Many parents choose not to indulge their children in discussions/activities regarding the admission procedure of various schools. This feeling stems from the fact that if the child begins to ponder over why he wasn’t able to get admission in a certain ‘big’ school, it could jeopardise his/her self-image/confidence. However, most parents find it difficult to hide such facts from their children.
The reason is simple — children today are smart enough to figure out if they have been rejected or not. Seeing their parents running frantically from one school to another, submitting the admission forms and the look of despair when the admission isn’t entertained leaves no unsolved mystery for the child. Some, psychiatrists though believe that children shouldn’t be kept in the dark about such information. Instead, children should be pre-prepared for such a transition and I in dealing with the forthcoming failures/rejections — playschool to a formal school, which may or may not be of the parents’ choice.
Children should be made to understand that the design or the size of the school, that usually does get a child fixated on a particular school, really doesn’t matter and that he/she would eventually make new friends and have caring teachers. For this purpose, it is suggested that children shouldn’t be taken along to each school when seeking admission. This could confuse the child’s judgement or make him obsessive about a certain kind of school. It is best to apply to a good number of schools and take the child to only those schools where his/her candidature is most likely to be accepted.