Anything that poses a challenge or threat to the wellbeing of your child due to pressure, tension, and insecurity is stress. Stress affects physical health, mental health as much as social life. However, whether the stress can hurt their body and social life, depends greatly on their response on it. So here some stress management tips for your children.
What is stress:
Stress is a normal and necessary part of life. Different children react differently to a stressful event. All the stress experiences are not negative there are positive stresses too. If an event took place in anybody’s life, the person starts to characterize the event with positive or negative color. If the child takes the event negatively starts thinking about the consequences, become insecure and starts feeling stressed. Stress last for a long time is called chronic stress, can affect their study in school, relationship with peers and family.
While we want to eliminate negative stress from our children’s lives, we also have to keep positive stress intact. Without it, life will be dull and unsuccessful. So relief from all type of stress is not the best goal.
Type of stresses are as follows:
It is a positive and healthy stress hence desirable also. For example winning games, upcoming exams, or accomplishing a challenge.
A very short-term type of stress, either positive or negative. This type stresses are very common in children.
This type of stresses seems to be never-ending. Taking too many responsibilities, overwork, a death of closure one are the example of chronic stress. This type of stress is actually a big threat to child well-being.
Causes of stress in children:
There are too many reasons for stress, it actually depends on the child’s mental structure, background, historical fact, etc. Some of the common reasons are as follows:
- Family conflicts.
- Divorce or separation of parents.
- The demise of a family member.
- The birth new baby.
- Starting school.
- The pressure of school work.
- Tests or examination.
- Fear of failure.
Effects of stress:
Effects of stress are observed on the physical health, mental health, and behavior of the child as well as there are physical stress, emotional stress, behavioral stress, and cognitive stress. Details are as follows:
Diarrhea, perspiration, having a nightmare, rapid breathing, headache, backache, muscle tension and stiffness, nausea, dizziness, insomnia, weight gain or weight loss, weakness, sweaty hand, skin breakouts such as hives and eczema, frequent cold, etc. are the signs of physical stress.
Lack of happiness, depression, anger, crying, irritability, jealous, nightmare, insomnia, changes in eating habits (Either increased or decreased), often confused about situations, moodiness, restlessness, short temper, impatience, feeling tense, or feeling overwhelmed, sense of loneliness and isolation are general sign of emotional stress.
Nervous habits such as nail biting or pacing, appetite problem, lack of energy, being clingy, sleeping too much or too little, procrastination, neglecting responsibilities, teeth grinding or jaw clenching, overdoing activities, overreacting to unexpected problems, picking a fight with others are the common signs of behavioral stress.
Trouble in thinking clearly, inability to concentrate, poor judgment, seeing only the negative, anxious and racing thoughts, constant worrying, loss of objectivity, and fearful anticipation are the common signs of cognitive stress.
Managing the stress of your child should be well planned. Teaching your child to manage stress will benefit him or her entire life. It will help your child to avoid a lot of problems easily. Sometimes mismanagement of stress makes your child drug addicted. So here are some effective ways to manage the stress of your child:
Teach your child to manage relationship management:
We can get a lot from a good relationship. Now relationship management skill is considered one of the most important criteria for job recruitment. Proper management of relationship makes life easy. If relation will be managed if following components of the relationship will be managed:
- If you love people you will look at them beyond their negative and will focus on the positive. Every human being has some goodness in them. Expect the best in people. Great people are found with the following qualities in their personalities:
- Forgiveness: It is a great ability to forgive someone who did wrong with you. Teach your child to let go of the past and get on the present by forgiving them who has hurt them. The people in the past can not hurt them unless they allow to do it. Life is too short to hold a grudge.
- Courtesy: Treat people as they would like to be treated. Courtesy is good manners and polite behaviors. To make your child understand an old saying is most relevant that ‘Don’t do onto others what you don’t want others to do onto you’.
- Humility: It is the quality of having a modest view of one’s importance.
- Generosity: It is the giving of their time, abilities, and money to help others.
- Honesty: Be true to themselves and others. Doing the right things when one is looking.
- ‘If you judge people, you have no time to love them’ – Mother Teresa
To be joyful:
- Being joyful is more than happy, it is an attitude. Being joyful makes life happy and is a strong antidote to stress. Each problem in life has a significance and value. People learn from the problems. It makes the child mature and helps to learn problem handling. Being joyful at the time of stress is possible they will have the kind mindset and believes that positive things are there behind every negative thing. First, make yourself joyful and then lead them by an example to develop an attitude of gratitude.
- Cultivate inner joy by giving instead of by taking. Teach them to help others. When they will help others, they will feel joy for it.
Patience is the secret:
- Patience means one willing to wait for the result without being anxious or angry and accepting the results when it is published. Impatience is lack of peace and leads to emotional stress.
Develop Kindness into their character:
- Kindness is having sympathy and understanding for others and forwarding helping hands when they needed. It will develop a good relationship with others and the same will be returned back for your child.
- Gentleness is being kind, friendly, courtesies, and not become harsh, angry, rough, etc.
- Be gracious, not judgemental, Teach then to disagree with gentleness if needed.
- Teach them to accept or admit when they are wrong. They should apologize if they have committed any wrong thing.
- A lot of stressful situation arises due to a lack of self-control. One can lose control over one’s speech, behavior, attitude, achievement, etc. Here self-control is really needed. One’s control shall not be defined by other’s action.
- Teach them to say NO if something is wrong or your child does not like. This control leads to confidence and inner sense of security.
- Listen to your child attentively and calmly and ask them what is wrong. Avoid judgment, blaming, advice, etc. The best way to teach self-control is to demonstrate it at all the time.
Do not expect too much from your child:
- Expecting too much from your child give unnecessary stress and frustration on your child. You should allow your children to play and relax after school.
- As on date time management is a must learning subject. Teach them how to use a daily planner and prioritize the activity.
- You should allow them to take their decision own and to develop negotiating skills in them. Let them plan their own activities and experience the fruits of success and failure.
Children insecurities are important:
- Respect your child’s fears/insecurity. Do not do anything which makes then fear or insecure. Avoid to saying “It is silly to scare”. Do not push them to be brave.
Excersize: the ultimate success reliever:
- Exercise has a lot of benefits including stress reliever. Golden words related to exercise is “Families that play together, stay together”. Develop habits of exercise and continue this habits into their adulthood years. Children who exercise regularly are more able to handle the long-term effect of stress.
- Regular exercise not only strengthens the physical health but also benefits the mental health of your child. Exercise can release the chemical endorphins which are responsible for an overall sense of well-being.
- Meditation every day helps to reduce stress effectively.
Meditation and faith in God:
- The study shows that people doing meditation and having faith in God are get less stress than others.
Good night sleep:
Lack of sleep is one of the leading cause of stress and stress of one of leading cause of insomnia. So it is necessary to maintain a good sleep every day.
- Good nutrition improves both physical health and mental health of your child. Nutrition impacts their emotion, ability to concentrate, prevent disease and develop into a healthy adult. If needed supplement also can be taken based on the discussion with a nutritionist:
- A healthy diet shall be maintained which will give the required nutrient. The nutrition value shall be more prior over the test of the food. Sickness too grows stress on the child.
In this articles, I tried to touch every aspect of stress which may be concerning for your child. Stress in children is growing rapidly and mishandling of this problem destroying their life. Read this to educate yourself on stress management. But if you find chronic stress in your child please do visit a professional consultant.