Article anxiety in primary school age. Study of anxiety in children of primary school age

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Introduction

Anxiety is one of the most common phenomena of mental development encountered in school practice. In recent years, this problem has received considerable attention, since 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. Many outstanding psychologists analyze anxiety from the point of view of their specific views, without setting the goal of a comprehensive consideration of the problem as a whole in relation to school practice.

Numerous studies devoted to the problem of educational anxiety have examined the causes of its occurrence, as well as ways of prevention and correction. Despite the fact that in psychology a significant amount of work is devoted to anxiety, this problem does not lose its relevance, since anxiety is a serious risk factor for the development of psychosomatic abnormalities and often causes the occurrence of stressful conditions.

Anxiety may be associated with the causes of school neuroses, the child’s inability to adapt to a new situation, difficulties in intellectual activity, decreased mental performance, difficulties in communicating and establishing interpersonal relationships with other people.

The state of anxiety and anxiety can be caused by the social environment - the situation in the family, school.

We consider anxiety from two positions: on the one hand, it is a subjective ill-being of the individual, manifested in neurotic states, somatic diseases, which negatively affects her interaction with others and her attitude towards herself. Anxiety, according to G. Parens’ definition, is a child’s feeling of helplessness in the face of some phenomenon that he perceives as dangerous. In our case, this is the situation of schooling and family relationships. The negative function of anxiety in this case will have a diffuse, constant character that traumatizes the child’s psyche. On the other hand, anxiety also has a positive function, which can be defined as a “state of anxiety” that occurs in every person in certain situations.

Thus, when studying at school, an anxious state is a necessary component for successful learning: when performing any task, a child is worried about the success of its result; when answering at the board, a student may experience a certain amount of anxiety; when carrying out various assignments, a state of anxiety helps to achieve success, etc. .d.

A state of anxiety also has a positive effect on the child’s personal qualities: he worries about what kind of assessment he will receive from others, the desire for leadership is also accompanied by a certain anxiety, which will ensure the achievement of the goal.

The child’s adaptation to a new social environment is necessarily accompanied by a state of anxiety, which arises in the child only in certain situations and can both negatively and positively influence the development of his personal qualities.

Thus, speaking about the positive or negative function of anxiety, we can regard it as an adequate or inadequate state.

Currently, a number of authors write about the trend of an increase in the number of anxious children, characterized by increased anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional instability. These facts indicate the need for preventive measures that prevent the formation of negative character traits in children, the development of psychosomatic diseases, educational neuroses, decreased self-esteem, and the occurrence of learning difficulties.

Children of primary school age require special attention, as they may experience difficulties in school, which naturally causes an inadequate level of anxiety.

Purpose of the study: characterize the features of the manifestation of anxiety in primary school age and methods of psychological and pedagogical correction.

Object of study: emotional sphere of children of primary school age.

Subject of study: manifestation of anxiety in younger schoolchildren.

Research hypothesis: At primary school age, the manifestation of anxiety has its own characteristics. Purposeful work to overcome anxiety contributes to the effective correction of negative manifestations of anxiety.

Methodological basis for studying the characteristics of anxiety Children have developed conceptual approaches and principles developed in psychology and correctional psychology in the study of anxiety as an emotional state created in a certain situation containing the danger of frustration of an actualized need. We also took into account the concept of A.M. Parishioners; The author believes that the problem of anxiety as a relatively stable personal formation rarely manifests itself in its pure form and is included in the context of a wide range of social issues. The solution to specific issues was based on consideration of the characteristics of children of primary school age.

Scientific novelty and theoretical significance of the study. An integrated approach has been developed, focused on the formation of an adequate level of anxiety in younger schoolchildren. Based on the study of students, data were obtained on changes in the level of anxiety among students in grades 1-2 during the school year, and the predominant types of anxiety were identified. Experimental data revealing the peculiarities of the manifestation of anxiety in children of primary school age are systematized.

Practical significance of the work. The results of the study will complement the psychological and pedagogical characteristics of children and will help shape their emotional and volitional sphere, in particular, to overcome the state of anxiety, as one of the components that creates learning difficulties. The system of diagnostic techniques can be used by qualified teachers and psychologists to identify the characteristics of anxiety in younger schoolchildren

Experimental research base: third grade students of school No. 116. Ufa, in the amount of 20 people.

1. Study of the problem of anxiety in psychological and pedagogical literature

1.1 Features of anxiety

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.

So, A.M. Parishioner points out that anxiety is “an 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. 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.”

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.

T.V. Dragunova, L.S. Slavina, E.S. Maxlak, M.S. Neimark show that affect becomes an obstacle to the correct formation of personality, so it is very important to overcome it

The works of these authors indicate that 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.

Thus, Slavina’s research on children with affective behavior showed that complex emotional experiences in children are associated with the affect of inadequacy.

In addition, research by domestic psychologists shows that negative experiences leading to difficulties in the behavior of children are not a consequence of innate aggressive or sexual instincts that “wait for release” and dominate a person all his life.

These studies can be considered as a theoretical basis for understanding anxiety, as a result of real anxiety that arises in certain unfavorable conditions in a child’s life, as formations that arise in the process of his activity and communication. In other words, this is a social phenomenon, not a biological one.

The problem of anxiety has another aspect - a psychophysiological one.

The second direction in the study of anxiety goes along the line of studying those physiological and psychological characteristics of the individual that determine the degree of this condition.

Domestic psychologists who have studied the state of stress have introduced various interpretations into its definition.

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 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. So I.V. Imedadze directly connects the state of anxiety with the anticipation of frustration. In her opinion, anxiety arises when anticipating a situation that contains the danger of frustration of an actualized need.

Thus, stress and frustration, in any understanding, include anxiety.

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. Thus, 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. Anxiety test V.V. Belous followed two paths - physiological and psychological.

Of particular interest is the study by V.A. Bakeev, conducted under the guidance of A.V. Petrovsky, where anxiety was considered in connection with the study of psychological mechanisms of suggestibility. The level of anxiety in the subjects was measured using the same methods used by V.V. Belous.

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 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. 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 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 and foresight.

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

The 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 to not need anyone.

Neurotic need for love.

Neurotic need for superiority, perfection, inaccessibility.

Sullivan views the body as an energy system of stress that can fluctuate between certain limits - a state of rest, relaxation 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.

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, 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 will one day cause 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:

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.

Anxiety due to loss of love.

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

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.

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 anxiety, and the authors do not provide a clear distinction between these concepts.

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 are used.

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 that cause anxiety that a person faces when interacting with environment.

K. Rogers views emotional well-being differently.

He defines personality as a product of the development of human experience or as a result of the assimilation of social forms of consciousness and behavior.

As a result of interaction with the environment, the child develops an idea of himself, self-esteem. Evaluations are introduced into an individual’s idea of himself not only as a result of direct experience of contact with the environment, but can also be borrowed from other people and perceived as if the individual had developed them himself.

1.2 Anxiety in primary school age

School is one of the first to open up the world of social 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.

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. Unlike the similar emotion of fear, anxiety does not have a specific source. It is diffuse and behavioral can manifest itself in a general disorganization of activity, disrupting its direction and productivity.

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. 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 anxiety, but also other states and experiences, such as despair, anger and even joyful excitement.

Typically, anxiety is a transitory state; it subsides as soon as the person actually faces the expected situation and begins to navigate and act. However, it also happens that the expectation that gives rise to anxiety 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 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.

In general, the cause of anxiety can be anything that violates a child’s sense of confidence and reliability in his relationship with his parents. As a result of anxiety and anxiety, a personality grows up, torn by conflicts. In order to fear 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.

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 there is a need for an adult who could be an accomplice in his games, in adolescence there is a need for communication with peers, in adolescence there is 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 anxiety 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 - fear of being rejected by peers. Anxiety pushes a child into behavior that can save him from trouble and fear.

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 worry, 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 uncertainty, from demands that are beyond his strength, from threats, cruel punishments, unstable discipline.

The state of anxiety can be completely relieved only by eliminating all difficulties of cognition, which is unrealistic and unnecessary.

Destructive anxiety 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. 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.

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.

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 gets, the more specific and realistic his worries become. 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:

conflicting demands on him coming from different sources;

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

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 anxiety 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 its certainty, 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 at the heart of this is a family conflict that he deeply experiences. 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.

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 don’t know how to 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. Therefore, aggressive behavior is often a form of hiding personal anxiety.

Anxiety can be very difficult to discern 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, such children often hide anxiety deep down in their souls. 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.

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, 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. 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.

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 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. 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 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: their 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, 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, especially the 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 is 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 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. Prikozhan, that anxiety in childhood is a stable personality 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 the dominance of the emotional... it is a derivative of a wide range of family disorders.

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

1.3 Corrective work with anxious children

School anxiety has relationships with the structural characteristics of intelligence. Thus, in the first grade, the least anxious are the students whose verbal intelligence dominates; the most anxious are the students with an equal ratio of verbal and nonverbal coefficients. By the third grade, as a rule, the level of school anxiety drops significantly, but at the same time, verbal students begin to experience significant fear in the situation of testing their knowledge. This effect is not observed for other categories of students.

Most often, anxiety develops when a child is in a state of internal conflict. It can be called:

1. negative demands placed on the child, which can humiliate or put him in a dependent position;

3. conflicting demands placed on the child by parents and/or school

In our opinion, it is advisable to carry out correctional work with anxious children in three main directions: firstly, to increase the child’s self-esteem; secondly, to teach the child ways to relieve muscle and emotional tension; and thirdly, but to develop self-control skills in situations that traumatize the child.

Work in all three areas can be carried out either in parallel, or, depending on the priority chosen by the adult, gradually and sequentially.

1. INCREASING A CHILD’S SELF-ESTEEM

Quite often, anxious children have low self-esteem, which is expressed in a painful perception of criticism from others, blaming themselves for many failures, and fear of taking on a new difficult task.

Such children, as a rule, are more likely than others to be manipulated by adults and peers. In addition, in order to grow in their own eyes, anxious children sometimes like to criticize others. In order to help children in this category increase their self-esteem, Virginia Quinn suggests providing them with support, showing sincere concern for them, and giving a positive assessment of their actions and actions as often as possible.

If in preschool and primary school age a child does not experience such support from adults, then in adolescence his problems increase, “a sharp feeling of personal discomfort develops.” An anxious child, having become an adult, may retain the habit of choosing to complete only simple tasks, since it is in In this case, he can be confident that he will successfully cope with the problem.

In order to help your child increase his self-esteem, you can use the following methods of work.

First of all, it is necessary to call the child by name as often as possible and praise him in the presence of other children and adults. In kindergarten or in the classroom, for this purpose, you can celebrate the child’s achievements on specially designed stands, award the child with certificates and tokens. In addition, you can encourage such children by entrusting them with tasks that are prestigious in the given team.

A technique that some teachers use in their work has a negative impact on the formation of adequate self-esteem: comparing the results of completing tasks of some children with others. In the case of interaction with other categories of children, this method can play a positive role, but when communicating with an anxious child, it is simply unacceptable. If the teacher still wants to make a comparison, then it is better to compare the results of a given child with his own results, which he achieved yesterday, a week or a month ago.

When working with children suffering from low self-esteem, it is advisable to avoid tasks that are completed in a certain time fixed by the teacher. It is advisable to ask such children not at the beginning or at the end of the lesson, but in the middle. You should not rush or push them with an answer. If an adult has already asked a question, he should give the child a long period of time to answer, trying not to repeat his question twice or even three times. Otherwise, the child will not answer quickly, since he will perceive each repetition of the question as a new stimulus.

If an adult addresses an anxious child, he should try to establish visual contact; such direct “eye to eye” communication instills a sense of trust in the child’s soul.

In order for an anxious child not to consider himself worse than other children, it is advisable to hold conversations with the children’s group in a kindergarten group or in a classroom, during which all the children talk about the difficulties they experience in certain situations. Such conversations help the child to realize that peers also have problems similar to their own. In addition, such discussions help expand the child's behavioral repertoire.

Working to increase self-esteem is only one of the areas in working with an anxious child. Obviously, quick results from such work cannot be expected, so adults must be patient

2. TEACHING A CHILD IN WAYS TO RELEASE MUSCLE AND EMOTIONAL TENSION

As our observations have shown, emotional stress in anxious children most often manifests itself in muscle tension in the face and neck. In addition, they tend to tighten their abdominal muscles. To help children reduce tension: both muscular and emotional, you can teach them to perform relaxation exercises.

Below are games and exercises to relieve stress. Similar exercises are given in the books of Chistyakova M.I., K. Fopel, Kryazheva N.L. and etc.

In addition to relaxation games, when working with anxious children, it is also necessary to use games that are based on physical contact with the child. Playing with sand, clay, water, and various painting techniques are also very useful.

Using elements of massage and even simple rubbing of the body also helps relieve muscle tension. In this case, it is not at all necessary to resort to the help of medical specialists. The mother can apply the simplest elements of massage herself or simply hug the child. In the section “Games Played...” there are a number of such games that can replace massage.

When working with anxious children, Violet Oaklander recommends organizing impromptu masquerades, shows, or simply painting their faces with mom’s old lipsticks. Participation in such performances, in her opinion, helps children relax.

3. TRAINING SELF-CONTROL SKILLS IN SITUATIONS THAT TRAUMATIZE A CHILD

The next stage in working with an anxious child is to practice self-control in situations that are traumatic and unfamiliar to the child. Even if work has already been done to increase the child’s self-esteem and teach him ways to reduce muscle and emotional stress, there is no guarantee that the child will behave adequately when he finds himself in a real-life or unexpected situation. At any moment, such a child may become confused and forget everything he has been taught. That is why we consider practicing behavioral skills in specific situations a necessary part of working with anxious children. This work consists of playing out both situations that have already occurred and those that are possible in the future.

Role-playing games provide the most extensive opportunities for work in this direction for adults.

By playing the role of weak, cowardly characters, the child better understands and concretizes his fear. And using the technique of bringing this role to the point of absurdity, the adult helps the child see his fear from the other side, treating it as less significant.

By playing the roles of strong heroes, the child gains a sense of confidence that he, too, is able to cope with difficulties.

At the same time, it is very important not only to develop the game situation, but also to discuss with the child how he can use the experience gained in the game in resolving life situations. In neurolinguistic programming, this stage of work is called “adjustment to the future.”

It is advisable to choose “difficult” cases from the life of each child as subjects for role-playing games. So, if a child is afraid to answer at the board, then you should play out this particular situation with him, drawing the child’s attention to what is happening to him at each specific moment, and how unpleasant experiences and sensations can be avoided). And if a child attending kindergarten experiences anxiety when entering the medical office, it is advisable to play “doctor” with him.

When working with young children - primary and secondary preschool age - the most effective is the use of games with dolls. The choice of dolls is made based on the individual preferences of each child. He himself must choose the “brave” and “cowardly” dolls. The roles should be distributed as follows: the child speaks for the “cowardly” doll, and the adult speaks for the “brave” doll. Then you need to switch roles. This will allow the child to look at the situation from different points of view, and, having experienced the “unpleasant” plot again, get rid of the negative experiences that haunt him. Moreover, if a child experiences anxiety when communicating with an adult, you can compose a dialogue in which the adult’s doll will play the role of the child, and the child’s doll will be responsible for the adult.

1. The concept of “anxiety”

In the psychological literature one can find different definitions of the concept of “anxiety,” 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.

This indicates 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.

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 from others.

Anxiety, from the point of view, is an individual psychological feature consisting of an increased tendency to experience anxiety in a wide variety of life situations, including those whose social characteristics do not predispose to this.

A similar definition interprets “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, according to opinion, is a personal characteristic consisting in the particularly easy occurrence of a state of anxiety.

Anxiety is usually increased in neuropsychiatric and severe somatic diseases, as well as in healthy people experiencing the consequences of psychotrauma. In general, anxiety is a subjective manifestation of personal distress. Modern anxiety research is aimed at distinguishing between situational anxiety, associated with a specific external situation, and personal anxiety, which is a stable property of the individual, as well as at developing methods for analyzing anxiety as a result of the interaction between the individual and his 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.

2. Types of anxiety

There are two main types of anxiety. The first of these is the so-called situational anxiety, that is, generated by a specific situation that objectively causes anxiety. 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, insufficiently formulated 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, and 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.

3. Causes of anxiety

The cause of anxiety is always an internal conflict, the inconsistency of the child’s aspirations, when one of his desires contradicts another, one need interferes with another. The contradictory internal state of a child can be caused by: conflicting demands on him, coming from different sources (or even from the same source: it happens that parents contradict themselves, sometimes allowing, sometimes roughly 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. In all three cases there is a feeling of “losing support”; loss of strong guidelines in life, uncertainty in the world around us.

The basis of a child's internal conflict may be an external conflict - between parents. However, mixing internal and external conflicts is completely unacceptable; Contradictions in a child’s environment do not always become internal contradictions. Not every child becomes anxious if his mother and grandmother dislike each other and raise him differently.

Only when a child takes both sides of a conflicting world to heart, when they become part of his emotional life, are all the conditions created for anxiety to arise.

Anxiety in younger schoolchildren is very often due to a lack of emotional and social stimuli. Of course, this can happen to a person at any age. But research has shown that in childhood, when the foundation of human personality is laid, the consequences of anxiety can be significant and dangerous. Anxiety always threatens those where the child is a “burden” to the family, where he does not feel love, where they show no interest in him. It also threatens those where upbringing in the family is overly rational, bookish, cold, without feeling and sympathy.

Anxiety penetrates the soul of a child only when conflict permeates his entire life, preventing the realization of his most important needs.

These essential needs include: the need for physical existence (food, water, freedom from physical threat, etc.); the need for intimacy, attachment to a person or group of people; the need for independence, for autonomy, for recognition of the right to one’s own “I”; the need for self-realization, to reveal one’s abilities, one’s hidden strengths, the need for meaning in life and purpose.

One of the most common causes of anxiety is excessive demands on the child, an inflexible, dogmatic education system that does not take into account the child’s own activity, his interests, abilities and inclinations. The most common education system is “you must be an excellent student.” Pronounced manifestations of anxiety are observed in well-performing children, who are distinguished by conscientiousness, self-demandingness, combined with an orientation towards grades, rather than towards the process of cognition.

It happens that parents focus on high achievements in sports and art that are not accessible to him, they impose on him (if he is a boy) the image of a real man, strong, brave, dexterous, not knowing defeat, failure to conform to which (and it is impossible to conform to this image) hurts him. boyish pride. This same area includes imposing on a child interests that are alien to him (but highly valued by parents), for example, tourism, swimming. None of these activities in and of themselves are bad. However, the choice of hobby should belong to the child himself. The child's forced participation in activities that do not interest the student puts him in a situation of inevitable failure.

4. Consequences of anxious experiences.

The state of pure or, as psychologists say, “free-floating” anxiety is extremely difficult to endure. Uncertainty, the unclear source of the threat makes finding a way out of the situation very difficult and complex. When I feel angry, I can fight. When I feel sad, I may seek comfort. But in a state of anxiety, I can neither defend myself nor fight, because I don’t know what to fight and defend against.

As soon as anxiety arises, a number of mechanisms are activated in the child’s soul that “process” this state into something else, albeit also unpleasant, but not so unbearable. Such a child may outwardly give the impression of being calm and even self-confident, but it is necessary to learn to recognize anxiety “under the mask.”

The internal task that an emotionally unstable child faces: in a sea of anxiety, find an island of safety and try to strengthen it as best as possible, to close it on all sides from the raging waves of the surrounding world. At the initial stage, a feeling of fear is formed: the child is afraid to remain in the dark, or be late for school, or answer at the blackboard.

Fear is the first derivative of anxiety. Its advantage is that it has a border, which means there is always some free space left outside these borders.

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 unable to fulfill them, 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.

As we know, children aged 7-11, unlike adults, are constantly on the move. For them, movement is as strong a need as the need for food and parental love. Therefore, their desire to move must be treated as one of the physiological functions of the body. Sometimes parents' demands to sit practically motionless are so excessive that the child is practically deprived of freedom of movement.

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, such as biting their nails, sucking fingers, pulling out hair, and engaging in masturbation. Manipulating their own body reduces their emotional stress and calms them down.

5. Signs of anxiety

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. A little bit - into tears. And she doesn’t want to play with the kids - she’s afraid they’ll break her toys.” “Alyosha is constantly clinging to her mother’s skirt - you can’t pull her away. Thus, the anxiety of younger schoolchildren can be caused both by external conflicts emanating from parents, and internal ones - from the child himself. The behavior of anxious children is characterized by frequent manifestations of restlessness and anxiety; such children live in constant tension, all the time, feeling threatened, feeling that they could face failure at any moment.

2) assistance in achieving success in those activities on which the child’s position primarily depends;

4) developing self-confidence, the lack of which makes them too shy;

5) the use of indirect measures: for example, inviting authoritative peers to support a timid child.

Bibliography

1) Kharisova and correction of anxiety in primary school students / PSYCHOLOGICAL - PEDAGOGICAL SUPPORT OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS: THEORY AND PRACTICE. 1 issue. Abstracts of reports of the regional scientific and practical conference - http://www. *****/lib/elib/Data/Content//Default. aspx.

2) Psychocorrectional and developmental work with children: Textbook. aid for students avg. ped. textbook establishments / , ; Ed. . - M.: Publishing center "Academy", 19с. – http://*****/Books/1/0177/index. shtml.

Manifestation of anxiety in primary school age.

Content.

Introduction

Natural causes of anxiety

Conclusion.

2.3. Determination of the level of personal anxiety. The Children’s Form of Manifest Anxiety Scale - CMAS (Adaptation by A.M. Prikhozhan.)

2.4 Determination of the predominant type of temperament among students in the experimental class.2.5 Tracing the relationship between the level of personal anxiety and the prevailing temperament.

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Currently, there is an increase in the number of children characterized by increased anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional instability, which are the main signs of anxiety.

Anxiety, as many psychologists note, is the main cause of a number of psychological problems, including many developmental disorders in children. An increased level of anxiety is considered as an indicator of a “pre-neurotic state”; it can lead to disturbances in the emotional sphere of the personality, to behavioral disorders, for example, to delinquency and addictive behavior in adolescents. Therefore, it is very important to identify in advance children for whom anxiety has become a personality trait in order to prevent its level from increasing.

A large number of studies have been devoted to the problem of anxiety in various fields of scientific activity: psychology, pedagogy, biochemistry, physiology, philosophy, sociology.

Anxiety in children is studied mainly within a single age. One of the modern researchers of anxiety in children of primary school age is A.M. Prikhozhan. It is at primary school age that situational anxiety can turn into a stable personality trait.

Anxiety is the experience of emotional discomfort associated with the expectation of trouble, with a premonition of impending danger. (Parishioner A.M. 13)

Purpose of the study : to study the causes and features of the manifestation and diagnosis of personal anxiety in children of primary school age.

Subject of study: personal anxiety

Object of experimental research : manifestations of anxiety as a stable personality trait of a primary school student..

Research hypothesis: The level of anxiety is determined by the prevailing type of temperament.

Research objectives:

Study psychological and pedagogical literature on the research problem.

To diagnose the level of personal anxiety of 2nd grade students in a comprehensive school.

Determine the predominant temperament of students in the experimental class.

To trace the relationship between the level of personal anxiety and the prevailing temperament of students in the experimental class.

Research methods:

Theoretical analysis of scientific literature.

Questioning.

Testing

Expert assessment method.

Research base:

Moscow secondary school No. 593.

Theoretical substantiation of the phenomenon of personal anxiety in childhood.

The concept of anxiety in psychological literature.

It is believed that the concept of anxiety was first introduced into psychology by S. Freud in his work “Inhibition. Symptom. Anxiety." (1926) He defined anxiety as an unpleasant experience that acts as a signal of anticipated danger.

In modern psychology, the word anxiety usually means the equivalent of the English word anxiety, which in the traditional translation into Russian has two meanings:

1) a special emotional state that occurs in a person at certain moments; 2) a tendency to worry as an individual psychological trait. (17)

Most researchers adhere to the distinction between situational anxiety and anxiety as a personality trait.

Thus, C. D. Spielberger, studying anxiety as a personal property and anxiety as a state, divided these two definitions into “reactive” and “active”, “situational” and “personal” anxiety.

According to Yu. L. Khanin,states of anxiety or situational anxiety arise “as a person’s reaction to various, most often social and psychological stressors(expectation of a negative assessment or aggressive reaction, perception of an unfavorable attitude towards oneself, a threat to one’s self-esteem and prestige). Against,Personal anxiety as a trait, property, disposition gives an idea of individual differences in exposure to various stressors. (Izard K.E. 6)

A.M. Prikhozhan in his definition of anxiety says that “Anxiety is distinguished as an emotional state and as a stable property, personality trait or temperament.” (Parishioner A.M.13)

According to R.S. Nemov: “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.” (Nemov R. S.12)

In Russian literature, situational anxiety is usually referred to as “anxiety,” and personal anxiety as “anxiety.”

Anxiety is a psychological state that is accompanied by subjective feelings of tension, anxiety, gloomy forebodings and activation of the autonomic nervous system. (Kostyak T.V.9)

Anxiety is a reaction to a threat to the life and well-being of any person; it has real grounds arising from human experience, and therefore is an adequate state in a stressful situation.

Personal anxiety is a stable trait, an individual psychological feature, which manifests itself in a person’s tendency to frequently and intensely experience a state of anxiety. (Kostyak T.V.9)

Anxiety is associated with experiencing a neutral situation as threatening and the desire to avoid an imaginary threat. This is the expectation of bad things in a situation that is objectively not dangerous for a person and contains the possibility of both favorable and unfavorable outcomes. Therefore, anxiety is anxiety that is inadequate to a given situation.

Anxiety is a personal formation closely related to a person’s “I-concept”, to “self-involvement”, excessive introspection that interferes with activity, and attention to one’s experiences (I. Sarason, S. Sarason). According to L.I. Bozhovich, anxiety belongs to the affective-need sphere. It has its own motivating force. Its structure, like that of any complex psychological formation, includes a cognitive, emotional and behavioral, operational aspect. ( Cordwell M.8.)

A distinctive feature is the dominance of the emotional aspect and the expression of compensatory and protective manifestations in the operational component.

(Bozhovich L.I.3)

Anxiety can have not only a negative, but also a positive impact on activity and personal development. The positive value is that it allows a person to better understand the emotional state of other people, intuitively feel their mood and predict the way they will behave in a certain situation. It sharpens a person’s reactions, increases his observation, contributes to the formation of the necessary knowledge and skills that help him adapt to changing living conditions. An average level of anxiety provides the necessary level of readiness to respond to a variety of stimuli. Too high levels disorganize human activity and often indicate the presence of neurotic disorders.

Anxiety and the associated experience of emotional distress and apprehension of threat indicate that the child’s important age-related needs are not satisfied. (K. Horney, 16) At primary school age, the leading need is the need to confirm the student’s new position, to receive high grades from adults , and acceptance in the peer group. School is not the main factor in the emergence and development of anxiety. It is a derivative of a wide range of family relationships.

Anxiety as a stable property of a person develops according to the principle of a closed psychological circle, in which it is consolidated and strengthened. This leads to the accumulation and deepening of negative emotional experience, which contributes to an increase and maintenance of anxiety.

Anxiety becomes a stable personal development in elementary school.

Such scientists as B.M. have been and are studying the natural preconditions of anxiety. Teplov, V.D. Nebylitsin, E.P. Ilyin, N.N. Danilova, J. Reikovsky, V.S. Merlin,N. D. Levittov and others)

The emergence of anxiety as a stable personality trait is influenced by the innate individual characteristics of children associated with the dynamics of the nervous system.N.D. Levitov (1969) points out that an anxious state is an indicator of the weakness of the nervous system, the chaotic nature of nervous processes.

The individual characteristics of a child’s higher nervous activity are based on the properties of the nervous processes of excitation and inhibition and their various combinations, such as strength, mobility, balance of nervous processes. Data from B.M. Teplov 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. They concluded that people with a weak type of nervous system have higher levels of anxiety. (Parishioner A.M.14)

V. S. Merlin and his students consider anxiety to be a property of temperament (“psychodynamic anxiety”). They recognize natural prerequisites as the main factors - the properties of the nervous and endocrine systems. Their studies obtained statistically significant correlations between indicators of anxiety and the basic properties of the nervous system (weakness, inertia). (Izard K.E.6)

Features of the functioning of the nervous system are manifested in the psychological sphere of the child in the form of certain psychodynamic qualities that characterize the speed and flexibility of switching from one stimulus to another, the form and threshold of emotional response to various situations, the direction of reactions in difficult situations, the degree of openness to new experience, etc. (Horney K. 16)

The speed of switching from one stimulus to another can be high or low. With a high switching speed (plasticity, rigidity), children quickly change their ways of thinking in the process of interacting with the subject environment. Low switching speed (rigidity), especially in the emotional sphere, leads to anxiety. This is due to the fact that the child is focused on negative experiences, immersed in dark thoughts, and remembers grievances for a long time.

The degree of anxiety is also related to the speed of decision-making in a situation containing alternatives.

Impulsive children complete tasks quickly, but make many mistakes. They are less capable of analysis than reflexive children, and are more sensitive to the possible discrepancy between the obtained result and the expected one, which leads to an increase in anxiety.

Reflective children tend to think about a task for a long time before they make a decision. They spend a lot of time thinking and collecting as much material as possible, and as a result, they cope with the task more successfully. But it is more difficult for them to complete tasks when there is a shortage of time, so they do poorly on tests and experience difficulties in situations of public assessment, which leads to an increase in the level of anxiety. Also, anxiety in reflective children can be caused by the fact that their reflexivity can turn into soul-searching, looking for shortcomings in themselves. The tendency to think about current events and people’s behavior can cause an increase in anxiety in such students, since they are painfully aware of their failure, do not distinguish between an assessment and a mark, and are often constrained and tense in communication.

In an impulsive and flexible child, anxious reactions arise faster and manifest themselves more strongly, but it is easier to calm him down and distract him from anxious thoughts. Reflexive and rigid children experience troubles more deeply and cannot tolerate injustice. Therefore, under unfavorable conditions, they are more likely than flexible ones to develop constant anxiety. (Kostyak T.V.9)

Anxiety is associated with the degree of a person’s openness to the world (extroversion, introversion), which is innate, and his sociability, which develops in the process of interacting with people. An important role in the formation of this quality is played by the individuality of parents, their educational strategies and the attitude of significant adults towards the child.

Extroverted children have a pronounced focus on communication, so they are especially sensitive to the alienation of their parents and their prohibitions on communicating with peers. These circumstances can provoke anxiety, since the student cannot explain to himself why parents do not approve of what is, from his point of view, a natural desire to communicate with friends.

Introverted children are more closed, they are wary of adults, and it is more difficult for them to establish contacts with peers. If a closed, uncommunicative child is raised in a family in which both parents are pronounced extroverts, he will inevitably have difficulties in communication, as adults try to artificially expand the circle of his social contacts, which leads to even greater withdrawal into himself, which in turn leads to the emergence of uncertainty, and, consequently, an increase in anxiety, as the child begins to assume that he is not able to meet the expectations of his parents.

Children with an introverted orientation may also have increased anxiety among introverted parents. Adults who are distrustful of others support the child’s isolation, which can become alarming, since the lack of social experience leads to numerous mistakes and misunderstandings when trying to establish relationships with others. (Parishioner A.M. 14)

Differences in the emotional sphere of children are also manifested in the threshold of emotional response (high and low) and the form of expression of emotions (open and closed). Younger schoolchildren who openly express their emotions are dynamic, mobile, and easy to make contact with. The emotions they experience are easily guessed by their facial expressions and behavior. Children with a closed form of expression of emotions are restrained, emotionally cold, and calm. It is difficult to guess their true feelings. A child with a high threshold of emotions reacts only to situations, it is difficult to make him laugh or upset, and with a low threshold of emotions he reacts to any little thing. The lower the threshold of emotional response and the less expressed emotions in behavior, the less resistant to stress. It is difficult for him to communicate with others, since any remark causes him strong, but invisible to others, feelings. Such children keep their true feelings to themselves, so they are more likely to experience anxiety.

The development of anxiety is influenced by such a feature of the child’s emotional sphere as neuroticism (emotional stability or instability). The level of neuroticism is associated with the strength of the reaction of the autonomic nervous system to various influences. Emotionally unstable children with a high level of neuroticism react faster, more intensely and longer to troubles, even after the negative factor has ceased to act. Emotionally unstable children constantly change their mood; their reactions in a stressful situation often do not correspond to the strength of the stimulus. Such children are highly susceptible to emotional overload, which leads to increased anxiety.

An important role in the development of anxiety is played by preferences for a certain type of attribution of causation of events and responsibility - locus of control. It can be external and internal. People with an external locus of control believe that everything in their life depends on luck, and people with an internal locus believe that all events are under their control. Internals are more active in resisting adversity and coping with anxiety. Externals, on the contrary, are more susceptible to negative influences, more often experience tension, and are more prone to experience anxiety, since they rely on chance, abdicate responsibility for the course of events in their lives, and therefore are unprepared for many stressful situations. (Parishioner A.M.13)

In addition to the listed factors, a biological factor of increased vulnerability, genetically transmitted by parents, can play a certain role in the development of anxiety, according to M. Rutter. But the author clarifies that if we are talking about social behavior, then the role of the genetic component here is quite insignificant.” (Balabanova L.M.2)

Attempts have also been made to identify the role of heritability of anxiety as a personality trait. R Cattell and I Scheier proved that one of the factors involved in anxiety depends significantly on heredity. (Ilyin E.P.7)

Anxiety in younger schoolchildren manifests itself at the psychological and physiological level.

At the psychological level, it is felt as tension, concern, anxiety, nervousness, and is experienced in the form of feelings of uncertainty, helplessness, powerlessness, insecurity, loneliness, impending failure, inability to make a decision, etc.

At the physiological level, anxiety reactions manifest themselves in increased heart rate, increased breathing, increased minute volume of blood circulation, increased general excitability, decreased sensitivity thresholds, sleep disturbances, the appearance of headaches and stomach pains, nervous disorders, etc. (Parishioner A.M 14)

Personal anxiety can take different forms. The form of anxiety is understood as a special combination of the nature of the experience, awareness, verbal and non-verbal expression in the characteristics of behavior, communication and activity.

In Russian psychology, there are two main forms of anxiety: open (consciously experienced and manifested in behavior and activity as a state of anxiety) and hidden (unconscious, manifested either in excessive calmness or indirectly through specific modes of behavior).

There are three types of open anxiety: acute, unregulated anxiety, regulated and compensated anxiety, cultivated anxiety.

Acute, unregulated anxiety outwardly manifests itself as a symptom of anxiety, which the child cannot cope with on his own.

Main behavioral symptoms:

tension, stiffness or increased fussiness;

slurred speech;

tearfulness;

constant work corrections, apologies and excuses;

senseless obsessive movements (the child constantly twirls something in his hands, pulls his hair, bites his pen, nails, etc.).

Working memory deteriorates, which manifests itself in the difficulty of recalling and remembering information. (So during a lesson a student can forget the material he has learned, but after the lesson he can immediately remember it.)

Physiological manifestations include redness, paleness of the face, increased sweating, trembling hands, flinching when handled unexpectedly.

Regulated and compensated anxiety is characterized by the fact that children themselves develop effective ways to cope with it. Younger schoolchildren are trying to either reduce the level of anxiety or use it to stimulate their own activities and increase activity.

Cultivated anxiety, unlike the two previous forms, is experienced by the child not as a painful state, but as a value, because allows you to achieve what you want. Anxiety can be accepted by the child himself as a factor that ensures his organization and responsibility (worrying about an upcoming test, a junior student carefully collects his briefcase, checks whether he has forgotten something he needs), or deliberately exacerbates the symptoms of anxiety (“The teacher will give me a higher grade, if he sees how worried I am."

A type of cultivated anxiety is “magical” anxiety, which is especially common among younger schoolchildren. In this case, the child, as it were, “conjures evil forces”, constantly replaying in his mind the situations that worry him, however, he is not freed from the fear of them, but strengthens it even more.

Hidden anxiety manifests itself in the fact that a child tries to hide his emotional state both from others and from himself, as a result of which the perception of both real threats and his own experiences is disrupted. This form of anxiety is also called “inadequate calm.” Such children do not have external signs of anxiety; on the contrary, they exhibit increased, excessive calmness.

Another manifestation of hidden anxiety is “withdrawal from the situation,” but it is quite rare. (Kostyak T.V.9)

Anxiety can be “masked” - manifested in the form of other psychological states. “Masks” of anxiety help to experience this state in a milder form. Such “masks” most often include aggressiveness, dependence, apathy, excessive daydreaming, etc.

To cope with anxiety, an anxious child often behaves aggressively. However, when committing an aggressive act, he is afraid of his “courage”; in some younger schoolchildren, manifestations of aggression cause a feeling of guilt, which does not inhibit aggressive actions, but, on the contrary, strengthens them.

Another form of anxiety is passive behavior, lethargy, lack of interest in activities and pronounced emotional reactions to current events. This behavior often results from the child’s unsuccessful attempts to cope with anxiety through other means, such as fantasy.

At primary school age, fantasizing, the child mentally moves from reality to the real world, without being disappointed in reality. If a student tries to replace reality with a dream, it means that not everything is going well in his life. Fearing conflict situations, an anxious child can plunge into a fantasy world, get used to loneliness and find peace in it, relief from worries. Another negative feature

Excessive fantasy means that a child can transfer some elements of fantasy into the real world. This is how some children “revive” their favorite toys, replace them with friends, and treat them as real beings.

It is quite difficult to distract anxious children from fantasizing and return them to reality.

In physically weakened, often ill schoolchildren, anxiety can manifest itself in the form of a “sinking” into illness, which is associated with the debilitating influence of anxiety on the body. Frequently recurring anxious experiences in this case lead to real deterioration in health. (Kochubey B., Novikova E.10)

The school situation clearly reveals differences in the behavior of anxious and non-anxious children. Highly anxious students react more emotionally to failure, such as a low grade, and work less effectively in stressful situations or under time pressure. Anxious guys most often refuse to complete tasks that are difficult, from their point of view. Some of these children develop an overly responsible attitude towards school: they strive to be the first in everything because of the fear of failure, which they try to prevent by any means. Anxious students have difficulty accepting many school norms because they are not confident that they can meet them.

Anxious younger schoolchildren are characterized by an inability to take into account conditions. They often expect success in cases where it is unlikely, and are not confident in it when the probability is quite high. They are guided not by real conditions, but by some kind of internal premonitions. They are characterized by the inability to evaluate their actions, find the optimal zone of difficulty for a task, and determine the probability of the desired outcome of an event. Many anxious younger schoolchildren take an infantile position towards the teacher. They perceive the mark, first of all, as an expression of the teacher’s attitude towards themselves.

An anxious child is prone to overgeneralizations and exaggerations (“No one will ever love me.”; “If my mother finds out, she will kill me.”).

Anxious children develop inadequate self-esteem. Low self-esteem predisposes to negative affectivity, e.g. tendency towards negative emotions. The child is focused on negative aspects, ignores the positive aspects of current events, such a child remembers mainly negative emotional experiences, which leads to an increase in the level of anxiety. (Prikhozhan A.M. 14)

Conclusion:

Anxiety is a personality trait that is expressed in the experience of emotional discomfort that arises when sensing a threat or danger.

The main cause of anxiety is the failure to satisfy the leading needs of age. For a younger student, this is the approval of a new social role - a student, receiving high grades from adults, and acceptance in a peer group.

Anxiety as a stable property of a person develops according to the principle of a closed psychological circle, in which it is consolidated and strengthened. Negative emotional experiences accumulate and deepen, which contributes to an increase and maintenance of anxiety.

In elementary school, situational anxiety under the influence of various social factors can develop into a stable personality trait. Children with a weak type of nervous system are more susceptible to negative environmental influences. Therefore, the level of personal anxiety is determined by the type of temperament.

Studying the influence of temperament on the manifestations of anxiety in children of primary school age.

2.1 Determination of the level of anxiety in children of the experimental class. Sears Method (Expert Rating). (15)

The study was conducted in Moscow secondary school No. 593. The subjects were 26 2nd grade students.

The level of anxiety in children was determined using the Siris method (expert rating).

The teacher of the experimental class acted as an expert.

The expert was asked to evaluate each child in accordance with the following characteristics on the Sears scale:

Often tense and constrained.

He often bites his nails. Sucking his finger.

Easily scared.

Hypersensitive.

Tearful.

Often aggressive.

Touchy.

Impatient, can't wait.

Easily blushes and turns pale.

Has difficulty concentrating.

Fussy, a lot of unnecessary gestures.

My hands are sweating.

When communicating directly, it is difficult to get involved in work.

Answers questions excessively loudly or excessively quietly.

The data was entered into a special form. Opposite the child’s FI, “+” indicated the presence of the trait being assessed, and “-” indicated its absence.

Example of a form.

Last Name Student First Name

№ attribute being assessed

During processing, the number of “+” was counted.

Interpretation:

1-4 signs - low anxiety;

5-6 signs - severe anxiety;

7 or more signs - high anxiety.

2.2 Diagnosis of anxiety using the “Cactus” graphic method (18)

The technique is intended for working with children over 3 years old.
Target : study of the child’s emotional and personal sphere.
Each child was given a sheet of A4 paper and a simple pencil (colored pencils were also used).
Instructions: “On a piece of paper, draw a cactus, draw it the way you imagine it.” Questions and additional explanations are not allowed.

After completing the drawing, the child was asked additional questions, the answers to which helped clarify the interpretation:
1. Is this cactus domestic or wild?
2. Does this cactus prickle a lot? Can you touch it?
3. Does the cactus like it when it is looked after, watered, and fertilized?
4. Does the cactus grow alone or with some plant next door? If it grows with a neighbor, then what kind of plant is it?
5. When the cactus grows, how will it change (needles, volume, shoots)?

Data processing .
When processing the results, data corresponding to all graphical methods is taken into account, namely:

 spatial position

 picture size

 line characteristics

 pencil pressure
In addition, specific indicators specific to this methodology are taken into account:

 characteristics of the “cactus image” (wild, domestic, feminine, etc.)

 characteristics of the drawing style (drawn, schematic, etc.)

 characteristics of needles (size, location, quantity)

Interpretation of results : based on the results of the processed data from the drawing, it is possible to diagnose the personality traits of the child being tested:

Aggressiveness – the presence of needles, especially a large number of them. Strongly protruding, long, closely spaced needles reflect a high degree of aggressiveness.

Impulsiveness – abrupt lines, strong pressure.

Egocentrism, desire for leadership - a large drawing located in the center of the sheet.

Self-doubt, dependence - a small drawing located at the bottom of the sheet.

Demonstrativeness, openness - the presence of protruding processes in the cactus, pretentious forms.

Stealth, caution - arrangement of zigzags along the contour or inside the cactus.

Optimism – the image of “joyful” cacti, the use of bright colors in the version with colored pencils.

Anxiety – the predominance of internal shading, broken lines, the use of dark colors in the version with colored pencils.

Femininity - the presence of soft lines and shapes, decorations, flowers.

Extroversion – the presence of other cacti or flowers in the picture.

Introversion - the picture shows only one cactus.

The desire for home protection, a sense of family community - the presence of a flower pot in the picture, an image of a home cactus.

Lack of desire for home protection, a feeling of loneliness - an image of a wild, desert cactus.

2.3. Determination of the level of personal anxiety. The Children’s Form of Manifest Anxiety Scale - CMAS (Adaptation by A.M. Prikhozhan.) (5)

The scale was developed by American psychologistsA . Castaneda , IN. R . McCandless , D . S . Palermo in 1956 based on the manifest anxiety scale (Manifest Anxiety Scale ) J.Taylor ( J . A . Taylor , 1953), intended for adults. For the children's version of the scale, 42 items were selected, rated as the most indicative of the manifestation of chronic anxiety reactions in children. The specificity of the children's variant is also that the presence of a symptom is indicated only by affirmative answer options. In addition, the children's version is supplemented with 11 points of the control scale, which reveals the test subject's tendency to give socially approved answers. Indicators of this trend are identified through both positive and negative responses. Thus, the methodology contains 53 questions.

In Russia, an adaptation of the children's version of the scale was carried out and publishedA.M.Prihozhan .

The technique is intended for use from 8-12 years old.

Target : identificationanxiety as a relatively sustainable education.

Materials: a form containing 53 statements with which you must agree or disagree.

Test instructions:

Suggestions are printed on the following pages. There are two answer options for each of them:right Andwrong . The sentences describe events, incidents, experiences. Read each sentence carefully and decide whether you can relate it to yourself, whether it correctly describes you, your behavior, qualities. If yes, put a tick in the True column, if not, put a tick in the False column. Don't think about the answer for too long. If you cannot decide whether what is said in a sentence is true or false, choose what you think happens more often. You cannot give two answers to one sentence at once (i.e., underline both options). Don't miss sentences, answer everything.

Sample form .

Surname____________________________

Name_________________________________

Class________________________________

You never brag.

You are afraid that something might happen to you.

In the evening you find it difficult to sleep.

You are very worried about grades.

You're never late.

You often feel unsure of yourself.

You always speak only the truth.

You feel like no one understands you.

You are afraid that they will tell you: “You are doing everything badly.”

You're afraid of the dark.

You find it difficult to concentrate on your studies.

Sometimes you get angry.

Your stomach often hurts.

You get scared when you are left alone in a dark room before going to bed.

You often do things that you shouldn't do.

You often have a headache.

You are worried that something will happen to your parents.

Sometimes you don't keep your promises.

You often get tired.

You are often rude to your parents and other adults.

You often have terrible dreams.

You feel like the other guys are laughing at you.

Sometimes you lie.

You are afraid that something bad will happen to you.

Key to the test

Key to the subscale "social desirability » (CMAS item numbers)

Answer “Correct”: 5, 17, 21, 30, 34, 36.

Answer "False": 10, 41, 47, 49, 52.

The critical value for this subscale is 9. This and a higher result indicate that the subject’s answers may be unreliable and may be distorted under the influence of the social desirability factor.

Key to subscaleanxiety

“True” answers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12,13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 , 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 53.

The resulting score represents the primary, or “raw”, score.

Processing and interpretation of test results

Preliminary stage

1 . Look through the forms and select those on which all the answers are the same (only “true” or only “false”). As already noted, in the CMAS, the diagnosis of all symptoms of anxiety implies only an affirmative answer (“true”), which creates processing difficulties associated with the possible confusion of indicators of anxiety and the tendency to stereotypy, which is found in younger schoolchildren. To check, you should use a “social desirability” control scale, which includes both answer options. If a left-sided trend (all answers are “true”) or a right-sided trend (all answers are “wrong”) is detected, the result obtained should be considered questionable. It should be carefully monitored using independent methods.

2 . Pay attention to the presence of errors in filling out forms: double answers (i.e. underlining both “true” and “incorrect”), omissions, corrections, comments, etc. In cases where the test subject has incorrectly filled in no more than three points of the anxiety subscale (regardless of the nature of the error), its data can be processed on a general basis. If there are more errors, then processing is impractical. Particular attention should be paid to children who miss or double-response to five or more CMAS items. In a significant proportion of cases, this indicates difficulty in choosing, difficulties in making a decision, an attempt to avoid answering, i.e., it is an indicator of hidden anxiety.

Main stage

1 . Data are calculated on a control scale - the “social desirability” subscale.

2 . Anxiety subscale scores are calculated.

3 . The primary rating is converted to a scale rating. The standard ten (walls) is used as a scale rating. To do this, the subject’s data are compared with the normative indicators of a group of children of the corresponding age and gender.

Anxiety. Table for converting “raw” points into walls

Note on the norm table :

d - norms for girls,

m - norms for boys.

4 . Based on the obtained scale rating, a conclusion is made about the level of anxiety of the subject.

Characteristics of anxiety levels

Very high anxiety

Risk group

2.5 Determination of the predominant type of temperament among students in the experimental class .(4)

Identification of the predominant type of temperament was carried out with the help of the teacher of the experimental class, who was asked to evaluate his students according to the scheme for observing the properties of temperament:

Situations where you need to act quickly:

A) is easy to put into operation;

B) acts with passion;

C) acts calmly, without unnecessary words;

D) acts uncertainly, timidly;

2. How does the student react to the teacher’s comments:

A) says that he won’t do this again, but after some time he does the same thing again;

B) is indignant at being reprimanded;

C) listens and reacts calmly;

D) is silent, but offended;

3. When discussing issues that concern him very much with comrades, he says:

A) quickly, eagerly, but listens to the statements of others;

B) quickly, with passion, but does not listen to others;

B) slowly, calmly, but confidently;

D) with great anxiety and doubt;

4. In a situation where you need to take a test, but it has not yet been completed or has been done, as it turns out, with an error:

A) reacts easily to the situation;

B) is in a hurry to finish the work, is indignant about mistakes;

C) decides calmly until the teacher comes up to him and takes the work, says little about mistakes;

D) submits the work without talking, but expresses uncertainty and doubts about the correctness of the decision;

5. When solving a difficult problem (or task), if it doesn’t work out right away:

A) gives up, then continues to decide again;

B) decides stubbornly and persistently, but from time to time sharply expresses his indignation;

B) calmly;

D) shows confusion and uncertainty;

6. In a situation where a student is in a hurry to go home, and the teacher or class leader invites him to stay at school after school to complete a specific task:

A) quickly agrees;

B) is indignant;

C) remains without saying a word;

D) shows confusion;

7. In an unfamiliar environment:

A) shows maximum activity, easily and quickly receives the necessary information for orientation, quickly makes decisions;

B) is active in one direction, because of this he does not receive the necessary information, but makes decisions quickly;

C) calmly looks at what is happening around him and is not in a hurry to make a decision;

D) timidly gets acquainted with the situation, makes decisions uncertainly.

The teacher, in a special table opposite the student’s FI, put the corresponding letter in the numbered cells.

Sample table,

Last Name Student First Name

№ attribute being assessed

Processing and interpretation.

The predominant number of letters for each student is revealed.

The type of temperament is established: a-sanguine, b-choleric, c-phlegmatic, d-melancholic.

2.4 Tracing the relationship between the level of personal anxiety and the prevailing temperament.

By comparing the results of the first three methods, the level of personal anxiety was determined for each student.

The data obtained were compared with the predominant type of temperament. The results of this work are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Anxiety level.

Type

Temperament.

Short.

Average.

High.

Sanguine.

3 students

1 student

---

Choleric.

---

3 students

---

Phlegmatic person.

6 teaching

5 students

---

Melancholic.

---

2 students

6 students

The table data shows that the predominant type of temperament affects the level of anxiety. Thus, only children with a melancholic type of temperament have a high level of anxiety. Which is due to the weakness of their nervous system.

An average level of anxiety is characteristic of choleric people. This may be caused by an imbalance in the nervous system.

Sanguine people are generally characterized by a low level of personal anxiety. The combination of a strong nervous system, balance and mobility of nervous processes does not allow you to dwell on disturbing factors for a long time.

Most students with a predominant phlegmatic temperament have a low level of anxiety, since they have a strong nervous system and balanced nervous processes. They react very slowly and calmly to current events. But some phlegmatic students showed an average level of personal anxiety. This may be due to poor mobility of nervous processes and introversion.

Thus, the data from the study confirmed the hypothesis put forward.

To reduce the level of anxiety in children, it is advisable to carry out work on psychological education of parents, which includes three blocks. The first involves considering questions about the role of relationships in the family and the consolidation of anxiety. The second block is the influence of the emotional well-being of adults on the emotional well-being of children. The third is the importance of developing a sense of self-confidence in children.

The main task of such work is to help parents understand that they have a decisive role in preventing anxiety and overcoming it. (1)

It is necessary to conduct psychological education of teachers. This work focuses on explaining the impact that anxiety as a stable personality trait can have on the development of a child, the success of his activities, and his future. Teachers’ attention should be paid to the formation of the correct attitude of students towards mistakes, since it is precisely the “orientation towards mistakes”, which is often reinforced by the attitude of teachers towards mistakes as an unacceptable, punishable phenomenon, which is one of the forms of anxiety.

It is also necessary to carry out direct work with children, focused on developing and strengthening self-confidence, their own criteria for success, and the ability to behave in difficult situations and situations of failure. When carrying out psychoprophylactic work, it is necessary to focus on optimizing those areas that are associated with “age-related peaks of anxiety” for each period; during psychocorrection, work should be focused on “zones of vulnerability” characteristic of a particular child.

It is useful to maintain the emotional health of students to conduct emotional stability training, psychological relief activities, etc.

Conclusion.

This work examined issues related to the psychological phenomenon of anxiety, which has a strong impact on personal development. This is especially important at primary school age, since it is during this period that the most important psychological qualities are laid and developed.

The causes of the emergence and manifestation of anxiety as a personality trait in children of primary school age were studied.

A number of techniques were carried out, the results of which confirmed the correctness of the assumption about the connection between the predominant type of temperament and the level of personal anxiety. These data will allow for more targeted work to prevent and prevent increases in the level of personal anxiety.

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Arakelov N, Shishkova N. Anxiety: methods of its diagnosis and correction / Bulletin of MU, ser. Psychology. - 1998, No. 1.

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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.

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.