Psicomotricidade relacional na escola: contribuições para a saúde socioemocional da criança e para o processo de aprendizagem

Abstract

In recent years, mental health has become a central issue in the school environment, directly influencing academic performance, behavior, and socio-emotional development. The Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst for these challenges, accentuating social isolation and compromising the socio-emotional development of children and adolescents. The transition to remote learning introduced technological obstacles and increased stress levels, while excessive screen time, especially with electronic games, exacerbated anxiety, bullying, and low self-esteem. Given this scenario, the importance of the school as a strategic space for promoting emotional health has been recognized, highlighting the role of activities aimed at developing socio-emotional skills, essential for the learning process. Based on this premise, this investigation aimed to understand the perception of agents involved in daily school life (teachers, administrators, relational psychomotor therapists, children, and their guardians) regarding the contribution of Relational Psychomotricity to children's emotional health and the learning process. This research, developed from a qualitative approach, used participant observation, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and a logbook, involving the school community of the José Carlos da Costa Ribeiro School, a public school in Fortaleza. Content Analysis (Bardin, 2014) allowed for the identification of perceptions and meanings organized into four thematic axes: emotional self-regulation and socio-emotional health of children; interpersonal relationships and bonds in the school environment; motivation and engagement to learn; and innovative pedagogical practices and care in the school context. The results showed that Relational Psychomotricity, by integrating movement, affectivity, and symbolic expression, favored significant advances in emotional self-regulation, expanding children's ability to recognize and manage emotions. It also strengthened interpersonal relationships, promoting more empathetic bonds between peers and between teachers and students, in addition to contributing to a climate of trust and belonging at school. In terms of motivation and engagement, greater interest and involvement of children in activities was observed, with them expressing themselves with more autonomy and pleasure in learning. In the field of innovative pedagogical practices, the broadening of the teacher's perspective towards more playful methodologies centered on bodily and relational experience stood out. School care emerged as an ethical and affective dimension of coexistence, strengthening listening and attention to the emotional needs of children. However, the need to expand the training of educators to support these practices in a continuous and institutionalized way was also noted, overcoming resistance and structural limitations still present in the daily school routine. These results point to the potential of this approach not only as an innovative pedagogical strategy, but also as a resource for care and promotion of mental health in the school environment. It is hoped that this study will inspire new educational practices, teacher training, and public policies that recognize the centrality of socio-emotional well-being for the integral development of the child and for the construction of a more welcoming, humane, and sensitive school to diversity.