FREE ESSAY ON CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT TO ENTRY INTO KINDERGARTEN

CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT TO ENTRY INTO KINDERGARTEN

Michael Burkhardt
Page 2
From an ecological perspective, early childhood development occurs within the multiple
contexts of the home, the school, and the neighborhood, and aspects of these environments
can contribute to the development of adjustment problems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). A
child's psychological adjustment to entry into school for the first time can have a
significant impact on the level of success achieved later in life. Children rated higher
in school adjustment by their elementary school teachers, as a result of improved
cognitive development, showed positive attitudes toward school resulting in better school
performance which lead to higher educational attainment and lower delinquency at age 19.
Not one factor alone accounts for children's adjustment problems. Therefore it is
important that we take a closer look at a wide range of factors that can affect the
psychological adjustment to school in early childhood. Ladd, Birch, & Buhs derived a
child x environment model of early school adaptation that breaks these factors into five
categories: children's entry factors, behavioral styles, relationships with classroom
peers and teachers, classroom participation, and achievement. 
A child's entry factors are those attributes that are present in the child prior to entry
into school, but impact the child's psychological adaptation after entry into school.
Children that enter school with greater cognitive and linguistic maturity tend to form
better relationships with teachers and perform better scholastically. Typically, girls
are known to establish supportive ties with teachers, more often than boys (Birch and
Ladd, 1997) because of their cognitive/linguistic maturity making gender an entry factor
as well. Preschool experience is said to be an entry factor, which is the basis of Arthur
J. Reynolds studies in 1996. Reynolds investigated the effects of preschool intervention
versus school achievement in the sixth grade. Because of 
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cognitive readiness at kindergarten entry due to preschool, children in the sixth grade
showed significantly higher reading and math achievement with a lower incidence of grade
retention. Evidence suggests that early school adjustment is positively associated with
parental education, socioeconomic status, and children's ethnicity (Ladd, 1987; Reynolds,
1991). These environmental entry factors are relative to the challenges of school and
influence early adaptation. Parental education and income may afford advantages that lead
to cognitive maturity prior to entry into kindergarten. A low socioeconomic status may
produce increased stress in a family as well as diminished resources, and may influence
the child through parenting practices and lack of warmth and acceptance. In American
society, certain ethnic minorities have increased risk to psychological problems due to
race discrimination and prejudice. This results in a higher amount of behavioral problems
and lower academic achievement. These environmental entry factors effect a child's
psychological adjustment indirectly due to the many contributing factors to be
considered. The socioeconomic status includes many demographic factors including: single
parent families or larger families which mean decreased attention toward the child,
amount of income or resources available toward developing the child's cognitive ability,
violence or other social practices within the child's neighborhood that could lead to
increased behavioral problems, and the mother's age at childbirth which can affect
parenting abilities since young mother's are generally more likely to have had
difficulties in school and live in poor neighborhoods as well as emotional difficulties.

Behavioral styles are the tools children use to confront challenges in school such as the
formation of relationships with new classmates and teachers. Being rejected by a peer
group or having a conflict with the teacher may cause the child to feel a lack of
security or acceptance and 
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promote maladjustment. Children appear to be better adjusted toward kindergarten when
they have formed close rather than conflicting ties with their teachers (Birch & Ladd,
1996). Maladjustment is prevalent among children who remain friendless or are rejected by
their classmates. The determinants in deciding the behavior type a child will pursue is
based upon the notion to maximize rewards such as fun, arousal and common interests and
minimize costs such as punishment and negative affective states. Antisocial behavior is
found in those children whose style of relating produces a higher ratio of costs, and
conversely pro-social behavior is found in those children who style of relating produces
a higher amount of rewards. The better-adjusted children display pro-social behavior and
form relationships with their peers and teachers resulting in a higher scholastic
achievement level. 
A complex network of influences initiates the effects of early preschool intervention
over time rather than by any single mechanism (Reynolds, 1996). Reynolds studied school
achievement in the sixth grade and the impact of early childhood programs. The results of
Reynolds studies were to answer three questions: Do preschool participants perform better
than non-preschool participants in school achievement?, Do family-process and cognitive
factors mediate the effects of preschool intervention?, and Are the effects stable from
early childhood to middle childhood?. The factors that influence achievement in the 6th
grade were cognitive readiness at kindergarten entry, and parent involvement in school.
The results were that the family support hypothesis and the cognitive advantage
hypothesis were not sufficient enough to determine preschool effectiveness. Reynolds went
on to learn that teacher ratings of school adjustment show that preschool graduates are
more likely to come to school ready to learn, and parental involvement is more likely to
lead to higher school achievement. Reynolds was able to 
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determine that preschool does help to make psychological adjustment to school easier, not
only by providing a cognitive advantage but also through parental involvement. His
studies were the first to test different hypotheses of mechanisms of preschool
effectiveness, and are more contemporary than previous studies. 
Mark Greenberg's studies were similar to that of Reynolds with the exception that
Greenberg gathered his results from the first grade using risk factors to predict
children's psychological and academic outcomes. The study used a regression model to
assess the following ecobehavioral risks: demographics, family psychosocial status,
mother's depressive symptoms, and neighborhood quality. Family psychosocial context, and
neighborhood quality predicted unique variance in a child's academic and social
functioning. Family psychosocial context includes risk factors such as: negative life
events, marital problems, the quality of social support, and the quality of the
environment. Negative life events can be used to predict a child's aggression, social
adaptation, and intellectual functioning. Children who have been exposed to marital
conflict show a direct relation to poor psychological adjustment and poor cognitive
performance. The physical environment of the home, play environment and physical safety,
is an important predictor of success in adaptation, more so than community violence
(Greenberg, 1999). Using participant perceptions and an objective rating of the
neighborhood quality, Greenberg was able to determine that poverty and crime have been
related to higher levels of stress, exposure to violence, and the child's psychological
adjustment. One last factor to look at is that Greenberg took a notable consideration to
gender in regard to school adjustment. His studies demonstrated that boys are more
vulnerable than girls and that boys have more adjustment problems. Greenberg notes that
it is possible that boys and girls have different 
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developmental pathways to externalizing problems, but there have not been enough studies
to determine if risk factors affect boys and girls differently.
The purpose of these studies were to determine the factors that influence a child's
psychological adjustment to entry into kindergarten and to determine if the adjustment
has an effect on the overall education of the child. By reviewing these studies, I have
learned that a child's psychological adjustment can be positively affected by
participating in a preschool program, environmental factors, such as marital problems at
home and neighborhood violence can negatively affect a child's psychological adjustment,
and no one factor alone affects a child's adjustment into kindergarten. A child's
relationship with peers and teachers has a direct relationship with psychological
adjustment and academic success. All of the factors show relevance in academic success
not only in kindergarten but also through middle childhood. Some studies have shown
relationships between adjustment to kindergarten and academic success in nineteen year
olds as well. The continuing studies of psychological adjustment to entry into the
academic world are just beginning to scratch the surface on the amount of environmental
and biological factors involved, and will one day be the basis of accurately predicting
the academic success of a child within his or her first year of school. 
Bibliography
Birch, S. H., Buhs, E. S., & Ladd, G. W. (1999), Children's Social and Scholastic Lives
in Kindergarten: Related Spheres of Influence? Child Development, 70(6), 1373-1400
Birch, S. H., & Ladd, G. W. (1996), Continuity and change in the quality of teacher-child
relationships: Link's with children's early school adjustment. Child Development, 67(1)
980-1012.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979), The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and
design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Greenberg, M. T., Coie, J. D., Lengua, L. J., & Pinderhughes, E. E. (1999), Predicting
Developmental Outcomes at School Entry Using a Multiple-Risk Model: Four American
Communities. Developmental Psychology, 35(2), 403-417.
Reynolds, A. J., Mavrogenes, N. A., Bezruczko, N., & Hagemann, Mavis (1996), Cognitive
and Family-Support Mediators of Preschool Effectiveness: A Confirmatory Analysis. Child
Development, 67(3), 1119-1140.