Intervention On Promoting Adaptation In Kindergarten Among Childrem

BackgroundChildhood is the critical period of physical and psychological development. It is necessary to provide appropriate conditions, protection, care and education, for their development. In the current China, the only one child has become the center of the family, like a "little emperor". This care style negatively affects the child’s socialization and kindergarten adaptation. The difficulty of the kindergarten adaptation includes unwillingness to school, dysphoria, cry, temper, pain, headache, nausea, vomiting and somatic symptoms, without corresponding physical disease. The better kindergarten adaptation is not only beneficial to the growth of children, but also to his life-long health.ObjectiveThrough the study on the process, characteristics and associated factors of kindergarten adaptation among children, to explore and develop a series of interventions with teachers and parents to promote smooth kindergarten adaptation among children.Contents1、Identify related definition and indicators of kindergarten adaptation among children.2、Know the features of kindergarten adaptation and children’s difficulties on it; understand the kindergarten and home performance among children who have difficulties in kindergarten adaptation; analyze influencing factors of kindergarten adaptation, attitude and practice of parents on this problem.3、Develop intervention strategies through literature review, experts focus group interviews, pre-semester intervention; Establish a care-teaching and interaction between family and kindergarten model. 4、Carry out intervention and follow-up participants.5、Evaluate intervention; analyze the adaptation in intervention and control groups respectively; analyze the adaptation among children with different types of temperament; analyze the growth in intervention and control groups respectively.6、Develop expert evaluation on intervention.Methods1、Qualitative research:Through focused group interview, to identify indicators of this research; through individual in-depth interview, case analysis and expert evaluation, to put forward suggestion on intervention model.2、Initial investigation:Through the cluster sampling,250children who were the first time to kindergarten in two kindergartens were recruited in the study. Using questionnaire to collect related information, influencing factors, and attitude of parents. Use3to7years old infants’temperament questionnaire (BSQ) to know the temperament type of children who were the first time to the kindergarten.3、Longitudinal and intervention study:Through literature review, experts focus group interviews, pre-semester intervention, to establish a model of care-teaching and interaction between family and kindergarten. The intervention group was provided with the guidance by pediatrician and intervention by child health care clinic before the children entered kindergarten. In addition, the intervention group was given different intervention methods (such as psychological counseling, divided attention, spiritual encouragement, etc.), according to children’s different temperament type. Observation was made for both intervention and control groups using self-made form on which the behavior changes of children in the kindergarten and home were recorded. All participants were followed up5weeks.4、Evaluate intervention effect through the comparison on the adaptation between the intervention group and control group, and between the.different temperament types of children; compare the growth and development between the control group and intervention group.5. Input data using Epidata3.1; analyze data by SPSS16.0statistical software.Main findingsFrom January2011to October2012, of250participants,243effective questionnaires were obtained.1、Indicator definition.Difficulty in kindergarten adaptation appeared as crying, excessive adherence to family members, being unfriendly to classmates, less talk, difficulties in eating, excretion disorder, difficulty to nap, refuse to activities, emotional instability.The opposite of the above performances included being easy to the kindergarten, close to teachers, friendly companion, willing to express, eating well, normal excretion, quiet sleep, active, emotional stability for the kindergarten adaptive behavior.According to the records in the observation form by the family and kindergarten, we calculated the total items indicating difficulty in kindergarten adaptation. We defined those whose number of items was in the lowest quartile as the children capable of adaptation. Furthermore, we defined children as rapid adaptation type if he/she could adapt to the kindergarten within the first two weeks. Those who took more than two weeks to adapt the kindergarten were defined as slow adaptation children.2、Single factor analysis showed that the influential factors of kindergarten adaptation included the only child of the family, father’s education level, the child’s eating habits, and the child’s sleep mode, the child’s temperament.3、The multiple logistic regression showed the influential factors of kindergarten adaptation included temperament type of children, family type, the only child of the family, age, children’s eating habits, and the children’s way to sleep.4、Based on literature review, experts focus group interviews, we have set up a specific intervention plan:The intervention group was provided the guidance by pediatrician and the community guidance before the children entered kindergarten. In addition, the intervention group was given the chances to have parent-child game in the kindergarten before the new semester to allow children being familiar to the environment; different intervention methods were adopted (such as psychological counseling, divided attention, spiritual encouragement, etc.) according to children’s different temperament types. Parents could get counseling for their anxiety in child health care clinic of the kindergarten, where guidance would be offered to them on the approach of raising child’s good life habit and evaluation of children’s temperament was done. The intervention was given to children according to children’s temperament types. Intervention was carried out together by parents and teachers.5、After a series of intervention, intervention group was better than control group in adapting to the kindergarten; Children of "hard-to-raise" temperament type had more improvement in adaptation after the intervention compared to the "easy-to-raise" temperament type.6、After six months intervention, there was no difference in height between intervention and control group. The intervention group had more weight than the control group.7、For some individual psychological behavior problems such as deviation, obstacles, should be taken to specialist for treatment, intervention and follow-up.8、The expert evaluation showed that the intervention model could effectively promote children’s adaptation to kindergarten.ConclusionTo promotion kindergarten adaptation, we should take effective care-teaching combination, interaction between family and kindergarten, move intervention forward to the new semester. Parents and teachers are suggested to follow with the guidance of the pediatrician, according to children’s temperament types and adopt appropriate education. At the same time, parents and teachers should improve their own knowledge on this problem to help children’s adaptation to kindergarten and ensure the physical and psychology development of children.