Performance pressure in children

Getting up early, lots of class work, perfectionism: pressure to perform in children can lead to increased stress even in primary school. In the long term, this has a negative impact on student development.

Long-term overworking has a negative long-term impact on school performance. | © Zlatan Durakovic – Fotolia.com

Every second student in the second and third grade feels stressed. This was the result of a study by the German Child Protection Association and the Prosoz Institute for Social Research. 33 percent of elementary school students said that school is the main cause of stress and exhaustion. The representative study also showed that third graders perceive the pressure to perform twice as often as second graders. Authors of the study attribute this fact to the impending transition to secondary school and call for an end to "early selection"..

Performance pressure in children – consequence of our performance-oriented society

Professor Michael Schulte-Markwort, director of child psychiatry at the University Hospital Hamburg, also confirms this negative trend: The pressure to perform in children has increased dramatically in recent years. Schulte-Markwort sees the cause not only in the school system, but also in the values ​​of the parents: The children learned very early on “that performance is a decisive factor for the existence in our society, and would be Internalize performance thinking from an early age.“Many children are very ambitious and downright perfectionistic.

So it is often the ambitious parents who put pressure on their children with very high expectations. The so-called over-support in the form of foreign language lessons, early musical support or computer groups starts already in infancy and quickly leads to overload. While The pressure already reached its first peak during primary school: Quality Most parents would like grades and a letter of recommendation for high school. The Abitur is a prerequisite for a successful professional career. But if there is too much pressure to perform, the children’s health falls by the wayside, the motivation to learn goes to zero and learning blocks can occur.

Pressure to perform in children leads to health problems

Headache or abdominal pain, difficulty concentrating and sleep disorders are among the most common symptoms in children and adolescents suffering from stress. Parents should understand them as warning signs. Refusal to go to school and very little motivation to learn can also be a sign that children are not up to the pressure to perform at school. Therefore, pay attention to such sign and talk to your child about it. While some children withdraw and are in a bad mood or sad, others react nervously and over the top. For most, a permanent overworking has a negative long-term effect on school performance. Only a few inspire the stress caused by pressure to perform at peak performance.

Pressure to perform in children – what can parents do??

If you have the impression that your child is stressed and cannot cope with the pressure to perform at school, you should speak to him early on and look for ways out of the stress trap together. We at scoyo have put together a few tips for you:

1. More time for leisure: Children need free time to move, play, run around and get bored. Because boredom often gives rise to creative and innovative ideas. So do not schedule sports, music lessons or other leisure activities every afternoon, but give your child free time. It is needed to compensate for the stressful everyday school life.

2. Changed learning strategies: Every child learns differently and therefore needs individual learning strategies. Scientific research divides learners into different types of learning. With the help of a learning type test, you can determine with your child which learning type groups it belongs to and align learning strategies accordingly. You can also find professional help and advice from a so-called learning therapist.

3. Other creative learning methods: Children should not lose the fun of learning and know why they want to learn certain things. Because only what really interests you stays in the long term. For example, it can help to explain the school content based on examples relevant to everyday life, take a trip to the zoo, watch an English film or choose online learning platforms such as scoyo as a learning companion. Here the school material is packed into exciting learning stories. Best of all, students can choose what they want to work on, how and when – no timpani according to plan, but out of interest.

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Christina Cherry
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