From the author: An article about how to understand in time whether a child is ready for school and whether he needs additional help to prepare for going to first grade! How important it is that adaptation to school should be easy and that when learning, the child does not encounter difficulties and problems that he cannot overcome. The article will be useful to parents of preschoolers! Parents of preschoolers who want to find out if their child is ready for school often turn to psychologists for help. At the same time, many other parents do not understand why such a diagnosis is needed, and what is the point of carrying it out if, one way or another, the child will have to go to school!.. In this article, we decided to tell parents in detail about why such a diagnosis is needed is carried out, and how it can actually help their child and the family as a whole!.. Growing up a child is a long process and at the same time uneven. Stable periods are followed by periods of so-called crises, when previous ways of perceiving and interacting with the outside world “become obsolete” and new ones come to replace them, provoking significant changes in the child’s personality. This happens because in the process of growing up, the social situation of the child’s development changes, new opportunities appear, new skills develop, and thus, growing up (or mental development) becomes inevitable - you really shouldn’t continue crawling when you already know how to walk... However, the formation of these new skills is very uneven. And if one child turns out to be capable of something at the age of 6, then someone develops such skills only at the age of 8... This is what psychologists call individual differences, and it was this fact that became the basis for the emergence of the so-called individual approach in working with children. The preschool period is precisely the stage of child development during which the child acquires many new skills and abilities. This is due both to the development and formation of certain brain structures, and to the gradual change in the social situation that provokes this development. One way or another, it is during the preschool period that the child gradually develops: the ability to put himself in the place of others and perceive someone else’s point of view, different from his own; skills of self-regulation and self-control (when the child becomes able to stop, even if he wants to continue, because required by the situation, rules or adults; the ability to hold a certain number of objects, phenomena in attention and store them in memory (to the extent necessary for school learning) and much more! In other words, by approximately the age of 7, children acquire the set of skills that they need to study at school, and that is why this age is called “ideal” for starting education... However, as noted above, the majority does not mean all, and there are children for whom a number of skills necessary for studying at school develop more slowly and more complexly. than their peers. Because of this, at the moment of entering a new social situation - school, they find themselves unable to master knowledge with the same ease as their peers. They face difficulties in mastering the material, socializing in a group, but most importantly, controlling their own behavior. Very soon, such children begin to stand out from their classmates, gain a reputation as “outsiders,” and come to terms with the fact that they are worse than others, that is, they stop making any effort to improve... Due to emotional or cognitive ( the mental) development of these children does not correspond to the “necessary level for studying at school”; indeed, it turns out that it is too difficult for them to be included in the school education system and their relationship with school deteriorates for many years... This, accordingly, causes concern for parents, the situation in the family becomes tense or even conflictual, which in turn only aggravates the difficulties that the child experiences!.. So!