A groundbreaking study led by psychologists at the University of Cambridge has revealed that parents typically take about a year to align their perceptions with their child’s genuine attitudes towards school following the commencement of formal education. This finding challenges common assumptions about the immediacy with which parents understand their children’s emotional and psychological experiences in the early stages of school life, shedding light on a subtle but critical delay in parental attunement.
The study tracked over 200 children from more than 100 primary schools across the UK, observing their transition from Reception—equivalent to kindergarten—to Year 1. Data was collected through two comprehensive waves of interviews encompassing cognitive tasks, wellbeing assessments, and innovative emoji-based questionnaires designed to capture children’s feelings about various facets of the school day. By involving both children and their caregivers, predominantly mothers, researchers were able to quantify the disconnect and eventual convergence between child-reported experiences and parental perceptions.
In Reception, the research unearthed a stark disparity between children’s self-reported emotions about school and what their parents believed. Parental insights into their children’s school experiences were often inaccurate, painting an incomplete or sometimes misleading picture. Factors such as children’s selective disclosure—often focusing communication on negative experiences—were identified as key reasons for this misinformation. This discrepancy underscores the complexity of emotional communication within family dynamics during pivotal developmental phases.
Remarkably, by the end of Year 1, parental perceptions began to more closely align with the children’s earlier self-reports, evidencing a temporal lag of roughly one academic year before parents tuned into their children’s perspectives. Despite this improved congruence, notable gaps persisted, especially in parents overestimating their child’s happiness during classroom activities while underestimating joy experienced during playground interactions. This nuanced differentiation highlights the multifaceted nature of emotional wellbeing in educational settings.
Professor Claire Hughes, Deputy Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Child, Adolescent and Family Research, emphasized the significance of these findings. According to Hughes, “Our research shows that it typically takes parents a year to tune into their child’s experiences of school. By Year 1, parents are often only just catching up to where their children were a year earlier.” This insight has broad implications for parental engagement strategies, educational policy, and child wellbeing interventions during the early school years.
In response to these findings, researchers collaborated with writer Anita Lehmann and artist Karin Eklund to produce a picture book titled How I Feel About My School. This innovative resource aims to expedite parental understanding by facilitating emotional literacy and meaningful conversations between parents and children about daily school experiences. The book encapsulates a typical school day through the lens of four diverse children, encompassing both positive moments and routine challenges such as playground disagreements and classroom collaborations.
How I Feel About My School integrates behaviorally diverse characters allowing children of various personality types to identify with the narratives. Each scenario incorporates prompts designed to elicit deeper reflections and dialogue about emotions, thereby nurturing an early emotional vocabulary and bridging the communication gap that the Cambridge study highlights. The intention is to normalize the emotional fluctuations inherent in school life, discouraging the over-pathologizing of typical childhood sadness and affirming that navigating challenges is a natural developmental process.
Beyond the immediate intervention of the picture book, the Ready or Not study elucidated a broader developmental trajectory relating to children’s wellbeing. Published findings in Developmental Psychology indicate a general decline in self-reported wellbeing as children progress from Reception to Year 1. This pattern is plausibly attributable to the curricular shift in the UK, where Reception emphasizes play-based learning, and Year 1 introduces rigorous literacy and numeracy demands. This transition stakes new cognitive and emotional claims on young learners, which may temporarily challenge their sense of wellbeing.
Intriguingly, earlier results revealed that children’s wellbeing measured in Reception is significantly predictive of self-concept in Year 1, particularly in domains such as reading, writing, and numeracy confidence. This correlation underscores the importance of fostering positive emotional environments and supportive parental understanding during these formative years, as early emotional wellbeing can set the tone for academic engagement and self-efficacy.
Additional UK-based longitudinal research referenced by Hughes suggests that children who enjoy school at age six tend to achieve superior academic outcomes by age sixteen, including higher General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) scores. This longitudinal linkage frames early emotional response to schooling not just as transient feelings but as foundational elements with lasting effects on educational trajectories.
Professor Hughes advocates for protecting this critical window of early schooling, highlighting that cultivating enthusiasm and confidence in these initial years prepares children to meet escalating academic challenges with resilience and optimism. “If children can have a positive couple of years at the beginning of school and we can really protect that time for building up their enthusiasm and their confidence, then when things do get more serious, the children are willing to embrace it,” Hughes remarked.
The Cambridge team’s translational approach exemplified in the creation of the picture book aims to foster a cultural shift in how parents and educators engage with young children’s school experiences. By promoting nuanced conversations about everyday school events such as lunchtime and playground interactions, the initiative seeks to deepen parental insight and emotional literacy in children, thereby enhancing overall child wellbeing and successful adaptation to school life.
This pioneering research not only enriches understanding of early childhood social-emotional development in educational contexts but also paves the way for practical tools that minimize parental misperception during a vital period of a child’s life. As increasing attention turns towards holistic educational practices, findings like these highlight the need to incorporate emotional dimensions alongside cognitive development in shaping early schooling experiences.
Future research building on these insights could explore intervention efficacy across diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, potentially revealing differential patterns in parental attunement and child wellbeing. Meanwhile, the Cambridge team’s efforts stand as a compelling example of integrating empirical research with creative, accessible resources to drive meaningful change in child development support systems worldwide.
Subject of Research: Parental perception and child wellbeing during the transition to formal schooling
Article Title: How Parents Tune In: Understanding Child Emotions in the Crucial First Year of School
News Publication Date: Not specified
Web References:
- Routledge book: https://www.routledge.com/How-I-Feel-About-My-School-A-Story-to-Identify-and-Reflect-on-Childrens-Emotions/Lehmann/p/book/9781032880846
- British Journal of Educational Psychology paper: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjep.12654
- Developmental Psychology article: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-03763-001.html
References:
- Hughes, C., Dempsey, E., Fink, E. The Psychology of Starting School: An Evidence-Based Guide for Parents and Teachers. Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003536888
Image Credits: Not provided
Keywords: Children, Education research, Research on children, Social research, Human behavior, Psychological science, Developmental psychology, Social development, Social psychology
