Tips to Help Stressed Out Children
Parenting is the most stressful thing we do, and with the growing demands of life, it is easy to forget, even children get stressed.
What causes stress?
Children increasingly suffer the effects of stress and feel overwhelmed with pressures from school and social life. Between all the schoolwork, homework, after school activities and bullying, children are super stressed out. In addition to these, some children can have other sources of stress such as their parents’ divorce, changing schools, trying to fit in, moving home or cities.
Children have different levels of tolerance for stress, some may not be bothered by change of school for example, and another may get very stressed out by it. Sometimes as adults we may feel the issue is small, such as a disagreement with a friend, but this too can be a source of stress.
How to tell if your child is stressed
In general, children may show physical, emotional or behavioural signs. Some of the common ones include:
- mood swings
- emotional outbursts
- cry more
- withdrawal from usual activities
- trouble focusing and concentration
- aggression
- express insecurity and talk negatively about themselves
- headaches
- stomach aches
- fatigue
- changes in sleep
- changes in appetite
How you can help reduce your child’s anxiety & stress
1. Listen & Communicate.
Good communication is key to any strong relationship and listening is of utmost importance. It is important to sit down and give them your full attention when communicating.
Children are not always familiar to the word stress and its meaning, and may therefore express their feelings of distress through words such as “worried,” “annoyed” and “angry”. Help children put words to their feelings. Ask them if they are feeling nervous, scared or worried. Do this with a calm tone of voice and without an accusation tone of voice. Ask open ended questions and keep asking what else is bothering them, this will help you get to the root cause of the stress. Let them feel heard and listen without giving solutions. As soon as the child feels heard and understood, they will naturally start to feel able to cope.
2. Focus on the positives.
Many times anxious and stressed children can get lost in negative thoughts and self-criticism. They focus on what they do not know, are not able to do and worry about future events. The more you able to focus on your child’s positive attributes and good aspects of a situation, the more it will remind your child to focus on their positives.
For example they may say “this exam will be so hard, I will fail.” As a parent, you can remind them of all the revision they have done and the times they have got good marks and passed. The more positive children are, the more relaxed they will be.
3. Stop overscheduling
One of the biggest stressors for children is being overscheduled, yet today, they are expected to pay attention in class all day, excel at extracurricular activities, come home, finish homework and go to sleep and repeat it all over again on the next day.
Children need time to relax, their brains and bodies need to rest, and they may not realise this and therefore knowing when your child is overscheduled is important. One way to tell is, paying attention to how your family is eating their meal. If everybody is eating on the run, in the car, grabbing and going then that’s a clear indicator that too much is going on and you may need to decrease some activities.
Allow your children to have chill out times between activities; fun and relaxing times where the children can play without pressure and competition. Spend time with them playing with their favourite toys, painting, dancing to loud music, walking in the park or eating as a family.
4. Model coping strategies
Slow down as much as you can, children are deeply affected by the stresses and strains of adults around them. When parents are stressed out, children are stressed out, as the saying goes “actions speak louder than words.” Demonstrate to your children how to cope with stress by dealing with difficulties in a calm, relaxed and effective manner.
So the next time you have had a tough day or are going through any particular worries, its ok to tell your children why you were upset– but say something that puts the situation in perspective.
5. Be Patient
For children a lot of stress comes from fear of making mistakes, remind your children that they are not supposed to know how to do everything and do it right. Teach them it’s ok to fail sometimes, but more importantly teach them how to bounce back from it.
As a parent it hurts to see your child upset, unhappy or stressed and even though as parents you can solve every problem, teaching healthy coping strategies prepares your child to manage the stresses that may come in the future.
Do you need more help?
Some children when seriously stressed can become prone to depression and anxiety in addition to behavioural problems. If your child’s behaviour becomes out of control or if you are concerned about excessive stress, contact me on 07779645834 or email me at Priya@NLP4Kids.org
By Priya Amlani
V easy to understand, concise, and informative article..
The author has covered all the aspect of stress without making it too intense.
Very well written, motivational article. Definitely worth a read.
Highly informative and insightful in diagnosing symptom of stress.
The most relevant part of the article is remedies to reduce stress.
Ron
Found the article very easy to read, covers stress from all angles. All you need to know about stress in children is there.
Excellent read – bring awarness to Parents!
Excellent article
Excellent
Enjoyed reading this well written and thought provoking article, the author has been able to cover the salient points around reducing the childs stress.
Succinct article. Giving both precautions and solutions. Worth a read for all adults out there as in some way or the other we might be around kids.
Great article and very timely given how much kids have to do, learn, go to and compete in these days…
Fantastic article Priya.
Enjoyed reading it.
Excellent article which will help very many long suffering parents who find dealing with this condition very difficult ! Well done Priya for bringing a smile on the faces of these parents 🙂
Hi Priya, just wanted to say what a well written and and thought enhancing article. All parents should read this as no doubt this could help so many families who going through this and not realising there are techniques and coping strategies to help all look forward to reading your next subject article.
Very useful article.
Priya, it is one off the most important article you have written it will help me another parents, as Indian parents we mark a mistake of over loading our children with activities.
Priya, THUMBS UP for a well-structured and well-explained article on such important but complicated issue. The quality of knowledge and information you have made available to needing families, including mine, is remarkable. Keep it because I won’t hesitate to read any other piece written by you.
Something that every parent goes through, but doesn’t always know what to do about it.
A very good read.
Hi Priya! This is one of the best articles We have ever come across on children stress management and effective communication. You are doing a great job!
Many thanks,
Aseem and Yamini
Hi Priya,
I think that the content of this article is good, and that the strategies you offer are clear and practical.
It is well laid out, and easy to navigate. It also has a good ratio of focus: one third of it highlighting the problem, two thirds of it presenting solutions.
However, the first third, because it is the opening, is a very important part of the article. And I felt that a more NLP approach, even in the process of contextualising the problem, would have made the piece much stronger/more instantly helpful to the average reader. For instance, your opening gambit, “Parenting is the most stressful thing we do…” isn’t exactly calculated to lower a worried parent’s blood pressure! And phrases like, “the growing demands of life” and “Children increasingly suffer” – apart from being a bit hackneyed (when has life ever not placed substantial demands on the average person? Where is the evidence that these demands are growing?) – rachet up the stress levels further. By the time it gets to the statement that, “Between all the schoolwork, homework, after school activities and bullying, children are super stressed out” it’s not just children who are stressed, it’s your readership as well! I know it wasn’t intentional, but you have just implied that all children are currently being bullied. Again, not a helpful idea to implant in the mind of Mr./Mrs. Worried Parent!
So, tough to pull off though this suggestion is, my recommendation for the future would be to look really hard at the emotional impact your openings have on the casual reader, and to ensure that you are instilling in them *from the opening few sentences* the sense that your article is the one to keep reading if they want solutions to their problems.
I would also recommend that you get a friend to proofread blog entries before posting to iron out the blips, like “Children are not always familiar *to* the word stress” and “some may not be bothered by change of school for example, and *another* may get very stressed out by it.”
My above comments notwithstanding, however, I thought that that article had a good emotional trajectory: it leaves its reader in a calm place, empowered by solid, easily implementable suggestions for relieving stress, and knowing how to take control of a situation. Well done.
Priya I think your tips are very clear and I can understand how these would help to bring about the desired results. You gently highlighting some areas where parents can help by taking control of some elements of the situation.
I think an opening that could work really nicely here, would be to tap into a universal worries that children have which adults may easily brush off.
Perhaps there is one that you had as a child that you can recall?
I think many of us had the anxiety about having to do PE in our vest and pants because we had forgotten our kit! It’s easy to think of a child’s worries as insignificant as an adult, but when we reflect on our own experiences we may recall that we had some of our own – not being able to eat the disgusting school dinner and being worried about the dinner lady’s reaction when you said you didn’t want to eat it, etc.
Giving your article that personal touch at the start will make it even more engaging.
Well written article especially with the focus on the positive! Look forward to the next write up! BW Sanjay R
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