GuidingYoungsters Through Tumultuous Periods
In today's world, children face stress from a variety of sources, ranging from everyday changes to traumatic events. As a parent, it's essential to understand how to help your child cope and build emotional resilience.
Firstly, recognise that stress exists and ensure your child's basic needs are met. This can help them become more resilient.
It's important to encourage your child to express their feelings. Art, writing, music, or dance can be effective outlets for them to do so.
Exciting events, such as birthday parties or trips to the zoo, can also cause stress in children. While these events are generally positive, they can still be overwhelming for a child.
Help your child feel good about themselves by providing encouragement. Nurture and cherish them, and let them know you are there for them. Say "I love you."
Children under stress may exhibit signs such as headaches, difficulty concentrating, withdrawal, mood changes, and behaviour changes. They may also appear more fearful, sensitive, tense, aggressive, or irritable. If you notice any of these symptoms, it could be a sign that your child is experiencing stress.
In such cases, it's crucial to seek professional help for your child and yourself, if needed.
Parents should also model healthy coping mechanisms and teach children to recognise the physical and emotional signs of stress to empower self-management.
Effective ways to help children cope with stress include encouraging healthy emotional expression, engaging in distraction activities that bring comfort or joy, promoting emotion regulation techniques, maintaining family connection and routines, and helping children reframe negative thoughts to reduce anxiety.
Activities like doing puzzles, blowing bubbles, coloring, playing games, exercising, spending time with friends and family, writing, or listening to music can redirect attention away from distress and provide emotional relief and a sense of normalcy.
Emotion-focused strategies such as deep breathing, distraction, and calming routines help children regulate big emotions in the moment. Additionally, helping children find meaning in difficult situations can provide comfort and resilience.
Parents should watch for symptoms of stress in their child and encourage them to label feelings. Ensuring children get enough sleep, have breaks from stressors, and maintain social connections can also mitigate stress effects.
In summary, support children by encouraging open conversations about feelings and stress, offering enjoyable distraction or immersion activities, teaching coping skills, maintaining routines and family connection time, and watching for physical symptoms, emotional signs, and behavioural changes. These approaches build emotional resilience and help children confidently navigate stress and trauma.
Remember, stress can come from a combination of excitement and uncertainty. Verbally recognise positive behaviour, and when unacceptable behaviour occurs, redirect your children by stating the options and helping them find acceptable ways to express negative feelings.
Model positive ways to deal with stress and change, and let your children see that life goes on even when things do not go the way we wish. Set realistic expectations according to each child's developmental level.
Today's children may experience traumatic stress from homelessness, natural disasters, drugs, alcohol, terrorism, war, and violence in schools, neighbourhoods, or homes. Use books to discuss challenging topics, and allow your children to help you when appropriate, be prepared for the task to take longer.
Childhood stress can be caused by both negative and positive events. Starting school or child care, the birth of a new baby, illness, separation or divorce of parents, parent job changes, moving to a new location, loss of a pet, or a death in the family are common sources of stress for children.
In these situations, it's important to limit additional life changes when possible. If one of your children is having difficulty adjusting, try to maintain consistency and provide a stable environment for them.
[1] Healthy Children [2] HelpGuide [3] American Psychological Association [4] Understood [5] Psychology Today
- To bolster family health and mental health, parents can actively seek resources from organizations such as Healthy Children, HelpGuide, American Psychological Association, Understood, and Psychology Today. These resources offer valuable strategies for helping children cope with stress and promoting emotional resilience.
- When considering the broader aspect of health and wellness, it's crucial that parents not only focus on their child's physical health but also nurture their emotional health by addressing issues like stress, parenting, and family health, as these combined elements play significant roles in a child's overall well-being and future success.
