With the first month of the school year now complete, three groups of students \u2013 in full-day kindergarten, Grade 9 and first-year university \u2013 might be finding life tougher than usual as they settle into their school routines.<\/p>\n
Brock researchers are looking at these three developmental stages and how teachers and parents can give support to their kids in school.<\/p>\n
Development psychologist Caitlin Mahy cautions that four year olds starting Ontario\u2019s relatively new full-day junior kindergarten have a different set of memory, self-regulation and social skills than older children in kindergarten.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting these children in kindergarten for a full day and we expect them to understand other peoples\u2019 minds and remember to do things on their own,\u201d she says. \u201cYet, they\u2019re really going to struggle with these abilities, especially compared to five year olds, who at least have some of those basic skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Developmental and educational psychologist Zopito Marini says the transition from Grade 8 to Grade 9 is monumental and can bring out a number of anxieties \u2013 but also hopeful new beginnings \u2013 in young people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big thing in high school is the horrific pressure of fitting in: finding a group of people who like you,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to find out where you fit in the hierarchy and usually, in Grade 9, you fit at the bottom unless you have some special gifts. And that\u2019s where bullying might come in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Psychology graduate student Thalia Semplonius is involved in a research project called Stressed@Brock, in which Brock students answer questionnaires about their stress levels and how they are coping with challenges at various points in their university education.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen students are starting (post-secondary) school for the first time, they might be moving away from home, they\u2019re having to make new friends,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen we look at responses at the beginning of the winter semester, we find that their top stresses are things like their grades and not having enough time or money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the first month of the school year now complete, three groups of students \u2013 in full-day kindergarten, Grade 9 and first-year university \u2013 might be finding life tougher than usual as they settle into their school routines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":35750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,5],"tags":[3437,29,3436,3439,3438],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35751,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35749\/revisions\/35751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}