Educate the only child
Educating the only child is a task that has a series of special characteristics. The child educated alone, either because he is the only one in the family, either because he was born a long time after the eldest, or for any other reason, is a unique child that grows in a particular psychological situation
Parents of single children must have a greater awareness of how their child should be educated, knowing what problems should be overcome. The children are smart and the only child does not take long to notice their privileged situation, with a life full of attention and pampering of all kinds, which can undoubtedly make you a weak and insecure person. You must do a great educating job so that you do not become a child too close to your parents or capricious and immature.
The problems of socialization of the only child
To educate the only child, one must take into account their personality and that the socialization of children occurs when they learn to interact with other people. When they are babies, there is hardly any socialization as such because they tend to be rather selfish, and only demand others to cover their basic needs.
After two years they begin to realize what they can contribute to the other and what the other can bring to them, whether they are children of the same age or adults. Socialization, therefore, does not depend so much on the number of brothers they have, but on the situations in which they can relate to other human beings.
In the social relations of the children, the educational center, the extracurricular activities, the cousins, the children of the parents' friends, have a positive influence ... If in their life they are surrounded by many people, the socialization will be greater, although if they have the luck of having siblings socialization will be guaranteed because with them they learn the basic rules for a social cohabitation: to coexist with other people, to respect themselves, to wait their turn, to be aware of others ...
Facilities to attend to the only child
The advantage of being an only child is that parents can allocate all their resources, both personal and material, to the education of that child. It is easier to set targets and improvement action plans for only one child than for several at a time. To try to maintain essential aspects for their education such as patience, time and dedication is easier if you only have to educate one child instead of several, since with a single child it is more complicated to exhaust these resources so necessary in the day to day with them.
In addition to this, it will not be necessary to distribute the material resources among several to give them opportunities and offer them from a good educational system to good options for their own development ...
How to avoid feeling alone
Being an only child does not imply have to live in solitude. As in all aspects related to education, parents must, above all, give opportunities to children. In this case, parents of only children have to make an effort especially for education and ensure their children a life rich in social relationships.
In school that section will be more than covered, but from home, it is important to work the way in which children relate to their classmates or school friends. When the children have several siblings, the parents can see easier how each of them relates to their siblings. At that time we are educating them and establishing norms of social relationship. These rules will be able to move them away from home, both to the school and to their life.
With the only children we have to act the other way around. Children are going to interact outside the home and we have to see how they are doing to help them establish standards and educate them at the social level. Therefore, we have to communicate with them, know what kind of social relationship they have, how their friends are, what role they have, if they are leaders or if they let themselves be carried away, if they tend to maintain conflictive situations or, on the contrary, relationships are easy.
Through communication we can get a lot of information but we also have to observe the children when they are with other children, in the yard, invite friends home... All this information will help us to know our children better in this plane and be able to educate them.
It is also convenient to give them the opportunity to interact with other children and not reduce their social relationships to those that they can develop in the school. Other types of relationships can derive from activities outside the school, whether extracurricular, sports, leisure, sociocultural, etc. as well as family plans with cousins, uncles ...
Conchita Requero
Advisor: María Campo. Director of Educational Centers Kimba
