Manifestation of anxiety in children of primary school age

Prepared by: Anastasia Zamotaeva, 2nd year student of the specialty “Pedagogy and Psychology” at the FEFU School of Pedagogy

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, psychologists use the term “anxiety” 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 concern. This condition can occur in any person in anticipation of possible troubles and life complications. This condition is not only completely normal, but also plays a positive role. It acts as a kind of mobilizing mechanism that allows a person to approach emerging problems seriously and responsibly. What is more abnormal is a decrease in situational anxiety, when a person, in the face of serious circumstances, demonstrates carelessness and irresponsibility, which most often indicates an infantile life position, 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 do not like 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 during 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 a focus on grades, rather than on the process of cognition.

It happens that parents focus on high, inaccessible achievements in sports and art; 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 and vagueness of the 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, which causes them to expect 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

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 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.

References

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: Proc. aid for students avg. ped. textbook establishments / , ; Ed. . - M.: Publishing center "Academy", 19с. – http://*****/Books/1/0177/index. shtml.

COURSE WORK

"Study of anxiety factors in children of primary school age"

Introduction

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

Conclusion

References

Applications

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solving this problem is the goal of this study.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Research on anxiety in domestic and foreign psychology

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

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

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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

)Need for social recognition or prestige;

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

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

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

)Neurotic need for love;

)Neurotic need for superiority, perfection, inaccessibility.

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

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

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

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

2 Features of anxiety in children of primary school age

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

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

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

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

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

If before school some of the child’s individual characteristics could not interfere with his natural development and 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 the subject’s predisposition to anxiety and presupposes his tendency to perceive a fairly wide “fan” of situations as threatening, responding to each of them with a specific reaction. As a predisposition, personal anxiety is activated by the perception of certain stimuli that are regarded by a person as dangerous to self-esteem and self-esteem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anxious children are characterized by frequent manifestations of worry 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.

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

These include: restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, in outdoor games), in activities; 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 towards whom the child has a negative attitude.

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

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

3 Anxiety factors in children of primary school age

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

The school educational environment is described by the following features:

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

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

· training program.

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

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

· educational overload;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

· educational overload;

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

· inadequate expectations from parents;

· unfavorable relationships with teachers;

· regularly recurring assessment and examination situations;

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

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

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

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

1 Description of research methods

anxiety junior school mental

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

· Phillips method for diagnosing the level of school anxiety;

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

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

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

· Method of unfinished sentences;

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

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

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

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

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

Conduct research using selected methods;

Analyze the results obtained.

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

· Phillips School Anxiety Test;

· Sociometric technique.

Phillips School Anxiety Test.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sociometric technique.

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

The method of sociometric measurements allows you to obtain information:

· About socio-psychological relationships in the group;

· About the status of people in the group;

· About psychological compatibility and cohesion in a group.

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

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

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Introduction

anxiety school age

Relevance of the study. Currently, the number of anxious children characterized by increased anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional instability has increased.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Research hypothesis -

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

Analyze and systematize theoretical sources on the problem under consideration.

To study the characteristics of anxiety in children of primary school age and to establish the causes of increased anxiety.

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

Psychological and pedagogical characteristics of anxiety. Definition of the concept of “anxiety”. Domestic and foreign views on this issue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to the definition of A.V. Petrovsky: Anxiety is an individual’s tendency to experience anxiety, characterized by a low threshold for the occurrence of an anxiety reaction; one of the main parameters of individual differences. Anxiety is usually increased in neuropsychic and severe somatic diseases, as well as in healthy people experiencing the consequences of psychotrauma, in many groups of people with deviant subjective manifestations of personality dysfunction .
Modern anxiety research is aimed at distinguishing situational anxiety, associated with a specific external situation, and personal anxiety, which is a stable property of the individual, as well as developing methods for analyzing anxiety as a result of the interaction of the individual and his environment
G.G. Arakelov, N.E. Lysenko, E.E. Schott, in turn, note that anxiety is a multi-valued psychological term that describes both a certain state of individuals at a limited point in time, and a stable property of any person. An analysis of the literature of recent years allows us to consider anxiety from different points of view, allowing for the assertion that increased anxiety arises and is realized as a result of a complex interaction of cognitive, affective and behavioral reactions provoked when a person is exposed to various stresses.

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

In a study of the level of aspirations in adolescents, M.Z. Neimark discovered a negative emotional state in the form of anxiety, fear, aggression, which was caused by dissatisfaction of their claims to success. Also, emotional distress such as anxiety was observed in children with high self-esteem. They pretended to be the best students, or occupy the highest position in the team, that is, they had high aspirations in certain areas, although they did not have real opportunities to realize their aspirations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The problem of anxiety became the subject of special research among neo-Freudians and, above all, K. Horney. In Horney's theory, the main sources of anxiety and restlessness of the individual are not rooted in the conflict between biological drives and social prohibitions, but are the result of incorrect human relationships. In the book 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 partner who fulfills all desires, expectations, fear of being 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Fromm believes that all these mechanisms, including escape 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, as the loss of one’s I constitutes the most painful condition. Mental mechanisms of escape from freedom are irrational; according to Fromm, they are not a reaction to environmental conditions, and therefore are not able to eliminate the causes of suffering and anxiety.

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

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

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 (mother's love, the affection of peers).

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 (loss of parental love, etc.) 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. A strong feeling of anxiety can be emotionally crippling and lead to despair. Anxiety for a person presents problems that need to be dealt with. For this purpose, various protective mechanisms (methods) are used.

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 place the degree of a person’s anxiety depending on the degree of intensity of the circumstances (stimuli) causing anxiety that the person faces , interacting with the environment.

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

Classification of types of anxiety

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

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

Causes of the appearance and development of anxiety in children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peculiarities of behavior of anxious children

Anxious 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 that the children are not able to complete, and in case of failure, they are usually punished and humiliated (“You can’t do anything! You can’t do anything!” ").

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

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

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

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

Ascertaining experiment and its analysis. Organization, methods and techniques of research

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

Methods used:

Anxiety test (V. Amen)

Goal: Determine the child’s anxiety level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diagnosis of school anxiety levels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Material: questionnaire form containing 50 statements.

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

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

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

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

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

Psychological portrait of low-anxiety individuals:

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

Research results

Research methodology “Anxiety Test (V. Amen)”

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

Research methodology “Diagnostics of the level of school anxiety”

As a result of the study, we received:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Research methodology “J. Taylor Questionnaire”

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

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

As a result of the study, we received:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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. Conflicting internal states of a child’s soul can be caused by:

conflicting demands on him, coming from different sources (or even from the same source: it happens that parents contradict themselves, either allowing or rudely prohibiting the same thing);
inadequate requirements that do not correspond to the child’s capabilities and aspirations;
negative demands that put the child in a humiliated, dependent position.

In all three cases feelings arise loss of support , loss of strong guidelines in life, uncertainty in the world around us.

List of used literature

Arakelov N.E., Lysenko E.E. Psychophysiological method for assessing anxiety // Psychological Journal - 1997 - No. 2

Makshantseva L.V. Anxiety and the possibilities of reducing it in children starting to attend kindergarten. //AND. "Psychological Science and Education", 1998, No. 2.

Neymark M.Z. Affects in children and ways to overcome them // Soviet pedagogy - 1963 - No. 5

Nemov R.S. Psychology: Textbook. A manual for higher education students. ped. educational institutions: In 3 books. - book 3: Psychodiagnostics. Introduction to scientific and psychological research with elements of mathematical statistics - 3rd ed. - M.: Humanite. VLADOS Center, 1998. - 632 p.

Psychology. Dictionary / Ed. A.V. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Politizdat, 1990 - 494 p.

Savina E., Shanina N. Anxious children. /AND. “Preschool education”, 1996, No. 4.

Dictionary of a practicing psychologist / Comp. S.Yu. Golovin - 2nd ed., revised and supplemented - Mn.: Harvest, 2005. - 976 p.

Stepanov S.S. Big problems of a small child: advice from a psychologist to parents. - Moscow: Pedagogy - Press, 1995 - 168 p.

Freud Z. psychology of the unconscious. - M.; 1989

Fromm E. To have or to be - M., 1990-330 p.

Horney K. Our internal conflicts. Constructive theory of neuroses / Cover design by A. Lurie. - Stb: Lan, 1997 - 240 p.

.#"justify"> Appendix 1

Anxiety test (V. Amen)

Appendix 2

Diagnosis of the level of school anxiety

1.Do you find it difficult to stay on the same level with the rest of the class?

2.Do you get nervous when your teacher says he's going to test how much you know about the material?

.Do you find it difficult to work in class the way your teacher wants you to?

.Do you sometimes dream that your teacher is furious because you don't know your lesson?

.Has anyone in your class ever hit or hit you?

.Do you often wish your teacher would take his time explaining new material until you understand what he is saying?

.Do you get very nervous when answering or completing a task?

.Does it ever happen to you that you are afraid to speak up in class because you are afraid of making a stupid mistake?

.Do your knees shake when you are called to answer?

.Do your classmates often laugh at you when you play different games?

.Do you ever get a lower grade than you expected?

.Are you worried about whether you will be retained for a second year?

.Do you try to avoid games that involve choices because you usually don't get chosen?

.Does it happen at times that you tremble all over when you are called to answer?

.Do you often get the feeling that none of your classmates want to do what you want?

.Do you get very nervous before starting a task?

.Is it difficult for you to get the grades your parents expect from you?

.Are you sometimes afraid that you will feel sick in class?

.Will your classmates laugh at you, will you make a mistake when answering?

.Are you like your classmates?

.After completing a task, do you worry about whether you did a good job?

.When you work in class, are you confident that you will remember everything well?

.Do you sometimes dream that you are at school and cannot answer the teacher’s question?

.Is it true that most guys treat you in a friendly manner?

.Do you work harder if you know that your work will be compared in class with that of your classmates?

.Do you often wish you could worry less when people ask you questions?

.Are you afraid to get into an argument at times?

.Do you feel your heart start beating fast when the teacher says he is going to test your readiness for class?

.When you get good grades, do any of your friends think that you want to curry favor?

.Do you feel good with those of your classmates to whom the guys treat with special attention?

.Does it happen that some kids in class say something that offends you?

.Do you think those students who fail in their studies lose favor?

.Does it seem like most of your classmates don't pay attention to you?

.Are you often afraid of looking ridiculous?

.Are you satisfied with the way your teachers treat you?

.Does your mother help organize evenings, like other mothers of your classmates?

.Have you ever worried about what others think of you?

.Do you hope to study better in the future than before?

.Do you think that you dress as well as your classmates for school?

.Do you often think when answering in class what others are thinking about you at this time?

.Do bright students have any special rights that other children in the class do not have?

.Do some of your classmates get angry when you manage to be better than them?

.Are you satisfied with the way your classmates treat you?

.Do you feel good when you are alone with the teacher?

.Do your classmates sometimes make fun of your appearance and behavior?

.Do you think you worry about your schoolwork more than other kids?

.If you can't answer when someone asks you, do you feel like you're going to cry?

.When you lie in bed in the evening, do you sometimes think anxiously about what will happen at school tomorrow?

.When working on a difficult task, do you sometimes feel that you have completely forgotten things that you knew well before?

.Does your hand shake slightly when you are working on a task?

.Do you feel yourself getting nervous when the teacher says he's going to assign the class an assignment?

.Does having your knowledge tested at school scare you?

.When a teacher says she is going to give the class an assignment, do you feel afraid that you won't be able to complete it?

.Have you sometimes dreamed that your classmates can do something that you cannot?

.When the teacher explains the material, do you feel like your classmates understand it better than you?

.When you complete a task, do you usually feel that you are doing it poorly?

.Does your hand shake slightly when the teacher asks you to do a task on the board in front of the whole class?

Processing and interpretation of results.

When processing the results, questions are identified; the answers to which do not match the test key. For example, to the 58th question the child answered Yes , while in the key this question corresponds -, that is, the answer No . Answers that do not match the key are manifestations of anxiety. During processing the following is calculated:

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

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

.General anxiety at school - 2, 3, 7, 12, 16, 21, 23, 26, 28, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58; sum = 22

.Experience of social stress - 5, 10, 15, 20, 24, 30, 33, 36, 39, 42, 44; sum = 11

Frustration of the need to achieve success - 1, 3, 6, 11, 17, 19, 25, 29, 32, 35, 38, 41, 43; sum = 13

Fear of self-expression - 27, 31, 34, 37, 40, 45; amount = 6

Fear of knowledge testing situations - 2, 7, 12, 16, 21, 26; amount = 6

Fear of not meeting the expectations of others - 3, 8, 13, 17, 22; amount = 5

Low physiological resistance to stress - 9, 14, 18, 23, 28; amount = 5

Problems and fears in relationships with teachers - 2, 6, 11, 32, 35, 41, 44, 47; sum = 8

Table. Key:

1 -7 -13 -19 -25 +31 -37 -43 +49 -55 -2 -8 -14 -20 +26 -32 -38 +44 +50 -56 -3 -9 -15 -21 -27 -33 -39 +45 -51 -57 -4 -10 -16 -22 +28 -34 -40 -46 -52 -58 -5 -11 +17 -23 -29 -35 +41 +47 -53 -6 -12 -18 -24 +30 +36 +42 -48 -54

Appendix 3

Data processing is carried out using a key

Key: statements 1 - 37 for the answer “Yes” - 1 point, “No” - 0 points;

statements 38 - 50 for the answer “No” - 1 point, “Yes” - 0 points.

In accordance with the key, the sum of points is calculated and the number of “I don’t know” answers divided by two is added to it. The resulting final result is correlated with the evaluation criteria.

Evaluation criteria:

5 points - low level of anxiety;

15 points - average level with a tendency to low;

25 points average level with a tendency to high;

40 points high level;

50 points is a very high level.

I usually work under a lot of pressure.

At night I have difficulty falling asleep.

Unexpected changes in my usual environment are unpleasant for me.

I often have nightmares.

I find it difficult to concentrate on any task or work.

I have extremely restless and interrupted sleep.

I would like to be as happy as I think others are happy.

Of course, I lack self-confidence.

My health worries me a lot.

At times I feel completely useless.

I often cry, my eyes are wet.

I notice that my hands begin to shake when I try to do something difficult or dangerous.

At times, when I am confused, I start to sweat and this makes me extremely worried and embarrassed.

I often catch myself worrying and worrying about something.

Often I think about things that I would not like to talk about.

Even on cold days I sweat easily.

I have periods of such anxiety that I cannot sit still.

Life for me is almost always associated with extraordinary tension.

I'm much more sensitive than most people.

I get confused easily.

My position among others worries me greatly.

I find it very difficult to concentrate on anything.

Almost all the time I feel anxious about someone or something.

At times I become so excited that I have difficulty falling asleep.

I had to experience fear even in those cases when I knew for sure that nothing threatened me.

I tend to take things too seriously.

It sometimes seems to me that difficulties are piled up in front of me that I cannot overcome.

Sometimes I feel like I'm good for nothing.

I feel unsure of my abilities almost all the time.

I am very worried about possible failures.

Waiting always makes me nervous.

There were times when anxiety deprived me of sleep.

Sometimes I get upset over little things.

I am an easily excitable person.

I'm often afraid that I'm going to blush.

I don't have the courage to endure all the difficulties ahead.

Sometimes it seems to me that my nervous system is shaken and I’m about to break down.

Usually my feet and hands are quite warm.

I usually have an even and good mood.

I almost always feel quite happy.

When I have to wait a long time for something, I can do it calmly.

I rarely have headaches after experiencing worries and troubles.

My nerves are no more upset than other people's.

I'm confident.

Compared to my friends, I consider myself quite brave.

I'm no more shy than others.

I'm usually calm and it's not easy to get angry.

I practically never blush.

I can sleep peacefully after any troubles.

Annotation. The article is devoted to the study of the problem of anxiety in primary school age; it is shown thatanxiety as a personality trait determines the behavior of a primary school student; The results of a study of the level of anxiety in children of primary school age are presented.
Keywords: anxiety, worry, anxiety, fear, primary schoolchildren.

Among the most pressing problems that study practical human activity, problems associated with mental states occupy a special place. Among the various mental states that are the subject of scientific research, the greatest attention is paid to the state designated in English by the term “anxiety”, which is translated into Russian as “worry”, “anxiety”.

Most anxiety researchers agree that S. Freud was the first to identify and emphasize the state of anxiety as a problem that is actually psychological - both scientifically and clinically. He characterized this state as emotional, including the experience of expectation and uncertainty, a feeling of helplessness.

Anxiety is one of the most complex and pressing problems of modern psychological science.

Currently, a large number of works are devoted to the study of anxiety (Dolgova V.I., Kapitanets E.G.; Prikhozhan A.M.; Miklyaeva A.V., Rumyantseva P.V.). For a sufficiently complete analysis of them, it is necessary to clarify some theoretical and methodological provisions. First of all, a clear conceptual distinction between the concepts of anxiety, as a state, and anxiety, as a personality trait, is important. Most often, the term “anxiety” is used to describe a negative mental state or internal condition that is characterized by subjective feelings of tension, restlessness, and gloom. This state occurs when an individual perceives certain stimuli or a situation as containing directly or potentially elements of threat, danger, harm (Prikhozhan A.M.).

The ambiguity in understanding anxiety as a mental phenomenon stems from the fact that the term “anxiety” is used in different meanings. The difficulty of achieving agreement in defining this concept is seen in the fact that anxiety researchers often use different terminology in their work. The main reason for the ambiguity and uncertainty in the concepts of anxiety is that the term is used, as a rule, to denote, although interrelated, but still different concepts. Orderliness in this issue is introduced by highlighting independent semantic units: anxiety, unmotivated anxiety and personal anxiety.

Some authors describe unmotivated anxiety, characterized by unreasonable expectations of trouble, premonition of trouble, possible losses; unmotivated anxiety can be a sign of a mental disorder.

The term "trait anxiety" is used to refer to relatively stable individual differences in an individual's tendency to experience anxiety. In this case, anxiety refers to a personality trait. The constant experience of anxiety is fixed and becomes a personality trait - anxiety.

Anxiety as a personality trait largely determines a child’s behavior. A certain level of anxiety is a natural and obligatory feature of an active personality. However, an increased level of anxiety is a subjective manifestation of personal distress.

Anxiety as a personality trait means a behavioral disposition that presupposes the individual’s readiness to perceive a range of phenomena and objectively safe circumstances as containing a threat. In general, anxiety is an indicator of unfavorable personal development and has a negative impact on it (Dolgova V.I., Latyushin Ya.V., Egremov A.A.).

Researchers of this problem also raise the question of the time of development of anxiety. A number of authors believe that anxiety begins in early childhood. up to a year, when anxiety experienced by normally developing children may be a prerequisite for the subsequent development of anxiety. Anxieties and fears of adults around the child, traumatic life experiences, are reflected in the child. Anxiety develops into anxiety, thereby turning into a stable character trait, but this does not happen before the senior preschool age. And by the age of 7, we can already talk about the development of anxiety as a personality trait, a certain emotional state with a predominant feeling of anxiety and fear of doing something wrong, or wrong.

A.V. Miklyaeva, P.V. Rumyantsev calls adolescence the time of development of anxiety as a stable personal formation.

Preschool childhood is one of the most important stages of a child’s mental development - the age of initial formation of personality. Violation of the mechanisms of the psychological structure of development of a preschooler can have a decisive impact on the entire further course of his development. First of all, at the next stage of a child’s life - at primary school age. Achievements at this age are determined by the leading nature of educational activities, which in many ways determines the subsequent years of education.

Thus, anxiety in younger schoolchildren begins to develop even in preschool age. And by adolescence, anxiety may already be an established personality trait (Martyanova G.Yu.).

The beginning of systematic schooling, that is, junior school age, is one of the periods during which there is a significant increase in the number of anxious children (Kostina L.M.).

School systematically introduces the child to knowledge and develops diligence. The main danger that awaits a child at this stage is a feeling of inadequacy and inferiority. The child in this case experiences despair from his ineptitude and sees himself doomed to mediocrity or inadequacy. At the moment, when a child develops a feeling of inadequacy to the requirements of the school, the family again becomes a refuge for him (Dolgova V.I., Arkaeva N.I., Kapitanets E.G.).

In the late 80s and early 90s of the 20th century, researchers on the problem of anxiety in schoolchildren noted that less than 50% of students exhibited persistent school anxiety (V.V. Sorokina). At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was revealed that more than 50% of primary school students have an increased and high level of school anxiety (Mekeshkin E.A.).

One of the factors influencing the development of anxiety in children is parental relationships. In a number of works, in determining the causes of anxiety in children, the authors place improper upbringing and unfavorable relationships between the child and his parents, especially with his mother, in the first place.

The mother's rejection of her child causes him anxiety due to the inability to satisfy the need for love, affection and protection. Parenting according to the type of hyperprotection (excessive care, petty control, a large number of restrictions and prohibitions, constant tugging) also has a high probability of anxiety in the child.

Parenting based on excessive demands that the child is unable to cope with or copes with difficulty is also one of the causes of anxiety.

Often, parents cultivate “correct” behavior - a strict system of norms and rules, deviation from which entails punishment. In this case, the child’s anxiety is generated by the fear of deviating from the norms and rules established by adults.

Cruel upbringing leads to the characterological development of the inhibitory type with fearfulness, timidity and simultaneous selective dominance; pendulum-like education (today we will prohibit it, tomorrow we will allow it) - to pronounced affective states in children, neurasthenia; protective upbringing leads to a feeling of dependence and the creation of low volitional potential; insufficient education leads to difficulties in social adaptation.

The problem of ensuring emotional well-being is relevant when working with children of any age, and especially with primary school students, whose emotional sphere is the most susceptible and vulnerable. This is due to the need for the child to adapt to changes in social and social conditions of life.

Unfortunately, despite the large number of works we have noted on the problem under consideration, insufficient attention has been paid to the study of anxiety in primary school age.

So, since researchers are unanimous in assessing the negative impact of a high level of anxiety in children, noting an increase in the number of anxious children characterized by increased anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional instability, the problem of childhood anxiety, at the present stage, is particularly relevant.

The study was conducted in the 4th “B” class of MBOU secondary school No. 110 in the city of Chelyabinsk. There are 12 people in the class.

During the “Phillips School Anxiety Test” methodology, the results presented in Figure 1 were obtained.

Rice. 1. Results according to the Phillips School Anxiety Test method

As can be seen from Table 1 and Figure 1, the majority of subjects in the experimental group have a high level of anxiety (17% - 2 people) and a three times higher level of anxiety - 6 people.

During the “Non-existent animal” technique M.3. Drukarevich, it was revealed that 50% of the subjects in the experimental group are characterized by the location of a large picture in the center, with large eyes, 30% of the pictures are small in size. 60% of the drawings of the subjects in the experimental group had a large number of angles, including direct symbols of aggression - claws, teeth. A mouth with teeth - verbal aggression, in most cases - defensive (snarls, bullies, is rude in response to a negative approach, condemnation, censure). In combination with other traits, this indicates protection from others, aggressive or with fear and anxiety. These characteristics of the picture indicate the presence of anxiety in the subjects.

The results of the ascertaining stage of the study showed that in the experimental group, the majority of subjects had an increased level of anxiety and only 33% had a low level of anxiety.

The results of an empirical study of anxiety in younger schoolchildren indicate a high need for corrective work with children and parents to prevent the development of anxiety in schoolchildren (Dolgova V.I., Rokitskaya Yu.A., Merkulova N.A.).

Conclusions: Anxiety is an individual psychological feature consisting of an increased tendency to experience anxiety in various life situations, including those whose objective characteristics do not predispose to this.

It is necessary to distinguish between anxiety as a state and anxiety as a personality trait. Anxiety is a reaction to an impending danger, real or imaginary, an emotional state of diffuse, objectless fear, characterized by an uncertain feeling of threat (as opposed to fear, which is a reaction to a very definite danger).

Anxiety manifests itself in the psychological and psychophysiological sphere. The causes of anxiety can be at the psychological and psychophysiological level.

Dolgova V.I., Kapitanets E.G. Correction and development of attention of younger schoolchildren with intellectual disabilities - Chelyabinsk: ATOKSO, 2010 - 117 p.
Prikhozhan A.M. Psychology of anxiety: preschool and school age, 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2009. - 192 p.
Miklyaeva A.V., Rumyantseva P.V. School anxiety: diagnosis, prevention, correction. - St. Petersburg: Rech, 2007. - 248 p.
Prikhozhan A.M. Anxiety in children and adolescents: psychological nature and age dynamics. - M.: Moscow Psychological and Social Institute: Voronezh: MODEK, 2000. - 303 p.
Dolgova V.I., Latyushin Ya.V., Ekremov A.A. Formation of emotional stability of the individual: monograph. - SPb.: RGPU im. A.I. Herzen, 2002. - 167 p. 1.
Martyanova G.Yu. Psychological correction in childhood - M.: Classics Style, 2007. - 160 p.
Kostina L.M. Adaptation of first-graders to school by reducing their level of anxiety // Questions of psychology. - 2004. - No. 1. - P. 133 - 140
Dolgova V.I., Arkaeva N.I., Kapitanets E.G. Innovative psychological and pedagogical technologies in primary school/monograph. - M.: Pero Publishing House, 2015. - 200 p.
Sorokina V.V. Negative experiences of children in elementary school // Questions of psychology. - 2004. - No. 2. - P.40 - 48.
Mekeshkin E.A. Features of adaptation to mental stress of primary school students with different levels of school anxiety: Dis. Ph.D. biol. Sci. - Chelyabinsk. - 2010. - 132 p.
Dolgova V.I., Rokitskaya Yu.A., Merkulova N.A. Parents' readiness to raise children in a foster family - M.: Pero Publishing House, 2015. - 180 p.

1.2 Causes of anxiety and features of its manifestation in children of primary school age

Emotions play an important role in children’s lives: they help them perceive reality and respond to it. Manifesting themselves in behavior, they inform the adult about what the child likes, angers, or upsets. This is especially true in infancy, when verbal communication is not available. As a child grows, his emotional world becomes richer and more diverse. From basic ones (fear, joy, etc.) he moves on to a more complex range of feelings: happy and angry, delighted and surprised, jealous and sad. The external manifestation of emotions also changes. This is no longer a baby who cries both from fear and from hunger.

At preschool age, a child learns the language of feelings - socially accepted forms of expressing the subtlest shades of experiences with the help of glances, smiles, gestures, postures, movements, voice intonations, etc.

On the other hand, the child masters the ability to restrain violent and harsh expressions of feelings. A five-year-old child, unlike a two-year-old, may no longer show fear or tears. He learns not only to largely control the expression of his feelings, to put them in a culturally accepted form, but also to consciously use them, informing others about his experiences, influencing them..

But preschoolers still remain spontaneous and impulsive. The emotions they experience are easily read on their face, in their posture, gesture, and in their entire behavior. For a practical psychologist, a child’s behavior and his expression of feelings are an important indicator in understanding the inner world of a little person, indicating his mental state, well-being, and possible development prospects. The emotional background provides the psychologist with information about the degree of emotional well-being of the child. The emotional background can be positive or negative.

The child's negative background is characterized by depression, bad mood, and confusion. The child hardly smiles or does it ingratiatingly, the head and shoulders are lowered, the facial expression is sad or indifferent. In such cases, problems arise in communication and establishing contact. The child often cries and is easily offended, sometimes for no apparent reason.

L. I. Bozhovich attached great importance to the problem of emotional experiences in the mental development of a child. Emphasizing the importance of understanding the child’s affective relationship to the environment, she wrote: “We consider affective states as long-term, deep emotional experiences directly related to active needs and aspirations that are of vital importance for the subject.” In this sense, L. I. Bozhovich seems to agree with the position of L. S. Vygotsky, who introduced the concept of experience to analyze the role of the environment in the development of a child.

In general, the point of view of L.I. Bozhovich gravitates towards the position of S.L. Rubinstein and his followers, who note the close connection between emotions and needs in human development.

Noting the great importance of the emotional development of a child in his upbringing, A.V. Zaporozhets in the 70s. emphasized the important role of feelings in the energy supply of the child’s activity, in its structuring, in the formation of new motives and the identification of goals. He believed that emotion is not the process of activation itself, but a special form of the subject’s reflection of reality, through which mental control of activation is carried out, or, rather, mental regulation of the general direction and dynamics of behavior is carried out. Moreover, he called this specific form of regulatory behavior motivational-semantic orientation, the main purpose of which was, in his opinion, to find out whether an unfamiliar object or person encountered poses any threat and whether it is dangerous to deal with him. In all these cases, as A.V. Zaporozhets wrote, the child, as it were, first tests the perceived object on the touchstone of his needs, tastes and capabilities, imbued with a correspondingly positive or negative attitude towards this object, which largely determines the nature and direction of subsequent child activity . These theoretical principles, emphasizing the diversity of functions of emotional processes, were implemented in a number of psychological and pedagogical studies devoted to the development of social emotions in preschool children (A.D. Kosheleva (41), L.P. Strelkova (37), T.P. Khrizman, V.K. Kotyrlo, etc.).

The work of V. V. Lebedinsky and his colleagues is devoted to the study of the role of emotions not only in pedagogical, but also more broadly - in the life context. V.V. Lebedinsky believes that emotions in the process of child development form a complex system of emotional regulation, which has a multi-level structure. This system responds most quickly to any external environmental influences and internal signals of the child’s body. It is also responsible for toning all mental processes, i.e. for maintaining a certain level of energy activity, signaling the satisfaction of the child’s most fundamental needs. The four levels of basal emotional regulation identified by these authors, described using examples of children with early childhood autism, form a model of both the development of the emotional sphere of children and its various disorders.

A radical change in ideas about the essence of disturbances in personality functioning is associated with the name of Freud. First of all, we should mention here his discovery of the subconscious mechanism of the psyche, the phenomena of suppressing anxiety and defense mechanisms that ensure its weakening, and his theory of the conflict of forces operating in a person with the demands of the environment. According to Freud, in man there are powerful forces of instinctive drives (Id), mainly sexual desire, which find expression in external behavior and penetrate into the sphere of consciousness.

Before talking about the specifics of childhood anxiety, let us turn to the definition of the concept of “anxiety”. In the psychological literature one can find different definitions of this concept, although most researchers agree on the need to consider its differentiation - 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 “the experience of emotional discomfort associated with the expectation of trouble, with a premonition of impending danger. “Anxiety is distinguished as an emotional state and as a stable property, personality trait or temperament.”

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

L.A. Kitaev-Smyk, in turn, notes that “in recent years, the use of a differentiated definition of two types of anxiety in psychological research: “character anxiety” and “situational anxiety”, proposed by Spielberger, has become widespread in recent years.

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 the dominance of the emotional... is a derivative of a wide range of family disorders.”

The anxiety experienced by a person in relation to a certain situation depends on his negative emotional experience in this and similar situations. An increased level of anxiety indicates a child’s insufficient emotional adaptation to certain social situations. An experimental determination of the degree of anxiety reveals a child’s internal attitude to a specific situation and provides indirect information about the nature of his relationships with peers and adults in the family, kindergarten, and school.

Anxiety is not a reaction to the return of repressed content, but the effect of awakening aggressive, destructive tendencies. They are the true cause of the child’s unwanted actions and his suffering. The child, loving his mother, destroys her, experiences her loss and feels guilty. While identifying with her, he at the same time feels himself subjected to destruction. In an effort to correct the evil caused, he takes the path of sublimation. However, this conflict persists. To preserve mental health, it is necessary to express this conflict, at least symbolically. The absence of such an opportunity leads to serious violations. The disorder occurs when the mother's behavior excludes the child from learning more love than he needs.

The natural environment for a child’s development is the family, so his behavioral disorders are closely related to disruptions in the process of proper performance by family members of their roles. Lack of maturity and neurotic manifestations of parents can cause deviations in the fulfillment of their accepted roles. The immature, hypertrophied needs of one or both parents become the reason for the formation of incorrect expectations in relation to the child (inconsistent with his position and age), failure to take into account the child’s actions and needs that are not consistent with these expectations. Dissonance arises, a violation of the principle of complementarity, which leads to conflicts.

Parents try to resolve the conflict through rewards and punishments, using procedures such as evaluation, coercion, expectation, reprimand, etc. Parents' unwillingness to use more rational methods, to comprehend and change their own attitudes leads to the internalization of the conflict by the child. As a defense against conflict-related anxiety and the result of the desire to satisfy the immature needs of parents, the mechanism of so-called negative complementarity is formed. On the part of the child, it represents a partial adaptation to the incorrect expectations of the parents, and on the part of the latter, an unconscious fixation on some desirable aspects of the child’s behavior. As a result, it is impossible for the child to develop normal, positive emotional connections with his environment, which contributes to the development of anxiety.

It is a well-known truth that anxiety is a universal experience that is essential to survival, and children are no exception, although their anxiety can be expected to differ from that of adults, reflecting central nervous system immaturity, inexperience, and a more limited, more sheltered social ecology. .

Affective disorders are among the most common mental disorders in children and adolescents. Moreover, quite often - 2% of the general population of children (Costello et al, 1998) - they act as an independent pathology. However, the phenomenology and pathopsychological features of emotional deviations in children need clarification.

The concept of development, in the sense of changes in function with age, is original not only for child psychology, but also for child psychiatry; this also applies to age-related changes in anxiety in the child population.

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 (“If I do something bad, they won’t love me”). Failure to satisfy the need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means (Savina, 1996).

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

In 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.

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

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

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

The teacher also needs to know situations that can cause children's anxiety, primarily 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 towards whom the child has a negative attitude.

We can agree with the conclusion of A.M. Parishioners that anxiety in childhood is a stable formation for individuals 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 (Maktantseva, 1998).

Thus, in understanding the nature of anxiety, two approaches can be traced among different authors - 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.

In summary, over the past decades, few mental problems have undergone such extensive experimental, empirical and theoretical research as anxiety. Personal anxiety as a type of affective, emotionally charged disorder is of particular importance for studying its nature and formation, starting from an early age to prevent the causes and formation of deviant deviation.

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