or sad? He (she) puts away the toys"

12. Isolation. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: sad or happy?”

13. Child with parents. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: happy or sad? He (she) is with his mom and dad"

14. Eating alone. “What kind of face do you think this child will have: sad or happy? He (she) eats.”

To avoid imposing choices on the child, the name of the person alternates in the instructions. The child is not asked additional questions. (Annex 1)

DiaGnosticslevelschooltreimportance

Purpose: The technique is aimed at identifying the level of school anxiety in primary and secondary schoolchildren.

Instructions: Each question must be answered unequivocally “Yes” or “No”. When answering a question, the child must write down its number and the answer “+” if he agrees with it, or “-” if he disagrees.

Content characteristics of each factor. General anxiety at school is the general emotional state of a child associated with various forms of his inclusion in school life. Experiences of social stress are the emotional state of a child, against the background of which his social contacts develop (primarily with peers). Frustration of the need to achieve success is an unfavorable mental background that does not allow the child to develop his needs for success, achieving high results, etc.

Fear of self-expression - negative emotional experiences of situations associated with the need for self-disclosure, presenting oneself to others, demonstrating one’s capabilities.

Fear of knowledge testing situations - a negative attitude and the experience of anxiety in situations of testing (especially public) knowledge, achievements, and opportunities.

Fear of not meeting the expectations of others - focus on the importance of others in assessing one's results, actions, and thoughts, anxiety about the assessments given by others, expectation of negative assessments. Low physiological resistance to stress is a characteristic of the psychophysiological organization that reduces a child’s adaptability to stressful situations and increases the likelihood of an inadequate, destructive response to a disturbing environmental factor. Problems and fears in relationships with teachers are a general negative emotional background of relationships with adults at school, reducing the success of a child’s education. (Appendix 2)

1. Questionnaire by J. Taylor (personal anxiety scale).

Goal: identifying the level of personal anxiety of the subject.

Material: questionnaire form containing 50 statements.

Instructions. You are asked to answer a questionnaire that contains statements regarding certain personality traits. There can be no good or bad answers here, so express your opinion freely and don’t waste time thinking.

Let's give the first answer that comes to mind. If you agree with this statement regarding you, write “Yes” next to its number; if you disagree, write “No”; if you cannot clearly define it, write “I don’t know.”

Psychological portrait of highly anxious individuals:

They are characterized by a tendency in a wide range of situations to perceive any manifestation of the qualities of their personality, any interest in them as a possible threat to their prestige and self-esteem. They tend to perceive complicated situations as threatening and catastrophic. According to the perception, the strength of the emotional reaction is manifested.

Such people are quick-tempered, irritable and in constant readiness for conflict and readiness to defend themselves, even if this is objectively not necessary. They are usually characterized by an inadequate reaction to comments, advice and requests. The possibility of nervous breakdowns and affective reactions is especially high in situations where we are talking about their competence in certain issues, their prestige, self-esteem, and their attitude. Excessive emphasis on the results of their activities or ways of behavior, both for the better and for the worse, a categorical tone towards them or a tone expressing doubt - all this inevitably leads to breakdowns, conflicts, and the creation of various kinds of psychological barriers that prevent effective interaction with such people.

It is dangerous to make categorically high demands on highly anxious people, even in situations where they are objectively feasible for them; an inadequate reaction to such demands can delay, or even postpone for a long time, the achievement of the required result.

Psychological portrait of low-anxiety individuals:

Characterized by pronounced calm. They are not always inclined to perceive a threat to their prestige and self-esteem in the widest range of situations, even when it really exists. The emergence of a state of anxiety in them can be observed only in particularly important and personally significant situations (exams, stressful situations, a real threat to marital status, etc.). Personally, such people are calm, they believe that they personally have no reason or reason to worry about their lives, reputation, behavior and activities. The likelihood of conflicts, breakdowns, and affective outbursts is extremely low.

Research results

Research methodology “Anxiety Test (V. Amen)”

5 out of 8 people have a high level of anxiety.

Research methodology “Diagnostics of the level of school anxiety”

As a result of the study, we received:

· General anxiety at school: 4 out of 8 people have a high level, 3 out of 8 people have an average level and 1 out of 8 people have a low level.

· Experience of social stress: 6 people out of 8 have a high level; 2 people out of 8 have a medium level.

· Frustration of the need to achieve success: 2 out of 8 people have a high level, 6 out of 8 people have an average level.

· Fear of self-expression: 4 out of 8 people have a high level, 3 people have an average level, 1 person has a low level.

· Fear of knowledge testing situation: 4 out of 8 people have a high level, 3 people have an average level, 1 person has a low level

· Fear of not meeting the expectations of others: 6 out of 8 people have a high level, 1 person has an average level, 1 person has a low level.

· Low physiological resistance to stress: 2 out of 8 people have a high level, 4 people have an average level, 2 people have a low level.

· Problems and fears in relationships with teachers: 5 out of 8 people have a high level, 2 people have an average level, 1 person has a low level.

Methodologyresearch"QuestionnaireJ. Taylor"

As a result of the study, we received: 6 people had an average level with a tendency to high, 2 people had an average level of anxiety.

Research methods - drawing tests “Human” and “Non-existent animal”.

As a result of the study, we received:

Christina K.: lack of communication, demonstrativeness, low self-esteem, rationalistic, non-creative approach to a task, introversion.

Victoria K.: sometimes negativism, high activity, extroversion, sociability, sometimes the need for support, rationalistic, non-creative approach to a task, demonstrativeness, anxiety, sometimes suspiciousness, wariness.

Ulyana M.: lack of communication, demonstrativeness, low self-esteem, sometimes the need for support, anxiety, sometimes suspicion, wariness.

Alexander Sh.: uncertainty, anxiety, impulsiveness, sometimes social fears, demonstrativeness, introversion, defensive aggression, need for support, feeling of insufficient skill in social relationships.

Anna S.: introversion, immersion in one’s inner world, tendency to defensive fantasizing, demonstrativeness, negativism, negative attitude towards the examination, daydreaming, romanticism, tendency to compensatory fantasizing.

Alexey I.: creative orientation, high activity, impulsiveness, sometimes asociality, fears, extroversion, sociability, demonstrativeness, increased anxiety.

Vladislav V.: increased anxiety, demonstrativeness, extroversion, sociability, sometimes the need for support, conflict, tension in contacts, emotional disturbance.

Victor S.: negativism, possible depressive background mood, wariness, suspicion, sometimes dissatisfaction with one’s appearance, extroversion, sometimes the need for support, demonstrativeness, increased anxiety, aggression, poverty of imagination, sometimes suspiciousness, wariness, sometimes internal conflict, conflicting desires , a feeling of insufficient skill in social relationships, fear of attack and a tendency towards defensive aggression.

It is very useful for such a child to attend group psychocorrectional classes - after consultation with a psychologist. The topic of childhood anxiety has been sufficiently developed in psychology, and usually the effect of such activities is noticeable.

One of the main ways to help is the desensitization method. The child is consistently placed in situations that cause him anxiety. Starting with those that only worry him a little, and ending with those that cause severe anxiety and even fear.

If this method is used on adults, then it must be supplemented with relaxation and relaxation. For small children this is not so easy, so relaxation is replaced by sucking candy.

They use dramatization games when working with children (to “scary school”, for example). Plots are selected depending on which situations worry the child the most. Techniques of drawing fears and telling stories about your fears are used. In such activities, the goal is not to completely rid the child of anxiety. But they will help him express his feelings more freely and openly and increase his self-confidence. Gradually he will learn to control his emotions more.

You can try one of the exercises with your child at home. Anxious children are often prevented from completing some task by fear. “I won’t be able to do this,” “I won’t be able to do this,” they tell themselves. If a child refuses to get down to business for these reasons, ask him to imagine a child who knows and can do much less than he does. For example, he can’t count, doesn’t know letters, etc. Then let him imagine another child who will probably cope with the task. It will be easy for him to see that he is far from being incompetent and can, if he tries, get closer to full skill. Ask him to say, “I can’t...” and explain to himself why he finds it difficult to complete this task. “I can...” - note what he can already do. “I can…” - how well he will cope with the task if he makes every effort. Emphasize that everyone does not know how to do something, cannot do something, but everyone, if they want, will achieve their goal.

Conclusion

It is known that changing social relationships pose significant difficulties for a child. Anxiety and emotional tension are associated mainly with the absence of people close to the child, with changes in the environment, usual conditions and rhythm of life.

The expectation of impending danger is combined with a feeling of uncertainty: the child, as a rule, is not able to explain what, in essence, he is afraid of.

Anxiety, as a stable state, interferes with clarity of thought, effective communication, enterprise, and creates difficulties when meeting new people. In general, anxiety is a subjective indicator of personal distress. But for it to form, a person must accumulate a baggage of unsuccessful, inadequate ways to overcome the state of anxiety. That is why, in order to prevent an anxious-neurotic type of personality development, it is necessary to help children find effective ways in which they could learn to cope with anxiety, uncertainty and other manifestations of emotional instability.

conflicting demands on him, coming from different sources (or even from the same source: it happens that parents contradict themselves, either allowing or rudely prohibiting the same thing);

inadequate requirements that do not correspond to the child’s capabilities and aspirations;

negative demands that put the child in a humiliated, dependent position.

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School is one of the first to open up the world of social and public life to a child. In parallel with the family, he takes on one of the main roles in raising the child.

Thus, school becomes one of the determining factors in the development of a child’s personality. Many of his basic properties and personal qualities are formed during this period of life; all his subsequent development largely depends on how they are laid.

This mental state of anxiety is usually defined as a generalized feeling of a non-specific, vague threat.

The expectation of impending danger is combined with a feeling of uncertainty: the child, as a rule, is not able to explain what, in essence, he is afraid of. Unlike the similar emotion of fear, anxiety does not have a specific source. It is diffuse and can manifest itself behaviorally in a general disorganization of activity, disrupting its direction and productivity.

By their genetic nature, anxiety reactions are innate mechanisms of preparation for the implementation of acts of self-defense in “crisis” situations. Such mechanisms, characteristic of higher animals, must have played an important role in the behavior of the ancestors of modern humans, whose survival essentially depends on the ability to “resist.”

Modern life, however, takes place in completely different conditions of existence. In some cases, such mobilization of internal forces and resources is not only not necessary for the survival process, but also contributes to the development of various pathological conditions, examples of which can be phobias and neuroses. Meanwhile, the corresponding psychophysiological mechanisms are preserved and continue to participate in a variety of situations that are only distantly related to the process of survival: when faced with unfamiliar social situations, during separation, with the efforts necessary for success in educational and professional activities.

Two large groups of signs of an anxious state can be distinguished: the first is physiological signs that occur at the level of somatic symptoms and sensations; the second is reactions occurring in the mental sphere. The difficulty in describing these manifestations lies in the fact that all of them individually and even in a certain combination can accompany not only an anxious state, but also other states and experiences, such as despair, anger and even joyful excitement.

Both somatic and mental signs of an anxious state are known to everyone from personal experience. Most often, somatic signs manifest themselves in an increase in the frequency of breathing and heartbeat, an increase in general agitation, and a decrease in sensitivity thresholds. Such familiar sensations as a sudden rush of warmth to the head, cold and wet palms are also accompanying signs of an anxious state.

The psychological and behavioral reactions of anxiety are even more varied, bizarre and unexpected. Anxiety usually entails difficulty making decisions and impaired coordination of movements. Sometimes the tension of anxious anticipation is so great that a person unwittingly causes himself pain.

Hence - unexpected blows and falls. Mild manifestations of an anxious state, such as a feeling of restlessness and uncertainty about the correctness of one’s behavior, are an integral part of the emotional life of any person. Children, as insufficiently prepared to overcome the subject's anxious situations, often resort to lies, fantasies, and become inattentive, absent-minded, and shy.

From a physiological point of view, as already mentioned, anxiety is no different from fear. The main difference is that anxiety causes the body to activate before the expected event occurs.

Typically, anxiety is a transitory state; it subsides as soon as a person actually encounters the expected situation and begins to navigate and act. However, it also happens that the wait, which gives rise to an anxious state, is prolonged, and then it makes sense to talk about anxiety.

Anxiety, as a stable state, interferes with clarity of thought, effective communication, enterprise, and creates difficulties when meeting new people. In general, anxiety is a subjective indicator of personal distress. But for it to form, a person must accumulate a baggage of unsuccessful, inadequate ways to overcome an anxious state anxiety. That is why, in order to prevent an anxious-neurotic type of personality development, it is necessary to help children find effective ways in which they could learn to cope with anxiety, uncertainty and other manifestations of emotional instability.

According to K. Horney, a feeling of anxiety (anxiety) is a feeling of isolation and weakness of a child in a potentially hostile world. A number of hostile factors in the environment can cause insecurity in a child: direct or indirect dominance of other people, excessive admiration or its complete absence, the desire to take the side of one of the quarreling parents, too little or too much responsibility, isolation from other children, unrestrained communication.

In general, the cause of an anxious state can be anything that violates a child’s sense of confidence and reliability in his relationship with his parents. As a result worries and anxiety, a personality torn by conflicts grows up. In order to avoid fear, anxiety, feelings of helplessness and isolation, the individual has the definition of “neurotic” needs, which she calls neurotic personality traits learned as a result of vicious experiences.

A child, experiencing the hostile and indifferent attitude of others, and overcome by anxiety, develops his own system of behavior and attitude towards other people. He becomes angry, aggressive, withdrawn, or tries to gain power over others to compensate for the lack of love. However, such behavior does not lead to success; on the contrary, it further aggravates the conflict and increases helplessness and fear.

Since the world, according to Horney, is potentially hostile to the child and to man in general, fear, as it were, is also inherent in a person in advance, and the only thing that can save a person from anxiety is the successful early experience of upbringing acquired in the family. Horney derives anxiety from an individual’s dysfunctional relationship with a hostile world and understands it as a feeling of isolation and helplessness in this world. In such a situation, one could call it natural if its manifestations were limited only to those situations where there is real hostility. But Horney does not separate adequate anxiety from inappropriate anxiety. Since the world is generally hostile to humans, it turns out that anxiety is always adequate.

The transformation of anxiety from mother to baby is put forward by Sullivan as a postulate, but it remains unclear to him through what channels this connection is carried out. Sullivan, pointing to the basic interpersonal need - the need for tenderness, which is already inherent in an infant capable of empathy in interpersonal situations, shows the genesis of this need, passing through each age period. Thus, a baby has a need for the tenderness of his mother, in childhood - a need for an adult who could be an accomplice in his games, in adolescence - a need for communication with peers, in adolescence - a need for love. The subject has a constant desire to communicate with people and a need for interpersonal reliability. If a child encounters unfriendliness, inattention, and alienation from close people whom he strives for, then this causes him to feel anxious and interferes with normal development. The child develops destructive behavior and attitude towards people. He becomes either embittered, aggressive, or timid, afraid to do what he wants, anticipating failures, and shows disobedience. Sullivan calls this phenomenon “hostile transformation”; its source is anxiety caused by poor communication.

Each period of development is characterized by its own prevailing sources of anxiety. Thus, for a two-year-old child, the source of anxiety is separation from the mother; for six-year-old children, it is the lack of adequate patterns of identification with their parents. In adolescence, there is a fear of being rejected by peers. Anxiety pushes a child into behavior that can save him from trouble and fear.

Lersild, Gesell., Holmes A. note the fact that the tendency to react to events that are actually or potentially dangerous is directly related to the level of development of the child. As he matures, new things begin to affect him thanks to his great insightful perception, and fear arises when the subject already knows enough to notice the danger, but is unable to prevent it.

As the child's imagination develops, anxiety begins to focus on imaginary dangers. And later, when an understanding of the meaning of competition and success develops, one finds oneself ridiculous and rejected. With age, the child undergoes some restructuring in relation to objects of concern. Thus, anxiety in response to known and unknown stimuli gradually decreases, but by the age of 10-11, anxiety associated with the possibility of being rejected by peers increases. Much of what worries us during these years remains in one form or another in adults.

The object's sensitivity to events that may cause anxiety depends, first of all, on the understanding of the danger, and also, to a large extent, on the person's past associations, on his real or imagined inability to cope with the situation, on the meaning that he himself attaches to what happened.

Thus, in order to free a child from anxiety, anxiety and fears, it is necessary, first of all, to fix attention not on the specific symptoms of anxiety, but on the underlying causes - circumstances and conditions, since this condition in a child often arises from feelings of insecurity, from demands that are beyond his strength, from threats, cruel punishments, unstable discipline.

However, for fruitful work, for a harmonious, fulfilling life, a certain level of anxiety is simply necessary. That level that does not exhaust a person, but creates the tone of his activity. Such an anxious state does not paralyze a person, but, on the contrary, mobilizes him to overcome obstacles and solve problems. That's why they call her constructive. It is she who performs the adaptive function of the body’s life. The most important quality that defines anxiety as constructive is the ability to realize an alarming situation, to calmly, without panic, sort it out. Closely related to this is the ability to analyze and plan one’s own actions.

As for the pedagogical process, a feeling of anxiety inevitably accompanies a child’s educational activities in any, even the most ideal school. Moreover, in general, no active cognitive activity of a person can not be accompanied by anxiety. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, an optimal level of anxiety increases productivity. The very situation of learning something new, unknown, the situation of solving a problem, when you need to make an effort so that the incomprehensible becomes understandable, is always fraught with uncertainty, inconsistency, and, consequently, a reason for anxiety. Motivation to perform an activity depends on the level of anxiety, so a high or low level does not contribute to its adequate implementation, only an average level helps to effectively achieve results.

Completely relieve anxiety anxiety, is possible only by eliminating all the difficulties of knowledge, which is unrealistic and unnecessary.

However, in a significant proportion of cases we are dealing with a destructive manifestation of anxiety. It is quite difficult to differentiate constructive anxiety from destructive anxiety, and one cannot focus only on the formal results of educational activities. If anxiety makes a child study better, this does not at all guarantee the constructiveness of his emotional experiences. It is quite possible that, dependent on “significant” adults and very attached to them, a child is able to give up independent actions in order to maintain closeness with these people. The fear of loneliness gives rise to anxiety, which simply spurs the student on, forcing him to strain all his strength to meet the expectations of adults and maintain his prestige in their eyes. However, working in a state of significant overstrain of mental strength can bring only a short-term effect, which, in the future, will result in an emotional breakdown, the development of school neurosis and other undesirable consequences. Emotional instability in the lower grades and middle 6-8 grades is replaced by lethargy and indifference. An attentive teacher can easily understand how constructive a child’s anxiety is by observing him in a situation that requires the maximum activity of all his available capabilities. It is important that the task is non-standard, but, in principle, acceptable for the child. If he falls into panic, despondency, and begins to refuse without even understanding the task, it means that the level of anxiety is high, the anxious state is destructive. If at first he tries to solve a problem using the usual methods for him, and then refuses with an indifferent look, most likely his level of anxiety is insufficient. If he carefully understands the situation, begins to go through possible solutions, including unexpected ones, gets carried away by the task, thinks about it, even if he cannot solve it, then he detects exactly the level of anxiety that is necessary.

So, a constructive anxious state gives originality to the decision, uniqueness to the plan, it contributes to the mobilization of the emotional, volitional and intellectual resources of the individual.

Destructive anxiety causes a state of panic and despondency. The child begins to doubt his abilities and strengths. But an anxious state disorganizes not only educational activities, it begins to destroy personal structures. Of course, it is not only anxiety that causes behavioral disorders. There are other mechanisms of deviations in the development of a child’s personality. However, psychologists-consultants argue that most of the problems for which parents turn to them, most of the obvious violations that impede the normal course of education and upbringing are fundamentally associated with the child’s anxiety.

B. Kochubey, E. Novikova consider anxiety in connection with gender and age characteristics.

It is believed that in preschool and primary school age boys are more anxious than girls. They are more likely to have tics, stuttering, and enuresis. At this age, they are more sensitive to the effects of unfavorable psychological factors, which facilitates the formation of various types of neuroses.

At the age of 9-11 years, the intensity of experiences in both sexes levels out, and after 12 years, the general level of anxiety in girls generally increases, and in boys it decreases slightly.

It turned out that the content of girls’ anxiety differs from boys’ anxiety, and the older the children, the more significant this difference is. Girls' anxiety is more often associated with other people; they are worried about the attitude of others, the possibility of a quarrel or separation from them. The main cause of anxiety in 15-16 year old girls is fear for their family and friends, fear of causing them trouble, worries about their health and state of mind.

At the age of 11-12, girls are often afraid of all sorts of fantastic monsters, the dead, and also experience anxiety in situations that are traditionally alarming for people. These situations were called archaic because they frightened our distant ancestors, ancient people: darkness, thunderstorm, fire, heights. At the age of 15-16, the severity of such experiences decreases significantly.

What worries boys the most can be described in one word: violence. Boys are afraid of physical injuries, accidents, as well as punishment, the source of which is parents or authorities outside the family: teachers, school principal.

A person’s age reflects not only the level of his physiological maturity, but also the nature of his connection with the surrounding reality, features of the internal level, and the specifics of experience. School time is the most important stage in a person’s life, during which his psychological appearance fundamentally changes. The nature of anxious experiences changes. The intensity of anxiety more than doubles from the first to the tenth grade. According to many psychologists, the level of anxiety begins to rise sharply after the age of 11, reaching its peak by the age of 20, and gradually decreases by the age of 30.

The older the child becomes, the more specific and realistic his anxious state becomes. If young children are worried about supernatural monsters breaking through the threshold of their subconscious, then teenagers are worried about a situation associated with violence, expectation, and ridicule.

The cause of anxiety is always the child’s internal conflict, his inconsistency with himself, the inconsistency of his aspirations, when one of his strong desires contradicts another, one need interferes with another. The most common causes of such internal conflict are: quarrels between people who are equally close to the child, when he is forced to take the side of one of them against the other; incompatibility of different systems of demands placed on a child, when, for example, what parents allow and encourage is not approved at school, and vice versa; contradictions between inflated aspirations, often instilled by parents, on the one hand, and the real capabilities of the child, on the other, dissatisfaction of basic needs, such as the need for love and independence.

Thus, the contradictory internal states of the child’s soul can be caused by:

1. conflicting demands on him coming from different sources(or even from the same source: it happens that parents contradict themselves, sometimes allowing, sometimes rudely prohibiting the same thing);

2. inadequate requirements that do not correspond to capabilities and aspirations of the child;

3. negative demands that put the child in a humiliated, dependent position.

In all three cases, there is a feeling of “losing support,” loss of strong guidelines in life, and uncertainty in the world around us.

Anxiety does not always appear in obvious form, since it is a rather painful condition. And as soon as it arises, a whole set of mechanisms is activated in the child’s soul that “process” this state into something else, albeit also unpleasant, but not so unbearable. This can change the entire external and internal picture of the anxious state beyond recognition.

The simplest of psychological mechanisms works almost instantly: it is better to be afraid of something than to be afraid of something unknown. So, children's fears arise. Fear is the “first derivative” of anxiety. Its advantage is in its certainty, in the fact that it always leaves some free space. If, for example, I am afraid of dogs, I can walk where there are no dogs and feel safe. In cases of pronounced fear, its object may have nothing to do with the true cause of the anxiety that gave rise to this fear. A child may be terrified of school, but this is based on a family conflict that he feels deeply. Although fear, compared to anxiety, gives a slightly greater sense of security, it is still a condition in which it is very difficult to live. Therefore, as a rule, the processing of anxious experiences does not end at the stage of fear. The older the children, the less often the manifestation of fear, and the more often - other, hidden forms of anxiety.

In some children, an anxious state is achieved through certain ritual actions that “protect” them from possible danger. An example would be a child trying not to step on the joints of concrete slabs and cracks in the asphalt. In this way, he gets rid of the fear of getting a bad mark and considers himself safe if he succeeded.

The negative side of such “rituals” is a certain probability of such actions developing into neuroses and obsessions (obsessive neuroses).

However, it must be taken into account that an anxious child simply has not found another way to deal with anxiety. Despite the inadequacy and absurdity of such methods, they must be respected, not ridiculed, but the child must be helped to “respond” to his problems with other methods; one must not destroy the “island of safety” without giving anything in return.

The refuge of many children, their salvation from anxiety, is the world of fantasy. In fantasies, the child resolves his insoluble conflicts; in dreams, his unsatisfied needs are satisfied. In itself, fantasy is a wonderful quality inherent in children. Allowing a person to go beyond reality in his thoughts, to build his own inner world, unfettered by conventional boundaries, and to creatively approach solving various issues. However, fantasies should not be completely divorced from reality; there should be a constant mutual connection between them.

The fantasies of anxious children, as a rule, lack this property. A dream does not continue life, but rather opposes itself to it. In life I can’t run; in my dreams I win a prize at regional competitions; I am not sociable, I have few friends - in my dreams I am the leader of a huge company and perform heroic deeds that evoke admiration from everyone. The fact that such children and adolescents could actually achieve the object of their dreams is, not surprisingly, of no interest to them, even if it costs little effort. Their real advantages and victories will meet the same fate. In general, they try not to think about what actually exists, since everything that is real for them is filled with anxiety. As a matter of fact, the real and the factual change places for them: they live precisely in the sphere of their dreams, and everything outside this sphere is perceived as a bad dream.

However, such withdrawal into one’s illusory world is not reliable enough - sooner or later the demands of the big world will burst into the child’s world and more effective effective methods of protection against anxiety will be needed.

Anxious children often come to a simple conclusion: in order not to be afraid of anything, you need to make them afraid of me. As Eric Berne puts it, they try to convey their anxiety to others. That's why Aggressive behavior is often a form of hiding personal anxiety.

Anxiety can be very difficult to see behind aggressiveness. Self-confident, aggressive, humiliating others at every opportunity, do not look alarming at all. His speech and manners are careless, his clothes have a connotation of shamelessness and excessive “uncomplexedness.” And yet, often in the depths of their souls such children have increased anxiety. And behavior and appearance are only ways to get rid of feelings of self-doubt, from the consciousness of one’s inability to live as one would like.

Another common outcome of anxious experiences is passive behavior, lethargy, apathy, and lack of initiative. The conflict between conflicting aspirations was resolved through the renunciation of all aspirations.

The “mask” of apathy is even more deceptive than the “mask” of aggression. Inertia, the absence of any emotional reactions prevents us from recognizing the disturbing background, the internal contradiction that led to the development of this state.” . Passive behavior - “apathy” - often occurs when children are overprotected by parents, with “symbiotic their coexistence, when the elders fully fulfill all the wishes of the younger ones, receiving in return a completely obedient child, but devoid of will, infantile, and lacking sufficient experience and social skills.

Another reason for passivity is authoritarian upbringing in the family, the requirement of unquestioning obedience to parents, edifying instructions: “Don’t do this and that” contribute to the emergence of a source of anxiety in the child due to fear of violating the instructions.

Apathy is often a consequence of the failure of other adaptation methods. When neither fantasies, nor rituals, nor even aggression help cope with anxiety . But apathy and indifference are most often a consequence of inflated demands and excessive restrictions. If a child does not want to do anything on his own, then parents need to carefully reconsider their claims. A way out of apathy is possible only through overcoming conflict experiences. The child should be given complete freedom, any initiative, encourage any of his activities. There is no need to be afraid of “negative” consequences.

Anxious children are characterized by frequent manifestations of anxiety and anxiety, as well as a large number of fears, and fears and anxiety arise in situations in which the child would seem to be in no danger. Anxious children are particularly sensitive, suspicious and impressionable. Also, children are often characterized by low self-esteem, which causes them to expect trouble from others. This is typical for those children whose parents set impossible tasks for them, demanding things that the children are not able to do. Moreover, in case of failure, their rule is to punish them by “humiliating” (“You can’t do anything!”).

Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities in which they have difficulty.

In such children, you can notice a noticeable difference in behavior in and outside of class. Outside of class these are lively, sociable and spontaneous children; in class they are tight and tense. Teachers answer questions in a low and muffled voice, and may even begin to stutter. Their speech can be either very fast and hasty, or slow and labored. Usually, motor excitement occurs: The child is fiddling with his clothes and manipulating something.

Anxious children tend to develop bad habits of a neurotic nature: they bite their nails, suck their fingers, and pull out their hair. Manipulating their own body reduces their emotional stress and calms them down.

Among the causes of childhood anxiety, the first place is improper upbringing and unfavorable relationships between the child and his parents, especially with his mother. Thus, rejection and non-acceptance of the child by the mother causes anxiety in him due to the impossibility of satisfying the need for love, affection and protection. In this case fear arises: the child feels the conditionality of maternal love(“If I do something bad, they won’t love me.”) Failure to satisfy the need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means (Savina, 1996).

Childhood anxiety can also be a consequence of the symbiotic relationship between the child and the mother, when the mother feels like one with the child and tries to protect him from the difficulties and troubles of life. She “ties” the child to herself, protecting her from imaginary, non-existent dangers. As a result, the child experiences anxiety when left without a mother, is easily lost, worried and afraid. Instead of activity and independence, passivity and dependence develop.

In those cases when education is based on excessive demands, which the child is unable to cope with or copes with difficulty, Anxiety can be caused by the fear of not being able to cope, of doing the wrong thing. Often parents cultivate “correctness” of behavior: the attitude towards the child may include strict control, a strict system of norms and rules, deviation from which entails censure and punishment. In these cases, the child’s anxiety may be generated by the fear of deviating from the norms and rules established by adults.

A child’s anxiety can also be caused by the peculiarities of interaction between an adult and a child: the prevalence of an authoritarian style of communication or inconsistency of demands and assessments. In both the first and second cases, the child is in constant tension due to the fear of not fulfilling the demands of adults, not “pleasing” them, and transgressing strict boundaries.

When we talk about strict limits, we mean the restrictions set by the teacher. These include restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, in outdoor games), in activities, etc.; limiting children's inconsistency in classes, for example, cutting children off. Restrictions can also include interrupting the emotional manifestations of children. So, if emotions arise in a child during an activity, they need to be thrown out, which can be prevented by an authoritarian teacher.

Disciplinary measures applied by such a teacher most often come down to reprimands, shouting, negative assessments, and punishments.

An inconsistent teacher causes anxiety in a child by not giving him the opportunity to predict his own behavior.. The constant variability of the teacher’s demands, the dependence of his behavior on his mood, emotional lability lead to confusion in the child, the inability to decide what he should do in this or that case.

The teacher also needs to know situations that can cause children's anxiety, first of all, a situation of rejection from a significant adult or from peers; the child believes that the fact that he is not loved is his fault, he is bad. The child will strive to earn love through positive results and success in activities.. If this desire is not justified, then the child’s anxiety increases.

The next situation is a situation of rivalry, competition. It will cause especially strong anxiety in children whose upbringing takes place in conditions of hypersocialization.. In this case, children, finding themselves in a situation of competition, will strive to be first, to achieve the highest results at any cost.

Another situation - a situation of increased responsibility. When an anxious child falls into it, his anxiety is caused by the fear of not meeting the hopes and expectations of an adult and of being rejected.

In such situations Anxious children, as a rule, have an inappropriate reaction. In case of their anticipation, expectation or frequent repetitions of the same situation causing anxiety, the child develops a behavioral stereotype, a certain pattern, allowing you to avoid anxiety or reduce it as much as possible. Such templates include systematic refusal to answer questions in class, refusal to participate in activities that cause anxiety, as well as the child’s silence instead of answering questions from unfamiliar adults or those towards whom the child has a negative attitude.

We can agree with the conclusion of A.M. Prikozhan, about that anxiety in childhood is a stable formation in individuals that persists over a fairly long period of time. She has its own motivating force and stable forms of implementation in behavior with a predominance of compensatory and protective manifestations in the latter. Like any complex psychological formation, anxiety is characterized by a complex structure, including cognitive, emotional and operational aspects with the dominance of the emotional... it is a derivative of a wide range of family disorders (Maktantseva, 1998).

Techniques for diagnosing anxiety and anxiety

There are many different techniques for identifying anxiety; this chapter describes the most popular ones.

COURSE WORK

“Study of anxiety factors in children of primary school age”

Introduction

2 Analysis of the results of experimental work on the study of anxiety factors in children of primary school age

Conclusion

Bibliography

Applications

Introduction

Currently, anxiety is one of the most common phenomena of mental development encountered in school practice. Anxiety manifests itself in constant worry, uncertainty, anticipation of unfavorable developments, constant anticipation of the worst, and emotional instability.

Feelings of anxiety at school age are inevitable. However, the intensity of this experience should not exceed the individual “critical point” for each child, after which it begins to have a disorganizing rather than a mobilizing effect. When the level of anxiety exceeds the optimal limit, a person panics. In an effort to avoid failure, he withdraws from activities, or puts everything on achieving success in a specific situation and becomes so exhausted that he “fails” in other situations. And all this increases the fear of failure, anxiety increases, becoming a constant obstacle. Both parents and teachers are well aware of how painful the school years are for anxious children. But school time is the main and fundamental part of childhood: it is the time of personality formation, choosing a life path, mastering social norms and rules. If the leitmotif of a schoolchild’s experiences is anxiety and self-doubt, then an anxious and suspicious personality is formed. The choice of profession for such a person is based on the desire to protect himself from failure; communication with peers and teachers is not a joy, but a burden. And the intellectual development of a schoolchild, when he is bound hand and foot by anxiety, is not combined with the development of creative abilities, originality of thinking, and curiosity.

The study of anxiety in younger schoolchildren is extremely important in connection with the problem of the emotional and personal development of children and the preservation of their health. In this work, I consider one of its aspects - the question of factors that provoke the manifestation of high anxiety in children of primary school age.

The relevance of the chosen research topic is determined by the tasks of psychological and pedagogical practice set before it in connection with modern requirements of society for various aspects of child health. Childhood, especially primary school age, is decisive in the development of a child’s personality, since during this period of life the basic properties and personal qualities take shape and largely determine all of his subsequent development. The degree of manifestation of anxiety determines the success of a student’s education at school, the characteristics of his relationships with peers, and the effectiveness of adaptation to new conditions.

Changing social relationships can present significant difficulties for a child. Many children, during periods of adaptation to school, begin to experience anxiety, emotional tension, become restless, withdrawn, and whiny. It is especially important at this time to exercise control over the preservation of the child’s psycho-emotional well-being. The problem of diagnosing and preventing childhood anxiety deserves special attention, since, developing into a property and personal quality of a child at primary school age, anxiety can become a stable personality trait in adolescence and become the cause of neuroses and psychosomatic diseases in adulthood.

Many studies have been devoted to the study of school anxiety. In foreign psychology, the phenomenon of anxiety was studied by Z. Freud, K. Horney, A. Freud, J. Taylor, R. May and others. In Russian psychology, works on the problem of anxiety by V.R. are known. Kislovskaya, A.M. Prikhozhan, Yu.L. Khanina, I.A. Musina, V.M. Astapova. Currently, in our country, anxiety is studied mainly within the narrow framework of specific problems: school anxiety (E.V. Novikova, T.A. Nezhnova, A.M. Prikhozhan), exam anxiety (V.S. Rotenberg, S.M. Bondarenko), anxiety of expectations in social communication (V.R. Kislovskaya, A.M. Prikhozhan).

The research problem is formulated as follows: what are the factors of anxiety in children of primary school age?

Solving this problem is the goal of this study.

The object of the study is the manifestation of anxiety in children of primary school age.

The subject of the study is the relationship between anxiety and status in the classroom in children of primary school age.

The research hypothesis is that a high level of anxiety in children of primary school age is associated with the status position in the class.

To achieve the goal and test the research hypothesis, the following tasks were identified:

To study the theoretical basis of the phenomenon of anxiety in domestic and foreign psychology;
To study the features of the manifestation of anxiety in children of primary school age;
To study anxiety factors in children of primary school age;
Describe a system of psychodiagnostic techniques for determining the level of anxiety in children of primary school age;
To experimentally study the factors of anxiety manifestation in children of primary school age.

Research methods: analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, method of sociometric measurements for diagnosing interpersonal relationships in the classroom, Phillips school anxiety test.

Experimental base. The study was conducted on the basis of Municipal Budgetary Educational Institution “Secondary School No. 59” in the city of Cheboksary.

Chapter I. Theoretical substantiation of the problem of anxiety in primary school age

1 Research on anxiety in domestic and foreign psychology

In the psychological literature, one can find different definitions of the concept of anxiety, although most researchers agree on the need to consider it differentially: as a situational phenomenon and as a personal characteristic, taking into account the transition state and its dynamics. Anxiety is distinguished as an emotional state and as a stable property, personality trait or temperament. A-priory

R.S. Nemova: “Anxiety is a constantly or situationally manifested property of a person to come in a state of heightened anxiety, to experience fear and anxiety in specific social situations.”

A.M. Parishioner points out that anxiety is “the experience of emotional discomfort associated with the expectation of trouble, with a premonition of impending danger.”

Modern anxiety research is aimed at distinguishing between situational anxiety, which is associated with a specific external situation, and trait anxiety, which is a stable personality trait. And also on the development of methods for analyzing anxiety as a result of the interaction of an individual and his environment.

An analysis of the literature allows us to consider anxiety from different points of view, allowing the assertion that increased anxiety arises and is realized as a result of a complex interaction of cognitive, affective and behavioral reactions provoked when a person is exposed to various stresses.

In a study of the level of aspirations in adolescents, M.Z. Neymark discovered a negative emotional state in the form of anxiety, fear, aggression, which was caused by dissatisfaction of their claims to success. Also, emotional distress such as anxiety was observed in children with high self-esteem. They claimed to occupy the highest position in the team, although they had no real opportunities to realize their aspirations.

M.S. Neymark calls this “the affect of inadequacy - an acute emotional desire to protect oneself from one’s own weakness, by any means to prevent self-doubt, repulsion from the truth, anger and irritation against everything and everyone from becoming conscious.” This condition can become chronic and last for months or years. The strong need for self-affirmation leads to the fact that the interests of these children are directed only towards themselves.

This condition cannot but cause anxiety in the child. Initially, the anxiety is justified; it is caused by real difficulties for the child. But constantly, as the inadequacy of the child’s attitude towards himself, his capabilities, people becomes stronger, inadequacy will become a stable feature of his attitude to the world, the child will expect trouble in any cases that are objectively negative for him.

M.S. Neimark shows that affect becomes an obstacle to the correct formation of personality, so it is very important to overcome it. It is very difficult to overcome the affect of inadequacy. The main task is to really bring the child’s needs and capabilities into line, or to help him raise his real capabilities to the level of self-esteem, or to lower his self-esteem. But the most realistic way is to switch the child’s interests and aspirations to an area where the child can achieve success and establish himself.

The term “anxiety” is used to describe an unpleasant emotional state or internal condition, which is characterized by subjective feelings of tension, anxiety, gloomy forebodings, and, on the physiological side, activation of the autonomic nervous system. A state of anxiety occurs when an individual perceives a certain stimulus or situation as containing actual or potential elements of danger, threat or harm. State anxiety can vary in intensity and change over time as a function of the level of stress to which the individual is exposed.

Unlike anxiety as a state, anxiety as a personality trait is not inherent in everyone. An anxious person is a person who is constantly unsure of himself and his decisions, always waiting for trouble, emotionally unstable, suspicious, and distrustful. Anxiety as a personality trait can become a harbinger of the development of neurosis. But for it to form, a person must accumulate a baggage of unsuccessful, inadequate ways to overcome the state of anxiety.

A large number of authors believe that anxiety is an integral part of a state of strong mental tension - stress. So, V.V. Suvorova studied stress obtained in laboratory conditions. She defines stress as a condition that occurs under extreme conditions that are very difficult and unpleasant for a person. V.S. Merlin defines stress as psychological, rather than nervous, tension that occurs in an “extremely difficult situation.”

It can be assumed that the presence of anxiety in a state of stress is associated precisely with the expectation of danger or trouble, with a premonition of it. Therefore, anxiety may not arise directly in a situation of stress, but before the onset of these conditions, ahead of them. Anxiety, as a state, is the expectation of trouble. However, anxiety can be different depending on from whom the subject expects trouble: from himself (his own failure), from objective circumstances, or from other people.

It is important that, firstly, both under stress and under frustration, the authors note emotional distress in the subject, which is expressed in anxiety, restlessness, confusion, fear, and uncertainty. But this anxiety is always justified, associated with real difficulties. I.V. Imedadze directly connects the state of anxiety with the anticipation of frustration. In her opinion, anxiety arises when anticipating a situation containing the danger of frustration of an actualized need.

We find an approach to explaining the tendency to anxiety from the point of view of the physiological characteristics of the properties of the nervous system from domestic psychologists. So, in the laboratory of I.P. Pavlov, it was found that, most likely, a nervous breakdown under the influence of external stimuli occurs in the weak type, then in the excitable type, and animals with a strong, balanced type with good mobility are least susceptible to breakdowns.

Data from B.M. Teplov also point out the connection between the state of anxiety and the strength of the nervous system. The assumptions he made about the inverse correlation between the strength and sensitivity of the nervous system found experimental confirmation in the studies of V.D. Fable. He makes the assumption that people with a weak type of nervous system have a higher level of anxiety.

Finally, we should dwell on the work of V.S. Merlin, who studied the issue of anxiety symptom complex.

The understanding of anxiety was introduced into psychology by psychoanalysts and psychiatrists abroad. Many representatives of psychoanalysis considered anxiety as an innate personality trait, as an initially inherent state of a person. The founder of psychoanalysis, S. Freud, argued that a person has several innate drives - instincts that are the driving force of human behavior and determine his mood. S. Freud believed that the collision of biological drives with social prohibitions gives rise to neuroses and anxiety. As a person grows up, the original instincts acquire new forms of manifestation. However, in new forms they encounter the prohibitions of civilization, and a person is forced to mask and suppress his desires. The drama of an individual's mental life begins at birth and continues throughout life. Freud sees a natural way out of this situation in the sublimation of “libidinal energy,” that is, in the direction of energy towards other life goals: production and creative. Successful sublimation frees a person from anxiety.

In individual psychology, A. Adler offers a new look at the origin of neuroses. According to Adler, neurosis is based on such mechanisms as fear, fear of life, fear of difficulties, as well as the desire for a certain position in a group of people, which the individual, due to some individual characteristics or social conditions, could not achieve, that is, it is clearly visible that neurosis is based on situations in which a person, due to certain circumstances, to one degree or another experiences a feeling of anxiety. A feeling of inferiority can arise from a subjective feeling of physical weakness or any deficiencies in the body, or from those mental properties and personality traits that interfere with satisfying the need for communication. Thus, for Adler, at the core of neuroses and anxiety is the contradiction between “wanting” (the will to power) and “being able” (inferiority), resulting from the desire for superiority. Depending on how this contradiction is resolved, all further development of the personality occurs.

The problem of anxiety became the subject of special research among neo-Freudians, and above all by K. Horney.

In Horney's theory, the main sources of anxiety and restlessness of the individual are not rooted in the conflict between biological drives and social prohibitions, but are the result of incorrect human relationships.

In his book The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, Horney lists 11 neurotic needs:

)Neurotic need for affection and approval, the desire to please others, to be pleasant;

)Neurotic need for a “partner” who fulfills all desires, expectations, fear of being left alone;

)Neurotic need to limit one's life to narrow boundaries, to remain unnoticed;

)Neurotic need for power over others through intelligence, foresight;

)Neurotic need to exploit others, to get the best from them;

)Need for social recognition or prestige;

)The need for personal adoration. Inflated self-image;

)Neurotic claims to personal achievements, the need to surpass others;

)Neurotic need for self-satisfaction and independence, the need not to need anyone;

)Neurotic need for love;

)Neurotic need for superiority, perfection, inaccessibility.

E. Fromm approaches the understanding of anxiety differently. He believes that in the era of medieval society, with its mode of production and class structure, man was not free, but he was not isolated and alone, did not feel as dangerous and did not experience such anxieties as under capitalism, because he was not " alienated" from things, from nature, from people. Man was connected to the world by primary ties, which Fromm calls “natural social ties” that exist in primitive society. With the growth of capitalism, primary bonds are broken, a free individual appears, cut off from nature, from people, as a result of which he experiences a deep sense of uncertainty, powerlessness, doubt, loneliness and anxiety. To get rid of the anxiety generated by “negative freedom,” a person strives to get rid of this freedom itself. He sees the only way out in escaping from freedom, that is, escaping from himself, in an effort to forget himself and thereby suppress the state of anxiety in himself.

Fromm believes that all these mechanisms, including “flight into oneself,” only cover up the feeling of anxiety, but do not completely rid the individual of it. On the contrary, the feeling of isolation intensifies, because the loss of one’s “I” is the most painful condition. Mental mechanisms of escape from freedom are irrational; according to Fromm, they are not a reaction to environmental conditions, and therefore are not able to eliminate the causes of suffering and anxiety.

Thus, in understanding the nature of anxiety, two approaches can be traced among different authors: understanding anxiety as an inherently human property and understanding anxiety as a reaction to an external world hostile to a person, that is, deriving anxiety from the social conditions of life.

2 Features of anxiety in children of primary school age

Junior school age covers the period of life from 6 to 11 years and is determined by the most important circumstance in a child’s life - his enrollment in school.

With the arrival of school, the emotional sphere of the child changes. On the one hand, younger schoolchildren, especially first-graders, largely retain the characteristic characteristic of preschoolers to react violently to individual events and situations that affect them. Children are sensitive to the influences of environmental living conditions, impressionable and emotionally responsive. They perceive, first of all, those objects or properties of objects that evoke a direct emotional response, an emotional attitude. Visual, bright, lively is perceived best.

On the other hand, entering school gives rise to new, specific emotional experiences, since the freedom of preschool age is replaced by dependence and submission to new rules of life. The situation of school life introduces the child into a strictly standardized world of relationships, demanding from him organization, responsibility, discipline, and good academic performance. By tightening living conditions, the new social situation increases mental tension for every child entering school. This affects both the health of younger schoolchildren and their behavior.

Entering school is an event in a child’s life in which two defining motives of his behavior necessarily come into conflict: the motive of desire (“I want”) and the motive of obligation (“I have to”). If the motive of desire always comes from the child himself, then the motive of obligation is more often initiated by adults.

A child’s inability to meet new standards and demands from adults inevitably makes him doubt and worry. A child entering school becomes extremely dependent on the opinions, assessments and attitudes of the people around him. Awareness of critical comments addressed to oneself affects one’s well-being and leads to a change in self-esteem.

If before school some individual characteristics of the child could not interfere with his natural development, they were accepted and taken into account by adults, then at school there is a standardization of living conditions, as a result of which emotional and behavioral deviations of personal characteristics become especially noticeable. First of all, hyperexcitability, increased sensitivity, poor self-control, and lack of understanding of the norms and rules of adults reveal themselves.

The dependence of younger schoolchildren not only on the opinions of adults (parents and teachers), but also on the opinions of peers is growing. This leads to the fact that he begins to experience a special kind of fear: that he will be considered funny, a coward, a deceiver, or weak-willed. As noted

A.I. Zakharov, if in preschool age fears caused by the instinct of self-preservation prevail, then in primary school age social fears prevail as a threat to the well-being of the individual in the context of his relationships with other people.

Thus, the main points in the development of feelings at school age are that feelings become more and more conscious and motivated; there is an evolution in the content of feelings, due to both a change in the student’s lifestyle and the nature of the student’s activities; the form of manifestations of emotions and feelings, their expression in behavior, in the inner life of the student changes; The importance of the emerging system of feelings and experiences in the development of the student’s personality increases. And it is at this age that anxiety begins to appear.

Persistent anxiety and intense, constant fears in children are among the most common reasons why parents turn to a psychologist. Moreover, in recent years, compared to the previous period, the number of such requests has increased significantly. Special experimental studies also indicate an increase in anxiety and fears in children. According to long-term studies conducted both in our country and abroad, the number of anxious people - regardless of gender, age, regional and other characteristics - is usually close to 15%.

Changing social relationships pose significant difficulties for a child. Anxiety and emotional tension are associated mainly with the absence of people close to the child, with changes in the environment, usual conditions and rhythm of life.

This mental state of anxiety is usually defined as a generalized feeling of a non-specific, vague threat. The expectation of impending danger is combined with a feeling of uncertainty: the child, as a rule, is not able to explain what, in essence, he is afraid of.

Anxiety can be divided into 2 forms: personal and situational.

Personal anxiety is understood as a stable individual characteristic that reflects a subject’s predisposition to anxiety and presupposes his tendency to perceive a fairly wide range of situations as threatening, responding to each of them with a specific reaction. As a predisposition, personal anxiety is activated by the perception of certain stimuli that are regarded by a person as dangerous to self-esteem and self-esteem.

Situational or reactive anxiety as a condition is characterized by subjectively experienced emotions: tension, anxiety, concern, nervousness. This condition occurs as an emotional reaction to a stressful situation and can vary in intensity and dynamics over time.

Individuals classified as highly anxious tend to perceive a threat to their self-esteem and functioning in a wide range of situations and react with a very pronounced state of anxiety.

Two large groups of signs of anxiety can be distinguished: the first is physiological signs that occur at the level of somatic symptoms and sensations; the second is reactions occurring in the mental sphere.

Most often, somatic signs manifest themselves in an increase in the frequency of breathing and heartbeat, an increase in general agitation, and a decrease in sensitivity thresholds. These also include: a lump in the throat, a feeling of heaviness or pain in the head, a feeling of heat, weakness in the legs, trembling hands, abdominal pain, cold and wet palms, an unexpected and inappropriate desire to go to the toilet, a feeling of self-consciousness, sloppiness , clumsiness, itching and more. These sensations explain to us why a student, going to the board, carefully rubs his nose, straightens his suit, why the chalk trembles in his hand and falls to the floor, why during a test someone runs his whole hand through his hair, someone cannot clear his throat, and someone insistently asks to leave. This often irritates adults, who sometimes perceive malicious intent even in such natural and innocent manifestations.

The psychological and behavioral reactions of anxiety are even more varied, bizarre and unexpected. Anxiety, as a rule, entails difficulty making decisions and impaired coordination of movements. Sometimes the tension of anxious anticipation is so great that a person unwittingly causes himself pain. Hence the unexpected blows and falls. Mild manifestations of anxiety, such as a feeling of restlessness and uncertainty about the correctness of one’s behavior, are an integral part of the emotional life of any person. Children, as insufficiently prepared to overcome the subject's anxious situations, often resort to lies, fantasies, and become inattentive, absent-minded, and shy.

Anxiety not only disorganizes educational activities, it begins to destroy personal structures. Of course, it is not only anxiety that causes behavioral disorders. There are other mechanisms of deviations in the development of a child’s personality. However, psychologists-consultants argue that most of the problems for which parents turn to them, most of the obvious violations that impede the normal course of education and upbringing are fundamentally associated with the child’s anxiety.

Anxious children are characterized by frequent manifestations of restlessness and anxiety, as well as a large number of fears, and fears and anxiety arise in situations in which the child would seem to be in no danger. Anxious children are particularly sensitive, suspicious and impressionable. Also, children are often characterized by low self-esteem, which causes them to expect trouble from others. This is typical for those children whose parents set impossible tasks for them, demanding things that the children are not able to do. Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities in which they experience difficulties. In such children, there may be a noticeable difference in behavior in and outside of class. Outside of class, these are lively, sociable and spontaneous children; in class they are tense and tense. Teachers answer questions in a low and muffled voice, and may even begin to stutter. Their speech can be either very fast and hasty, or slow and labored. As a rule, motor excitement occurs: the child fiddles with clothes with his hands, manipulates something. Anxious children tend to develop bad habits of a neurotic nature: they bite their nails, suck their fingers, and pull out their hair. Manipulating their own body reduces their emotional stress and calms them down.

The causes of childhood anxiety are improper upbringing and unfavorable relationships between the child and his parents, especially with his mother. Thus, rejection and non-acceptance of the child by the mother causes him anxiety due to the impossibility of satisfying the need for love, affection and protection. In this case, fear arises: the child feels the conditionality of maternal love. Failure to satisfy the need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means.

Childhood anxiety can also be a consequence of the symbiotic relationship between the child and the mother, when the mother feels like one with the child and tries to protect him from the difficulties and troubles of life. As a result, the child experiences anxiety when left without a mother, is easily lost, worried and afraid. Instead of activity and independence, passivity and dependence develop.

A child’s anxiety can be generated by the fear of deviating from the norms and rules established by adults.

These include: restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, in outdoor games), in activities; limiting children's inconsistency in classes, for example, cutting children off; interrupting children's emotional expressions. So, if emotions arise in a child during an activity, they need to be thrown out, which can be prevented by an authoritarian teacher. The strict limits set by an authoritarian teacher often imply a high pace of classes, which keeps the child in constant tension for a long time and creates a fear of not being able to do it in time or doing it wrong.

Anxiety arises in situations of rivalry and competition. It will cause especially strong anxiety in children whose upbringing takes place in conditions of hypersocialization. In this case, children, finding themselves in a situation of competition, will strive to be first, to achieve the highest results at any cost.

Anxiety arises in situations of increased responsibility. When an anxious child falls into it, his anxiety is caused by the fear of not meeting the hopes and expectations of an adult and of being rejected. In such situations, anxious children usually have an inadequate reaction. If they are foreseen, expected, or frequently repeat the same situation that causes anxiety, the child develops a behavioral stereotype, a certain pattern that allows him to avoid anxiety or reduce it as much as possible. Such patterns include systematic refusal to answer questions in class, refusal to participate in activities that cause anxiety, and the child remaining silent instead of answering questions from unfamiliar adults or those to whom the child has a negative attitude.

We can agree with the conclusion of A.M. Parishioners that anxiety in childhood is a stable personal formation that persists over a fairly long period of time. It has its own motivating force and stable forms of implementation in behavior with a predominance of compensatory and protective manifestations in the latter. Like any complex psychological formation, anxiety is characterized by a complex structure, including cognitive, emotional and operational aspects. With emotional dominance, it is a derivative of a wide range of family disorders.

Thus, anxious children of primary school age are characterized by frequent manifestations of worry and anxiety, as well as a large amount of fear, and fears and anxiety arise in situations in which the child, as a rule, is not in danger. They are also especially sensitive, suspicious and impressionable. Such children are often characterized by low self-esteem, and therefore they have an expectation of trouble from others. Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities in which they experience difficulties. Increased anxiety prevents the child from communicating and interacting in the child-child system; child - adult, the formation of educational activities, in particular, a constant feeling of anxiety does not allow the formation of control and evaluation activities, and control and evaluation actions are one of the main components of educational activities. Increased anxiety also helps to block the body’s psychosomatic systems and prevents effective work in the classroom.

3 Anxiety factors in children of primary school age

Increased school anxiety, which has a disorganizing effect on a child’s educational activities, can be caused either by purely situational factors or reinforced by the child’s individual characteristics (temperament, character, system of relationships with significant others outside of school).

The school educational environment is described by the following features:

· physical space, characterized by aesthetic features and determining the possibilities of spatial movements of the child;

· human factors associated with the characteristics of the “student - teacher - administration - parents” system;

· training program.

The smallest “risk factor” for the development of school anxiety is, of course, the first sign. The design of a school premises as a component of the educational environment is the least stressful factor, although some studies show that in some cases certain school premises may also be the cause of school anxiety.

The most typical occurrence of school anxiety is associated with socio-psychological factors or the factor of educational programs. Based on an analysis of the literature and experience in working with school anxiety, we have identified several factors whose impact contributes to its formation and consolidation. These include:

· educational overload;

Study overload is caused by various aspects of the modern system of organizing the educational process.

Firstly, they are related to the structure of the academic year. Research shows that after six weeks of active activities in children (primarily primary schoolchildren and adolescents), the level of performance sharply decreases and the level of anxiety increases. Restoring an optimal state for educational activity requires at least a week's break. As practice shows, this rule is not met by at least three academic quarters out of four. Only in recent years and only first-graders have received the privilege of an extra vacation in the middle of an exhausting and long third quarter. And for the remaining parallels, the shortest quarter - the second - lasts, as a rule, seven weeks.

Secondly, overload can be caused by the child's workload with school work during the school week. The days with optimal academic performance are Tuesday and Wednesday, then, starting from Thursday, the effectiveness of educational activity decreases sharply. For proper rest and recuperation, a child needs at least one full day off per week, when he does not have to return to homework and other schoolwork. It has been found that students who receive homework on the weekend are characterized by higher levels of anxiety than their peers “who have the opportunity to completely devote Sunday to rest.”

And finally, thirdly, the currently accepted lesson duration contributes to students’ overload. Observations of children's behavior during the lesson show that in the first 30 minutes of the lesson the child is distracted more than three times less than in the last 15 minutes. Almost half of all distractions occur in the last 10 minutes of a lesson. At the same time, the level of school anxiety also increases relatively.

A student’s inability to cope with the school curriculum can be caused by a variety of reasons:

· an increased level of complexity of educational programs that do not correspond to the level of development of children, which is especially typical for “prestigious schools” so beloved by parents, where, according to research, children are much more anxious than in ordinary secondary schools, and the more complex the program, the more pronounced the disorganizing the influence of anxiety;

· insufficient level of development of higher mental functions of students, pedagogical neglect, insufficient professional competence of a teacher who does not have the skills to present material or pedagogical communication;

· psychological syndrome of chronic failure, which, as a rule, develops at primary school age; The main feature of the psychological profile of such a child is high anxiety caused by discrepancies between the expectations of adults and the child’s achievements.

School anxiety is associated with academic performance. The most “anxious” children are poor students and excellent students. “Average” students in terms of academic performance are characterized by greater emotional stability compared to those who are focused on getting only “A’s” or do not particularly count on a grade above a “C.”

Inadequate expectations on the part of parents are a typical reason that gives rise to intrapersonal conflict in a child, which, in turn, leads to the formation and consolidation of anxiety in general. In terms of school anxiety, these are, first of all, expectations regarding school performance. The more parents are focused on their child achieving high educational results, the more pronounced the child’s anxiety is. It is interesting that the educational success of a child for parents in the vast majority of cases is expressed in the grades they receive and is measured by them. It is known that now the objectivity of assessing students’ knowledge is questioned even by pedagogy itself. Assessment is largely the result of the teacher’s attitude towards the child whose knowledge is currently being assessed. Therefore, in the case when a student actually achieves some educational results, but the teacher stereotypically continues to give him “twos” (or “threes” or “fours”) without raising his grades, parents often do not provide him with emotional support, because simply have no idea of his real successes. Thus, the child’s motivation associated with achievements in educational activities is not reinforced and may disappear over time.

Unfavorable relationships with teachers as a factor in the formation of school anxiety are multi-layered.

Firstly, anxiety can be generated by the style of interaction with students that the teacher adheres to. Even without taking into account such obvious cases as the teacher’s use of physical violence or insulting children, we can highlight the features of the style of pedagogical interaction that contribute to the formation of school anxiety. The highest level of school anxiety is demonstrated by children from classes of teachers professing the so-called “reasoning-methodical” style of teaching. This style is characterized by the teacher’s equally high demands on “strong” and “weak” students, intolerance towards violations of discipline, and a tendency to move from discussing specific mistakes to assessing the student’s personality with high methodological literacy. In such conditions, students are not eager to come to the board, they are afraid of making a mistake when giving an oral answer, etc.

Secondly, the formation of anxiety can be facilitated by excessive demands placed on students by the teacher; these requirements often do not correspond to the age capabilities of children. It is interesting that teachers often consider school anxiety as a positive characteristic of a child, which indicates his responsibility, diligence, and interest in learning, and specifically try to increase emotional tension in the educational process, which, in fact, gives the exact opposite effect.

Thirdly, anxiety can be caused by a teacher’s selective attitude towards a particular child, primarily associated with this child’s systematic violation of the rules of behavior in the classroom. Considering that indiscipline in the overwhelming majority of cases is precisely a consequence of already formed school anxiety, constant “negative attention” on the part of the teacher will contribute to its fixation and strengthening, thereby reinforcing the child’s undesirable forms of behavior.

Regularly repeated assessment and examination situations have a strong impact on the emotional state of the student, since intelligence testing is generally one of the most psychologically uncomfortable situations, especially if this test is in one way or another connected with the social status of the individual. Considerations of prestige, the desire for respect and authority in the eyes of classmates, parents, teachers, the desire to get a good grade that justifies the efforts spent on preparation, ultimately determine the emotionally intense nature of the evaluation situation, which is reinforced by the fact that anxiety is often accompanied by a search for social approval .

For some students, any answer in class can be a stressful factor, including the most common answer “from the spot.” As a rule, this is due to the child’s increased shyness, lack of necessary communication skills, or with hypertrophied motivation “to be good”, “to be smart”, “to be the best”, “to get an A”, indicating conflicting self-esteem and already formed school anxiety.

However, most children experience anxiety during more serious “tests” - tests or exams. The main reason for this anxiety is the uncertainty of ideas about the result of future activities.

The negative impact of the situation of testing knowledge primarily affects those students for whom anxiety is a stable personality trait. It is easier for these children to take tests, examinations and tests in written form, since in this way two potentially stressful components are excluded from the assessment situation - the component of interaction with the teacher and the “public” component of the answer. This is understandable: the higher the anxiety, the more difficult it is for situations that potentially threaten self-esteem, and the more likely the disorganizing effect of anxiety is.

However, “examination-evaluation” anxiety also occurs in those children who do not have anxious personality traits. In this case, it is determined by purely situational factors, however, being quite intense, it also disorganizes the student’s activity, not allowing him to show his best side in the exam, making it difficult to present even well-learned material.

A change in school staff in itself is a powerful stress factor, since it implies the need to establish new relationships with unfamiliar peers, and the result of subjective efforts is not determined, since it mainly depends on other people (those students who make up the new class). Consequently, the transition from school to school (less often, from class to class) provokes the formation of anxiety (primarily interpersonal). Prosperous relationships with classmates are the most important resource for motivating school attendance. Refusal to attend school is often accompanied by statements such as “there are also fools in my class”, “they are boring”, etc. A similar effect is caused by the children’s non-acceptance of the “old man”, whom, as a rule, classmates associate with his “abnormality” : interferes in lessons, is insolent to his favorite teachers, sneaks, does not communicate with anyone, considers himself better than others.

Thus, a feeling of anxiety at school age is inevitable. A schoolchild is affected by various anxiety factors every day. Therefore, optimal learning at school is possible only if there is a more or less systematic experience of anxiety about the events of school life. However, the intensity of this experience should not exceed the individual “critical point” for each child, after which it begins to have a disorganizing rather than a mobilizing effect.

Conclusions from the first chapter: A number of foreign and domestic researchers have worked on the problem of anxiety. In the psychological literature, you can find different definitions of the concept of anxiety. An analysis of the main works shows that in understanding the nature of anxiety, two approaches can be traced - understanding anxiety as an inherently human property, and understanding anxiety as a reaction to an external world hostile to a person, that is, removing anxiety from the social conditions of life.

There are two main types of anxiety. The first of them is situational anxiety, that is, generated by a specific situation that objectively causes anxiety. Another type is personal anxiety. A child susceptible to this condition is constantly in a wary and depressed mood; it is difficult for him to contact the outside world, which he perceives as frightening and hostile. Being consolidated in the process of character development, personal anxiety leads to the formation of low self-esteem and gloomy pessimism.

Anxious children of primary school age are characterized by frequent manifestations of worry and anxiety, as well as a large amount of fear, and fears and anxiety arise in situations in which the child, as a rule, is not in danger. They are also especially sensitive, suspicious and impressionable. Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities in which they experience difficulties. Increased anxiety prevents the child from communicating and interacting in the child-child, child-adult system. Increased anxiety also helps to block the body’s psychosomatic systems and prevents effective work in the classroom.

Based on an analysis of the literature and experience in working with school anxiety, we have identified several factors whose impact contributes to its formation and consolidation. These include:

· educational overload;

· the student's inability to cope with the school curriculum;

· inadequate expectations from parents;

· unfavorable relationships with teachers;

· regularly recurring assessment and examination situations;

· change of school team and/or non-acceptance by the children's team.

Anxiety as a certain emotional state with a predominant feeling of restlessness and fear of doing something wrong, not meeting generally accepted requirements and standards, develops closer to 7, and especially 8 years of age, with a large number of unresolvable fears coming from an earlier age. . The main source of anxiety for younger schoolchildren is school and family.

However, in children of primary school age, anxiety is not yet a stable character trait and is relatively reversible with appropriate psychological and pedagogical measures. You can significantly reduce a child’s anxiety if teachers and parents raising him follow the necessary recommendations.

Chapter II. Experimental study of anxiety factors in children of primary school age

1 Description of research methods

anxiety junior school mental

Currently, a variety of methodological approaches are used to diagnose school anxiety, including, first of all, observation of student behavior at school, expert surveys of students’ parents and teachers, questionnaire tests and projective tests. In particular, the following methods are used to diagnose the level of anxiety in younger schoolchildren:

· Phillips method for diagnosing the level of school anxiety;

· The Children's Overt Anxiety Scale (CMAS) s Form of Manifest Anxiety Scale);

· Projective technique for diagnosing school anxiety, developed by A.M. Parishioners;

· Personal scale of anxiety manifestations, adapted by T.A. Nemchin;

· Method of unfinished sentences;

· Color-associative technique by A.M. Paracheva.

To test the formulated hypothesis, we conducted a study on the basis of grade 4 “A”, school No. 59 in Cheboksary. 25 children aged 9 - 10 years took part in the experiment. Among them: 15 girls and 10 boys.

Hypothesis: high levels of anxiety in children of primary school age are associated with status position in the class.

Purpose: to study the influence of social status in the classroom on anxiety in children of primary school age.

Select methodological material to identify the social status occupied in the classroom and anxiety in children of primary school age;

Conduct research using selected methods;

Analyze the results obtained.

To determine the level of anxiety in children of primary school age, the following were used:

· Phillips School Anxiety Test;

· Sociometric technique.

Phillips School Anxiety Test.

The purpose of the methodology (questionnaire) is to study the level and nature of anxiety associated with school in children of primary and secondary school age.

The questions asked of the child are given in Appendix No. 1.

1.General anxiety at school is the general emotional state of a child associated with various forms of his inclusion in school life;

2.Experiences of social stress are the emotional state of a child, against the background of which his social contacts develop (primarily with peers);

.Frustration of the need to achieve success is an unfavorable mental background that does not allow the child to develop his needs for success and achieving high results;

.Fear of self-expression - negative emotional experiences of situations associated with the need for self-disclosure, presenting oneself to others, demonstrating one’s capabilities;

.Fear of knowledge testing situations - a negative attitude and the experience of anxiety in situations of testing (especially public) knowledge, achievements, opportunities;

.Fear of not meeting the expectations of others - focus on the importance of others in assessing one’s results, actions, and thoughts, anxiety about the assessments given by others, expectation of negative assessments:

.Low physiological resistance to stress - features of the psychophysiological organization that reduce the child’s adaptability to stressful situations, increasing the likelihood of an inadequate, destructive response to a disturbing environmental factor;

.Problems and fears in relationships with teachers are a general negative emotional background of relationships with adults at school, reducing the success of a child’s education.

When processing the results, questions are identified whose answers do not coincide with the test key. For example, to the 58th question the child answered “yes”, while in the key this question corresponds to “-”, that is, the answer is “no”. Answers that do not match the key are manifestations of anxiety. During processing the following is calculated:

The total number of mismatches for the entire test. If it is more than 50% of the total number of questions, we can talk about increased anxiety in the child, if more than 75% - about high anxiety.

The number of matches for each of the 8 types of anxiety. The level of anxiety is determined in the same way as in the first case. The general internal emotional state of the student is analyzed, which is largely determined by the presence of certain anxiety syndromes (factors) and their number.

Sociometric technique.

The method of sociometric measurements is used to diagnose interpersonal and intergroup relations in order to change, improve and improve them. With the help of sociometry, one can study the typology of social behavior of people in group activities, and judge the socio-psychological compatibility of members of specific groups.

The method of sociometric measurements allows you to obtain information:

· About socio-psychological relationships in the group;

· About the status of people in the group;

· About psychological compatibility and cohesion in a group.

In general, the task of sociometry is to study the unofficial structural aspect of a social group and the psychological atmosphere prevailing in it.

Processing of the results of a sociometric study of a children's group is carried out as follows: the children's choices are recorded in a prepared sociometric table (matrix). Then the choices received by each child are counted and the mutual choices are counted and recorded.

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Causes of increased levels of anxiety in children of primary school age

Psychologists interpret anxiety as emotional discomfort that persists for a long time. The main causes of anxiety in children are manifested in the refusal of everything new. For example, a schoolchild after several days of illness does not want to go to school. Many anxious children are prone to mania, are capricious, get tired quickly, and have difficulty switching to a new type of activity. The first unsuccessful attempt to do something leaves them confused, and the child blames himself for all the troubles happening around him. Such children seem to become infected with anxiety and nervousness from those around them.

Anxiety is not associated with any specific situation and appears almost always. This condition accompanies a person in any situation. When a person is afraid of something specific, we talk about the manifestation of fear. For example, fear of the dark, fear of heights, fear of enclosed spaces.

K. Izard explains the difference between the terms “fear” and “anxiety” in this way: anxiety is a combination of some emotions, and fear is only one of them.

Relevance of the study: The problem of studying anxiety in children seems quite relevant, since the feeling of anxiety at school age is inevitable. However, the intensity of this experience should not exceed the individual “critical point” for each child.

Anxiety is an individual psychological trait that manifests itself in a person’s tendency to often experience severe anxiety for relatively small reasons. It is considered either as a personal formation, or as a feature of temperament associated with the weakness of nervous processes, or as both at the same time.

Types of anxiety:

Sigmund Freud identified three types of anxiety:

Real fear is anxiety associated with danger in the outside world.

Neurotic anxiety is anxiety associated with an unknown and undetectable danger.

Moral anxiety is the so-called “anxiety of conscience”, associated with danger coming from the Super-Ego.

According to the area of occurrence they distinguish:

Private anxiety - anxiety in any particular area associated with something permanent (school, exam, interpersonal anxiety, etc.)

General anxiety is anxiety that freely changes its objects, along with a change in their significance for a person.

According to the adequacy of the situation, they are distinguished:

Adequate anxiety reflects a person’s distress.

Inappropriate anxiety (actually anxiety) is anxiety that manifests itself in areas of reality that are favorable for the individual.

There are various anxieties in children:

1. Anxiety about potential physical harm. This type of anxiety arises as a result of the association of certain stimuli that threaten pain, danger, or physical distress.

2. Anxiety due to loss of love (mother’s love, the affection of peers).

5. Anxiety can also arise in the state. Frustration is defined as the experience that occurs when there is an obstacle to achieving a desired goal or a strong need. There is no complete independence between situations that cause and those that lead to a state of anxiety (loss of parental love, etc.) and the authors do not provide a clear distinction between these concepts.

7. In the occurrence of anxiety, great importance is attached to family upbringing, the role of the mother, the child with the mother. The period of childhood predetermines the subsequent development of personality.

Causes of anxiety in children:

2. Separation.

3.Health of loved ones.

4. Fantasies (monster, etc.)

5. Archaic fears (fire, thunderstorm, thunder, darkness, etc.)

6. Punishment.

Peculiarities of behavior of anxious children

Anxious children are often characterized by low self-esteem, due to which they have an expectation of trouble from others.

Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities, such as drawing, in which they have difficulty.

Research to identify the causes of anxiety in children of primary school age: was conducted in different schools, gymnasiums and lyceums.

They chose the following methods: Phillips test, projective technique “School of Animals”, drawing therapy, technique “Cactus” (); a technique for identifying parental attitudes (methodology), the “colored pencil drawings” technique, an anxiety test (R. Tamml, M. Dorki, V. Amen).

This study was conducted in Maksimovskaya, among students, in order to identify increased anxiety.

The “Philips School Anxiety Test” method was chosen.

The students were asked these questions. Next to each question they had to put “+ or –.” After this, the answers need to be compared with the key; if the student’s answers do not coincide with the key’s answer, this is a manifestation of anxiety.

Test results:

	(increased anxiety)	(high anxiety)
1 (student)	3 (students)	2 (students)

General anxiety at school is the general emotional state of a child associated with various forms of his inclusion in school life.

Experiences of social stress are the emotional state of a child, against the background of which his social contacts develop (primarily with peers).

Frustration of the need to achieve success is an unfavorable mental background that does not allow the child to develop his needs for success, achieving high results, etc.

Fear of self-expression - negative emotional experiences of situations associated with the need for self-disclosure, presenting oneself to others, demonstrating one’s capabilities.

Fear of knowledge testing situations - a negative attitude and the experience of anxiety in situations of testing (especially public) knowledge, achievements, and opportunities.

Low physiological resistance to stress - features of the psychophysiological organization that reduce the child’s adaptability to stressful situations, increasing the likelihood of an inadequate response to an alarming environmental factor.

Problems and fears in relationships with teachers are a general negative emotional background of relationships with adults at school, reducing the success of a child’s education.

We can conclude that the most common factor is the factor of experiencing social stress and the fear of not meeting the expectations of others.

So, having considered all the articles, we can conclude that anxiety in young children has been growing in recent years. The reasons are all very similar. And the Philips method, which was used to conduct research on students, proves this.

To help your child, you need to follow some rules:

1. If possible, avoid various competitions and types of speed work.

2. Use physical contact more often when communicating with your baby.

3.Demonstrate examples of confident behavior, become a role model.

4.Do not compare your child with others.

5. Make fewer comments to the baby.

Do not make excessive demands.

Do not punish without good reason.