Transition can make or break
Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday October 27, 2016 16:32
It is usually a case of ‘one man’s meat is another man’s poison.’ Below are some transitional phases common to most people:
Transition from home to school
Early childhood care and learning experiences have strong, long lasting effects on how children later on function as adults and ultimately on how they affect the communities they interact with. This is so because it is during these formative years that children acquire different kinds of knowledge and skills, optimally. Memorable experiences and warm childhood care can stimulate brain development, while negative experiences can do the opposite.
According to (Gordon & Brown, 2011) in (Khan, 2016), early childhood care and education refers to groups deliberately set up for the purpose of development of children from birth to eight years of age. As children move from home to pre-school, they can experience adaptation differently, depending on a variety of factors. For those who are strongly attached to their families and home based nannies, the first day or week(s) at pre-school can be quite a challenge. In that case, warm responsive pre-school care can help to lessen their adaptation challenges, and consequently encourage them to love going to school. If on the contrary, moving from home to pre-school (or directly to lower primary school for some) becomes a nightmare, it can make children to associate school with negativity. This can in turn make children to develop a ‘school sucks’ mentality. It is therefore important for childhood care to be positively responsive to individual needs of children, both at home and at school.
Transition from childhood to adolescence
One of the most stressful transitions is from the age of 12 to 18 years. It is during this period that some rapid growth spurts occur. The emotional effects of watching the rapid changes that they are going through individually is what creates all the drama.
Some of the main changes that take place and what they mean to adolescents include:
Physical changes; the physical changes that adolescents undergo such as weight gain, weight loss, development of acne and stretch marks are usually a big deal to them. These changes can negatively affect their self-esteem as they tend to feel socially awkward, especially if media puts them under pressure to fit into some ‘ideal’ physical profiles.
Identity formation; during adolescence, children start to have a stronger need for self-discovery. They have to make decisions about who they want to be socially and professionally. Decision making is not easy, particularly if you are still trying to figure out the person you really are. Mistakes are bound to be made and positive development is enhanced when objective self-evaluation is encouraged.
Social changes
Due to rapid development they are undergoing, teenagers tend to feel the need to become more independent from their parents. This explains why they prefer to spend more time in their bedrooms or other separate areas from their parents. They progress from expecting parents to provide all the answers to figuring out answers for themselves. It is for this reason that they need to learn the difference between alternative reliable and unreliable sources of information. Introspection takes place more during this time. Seeking approval generally tends to shift from parents and more towards peers. This gives them a newly defined sense of security. In many cases teenagers resist parental influence because they develop a stronger need for autonomy than when they were younger.
This usually creates clash with parents because parents also feel the need to protect the authority they have in their own homes, which is why the expression “golo ha gase koga mmapereko” is used mostly on teenagers.
It is therefore important that any form of transition is well understood so that the affected people are not caught off-guard.