Your Daughter. Girls’ Association Schools

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СКАЧАТЬ to live with a powerful range of confusing and conflicting emotions. Bottled up, these emotions can have damaging consequences in later life for the individual, their family and society as a whole.

      Schools have an important role to play in supporting children who have been bereaved. The familiar routine of school is in itself a consolation to the bereaved child whose life has ceased to be normal. At the same time, teachers and other staff in caring roles, together with friends, need to accept that bereaved children, especially adolescents, will have mood swings and periods during which they challenge the importance of studying, rules and making much of an effort to look neat. This loss of drive and purpose is completely understandable and may also be accompanied by a sense of anger at the sibling or parent who has gone and resentment that they are now ‘different’ from their peers. The challenge for staff is to judge how much and for how long to tolerate sullen or uncooperative behaviour. Great patience and empathy are required when a child has retreated into herself, and these barriers are hard to penetrate. Time, of course, is a healer, but ensuring that a child has grieved with the support of bereavement counselling is incredibly important. Good communication between staff is vital so that, for example, Religious Studies and English teachers are mindful of the sensitivities associated with studying certain topics or texts while being aware that these may provide a helpful vehicle for expressing emotions. On a more practical level, schools are adept at providing additional coaching, from assisting with catch-up work to writing to the examination boards to seek special consideration for their candidate.

      Schools also need to support the friends of someone who has experienced bereavement, and on rare but tragic occasions to cope with the death of a current pupil. Friends can be the mainstay of someone’s emergence from grief, their loyalty being a source of hope, but these friends need the discreet support of the pastoral staff in handling their friend and her mood swings. Friends can sometimes be the ones to alert staff to worrying behaviour – for example, bleak thoughts posted on Facebook – but they must also not feel guilty if they need to detach themselves from the bereaved friend and get on with their own lives. They may be more use to her in this way.

      When the whole school is involved in a tragedy, staff and pupils will invariably be magnificent in thinking and acting with moving sensitivity, reaching out to the extended family, as well as being resourceful. Depending on the situation, the support needs to extend through the months ahead, and it can be some time before life is back to anything resembling normal. Although no one would ever wish for such tragedies, they can bind together a community, reaffirm our humanity and remind everyone of a school’s role in giving hope, even in the face of grief and adversity.

      Sibling rivalry

      Children frequently learn about emotions through their relationships with their siblings. Issues of conflict, friendship, social skills and, above all, how to form relationships with others are developed in childhood and can have far-reaching consequences for your daughter throughout her childhood, teenage years and indeed whole life. Sibling rivalry can last into adulthood and can be acted out over and over again in future relationships. Therefore, as parents it is important to consider your actions and how your behaviour impacts upon your daughter and your other children. This is why it is essential for parents to demonstrate consistency within the rules and structure of a family and to avoid favouring any one child.

      Noel Janis-Norton, cited in Cassandra Jardine’s How to be a Better Parent, believes that sibling rivalry is natural, and indeed even beneficial, in ensuring that children learn to share, take turns, learn tolerance and know how to handle disagreements. She advises parents not to intervene in sibling squabbles, but to tell children to take their arguments elsewhere and sort out the problem themselves, alongside the basic rule that no throwing is allowed so that nothing can be turned into a weapon of any kind! This may sound like radical advice, but children do need to learn the skills to sort out their own problems and need to learn how to resolve an argument amicably. If an argument becomes too great and there is violence and real aggression, then try doing as schools do – get the children together, with you as a facilitator, and spend some time talking through the disagreement, listening to your children and helping them to listen to each other, resolve the argument and apologise to one another.

      As a parent, it is important to make time for each individual child and to give her quality time with you, ideally doing something you both enjoy. If you treat your children as individuals in their own right, they will have less need to compete for your attention with their siblings.

       A new sibling

      The first child is always the trailblazer, but she is also the one with whom parents first learn how to be parents. New parents are often anxious with their first child and perhaps also a touch overindulgent. It is important to teach your first child to be self-reliant, to learn how to play by herself and how to enjoy her own company. When you know you are going to have a new sibling for your firstborn, ensure that you prepare her for this. Then, once her sibling is born, give your older child even more attention so that she does not feel marginalised.

      All siblings need to be treated as individuals and have their different temperaments recognised and appreciated. Older siblings will often take on the role of the teacher/helper. An older sister can often be bossier than her siblings and enjoys telling her younger brothers and/or sisters what to do. She may continue this role into later life.

      The second child is less likely to get as much attention as the first and has to adapt more readily to her role as the additional child within the family. This tends to mean that the second child can be more amenable and tolerant than the older sibling. She has to fit in with the already established routines of the family and she also learns very early on that there is another child with needs and requirements.

      The rules around consistency are key here. It is imperative that you ensure your daughter knows which behaviour is acceptable and which behaviour is not and that you are firm and clear about this. For example, if your toddler bites her new sibling, you may choose to punish her by giving her a ‘time out’ on the naughty step. However, older toddlers may like to be helpful and can be keen to assist by bringing you things to help you with the baby. Do ensure that you make time for both your children – for example, while feeding the new baby, you could read a story to your toddler. There are many books on this subject (e.g. New Toddler Taming, by Christopher Green) and your health visitor can also offer useful advice.

      Try to continue to give quality time to each of your children. It is hard work, and some quality time for the adults doesn’t go amiss either.

       Older children

      As your children grow older and reach school age, family patterns can become even more entrenched. The squabbles and fights between children will continue and can be over all sorts of things: television watching, toy ownership or whose turn it is to use the computer. As the parent, you must ensure that the rules are clear to the children – rules about bedtime, television watching and computer access – and you must ensure that your sanctions are consistent. Work with your partner so that the children know not to play you off against one another. Children will cleverly look for any chinks in their parents’ armour – unite with your partner so that the children know that the adults remain in charge.

      Younger children often mimic older ones. So, for example, in a family with more than two children, where there are teenagers beginning to push the boundaries, with different rules because of their ages, a younger sibling may begin to feel that she, too, should be allowed to do the same. As a parent, you need to make it clear that the older children have privileges because of their ages, and that she has different rules.

      Your children are all different from one another and you need to celebrate those differences while maintaining harmony within the family. Simple in theory, but in practice, there will be arguments, fights and jealousies and these are part of normal family life. Consistency at all times and quality СКАЧАТЬ