Kids Have Stress Too
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Childhood is meant to be a happy, carefree time.
Children, like adults, sometime can experience stress. Stress is a normal part of our everyday lives. Children can experience stress at home, school or even in their play. Children also can reflect the stress they feel in the adults around them. When kids have more stress than they can handle it can affect their health. Stress can show up in many different ways. Kids may say they don’t feel well or that they have an upset tummy. You may notice your child acting differently. They may be moody, sad, angry or panicky. They may have difficulty sleeping or eating and be more off routine than usual.
Stress may also affect the growing child during pregnancy. Research shows that infants exposed to constant maternal stress react in different ways than infants who are not exposed during this time. Minimizing external stressors for mom is important during pregnancy and encouraging healthy attachment and bonding at birth strengthen an infant’s ability to deal with stress.
Parents and caregivers can help children learn skills to deal with stress. Children can start learning these skills at a very young age. Resiliency is the ability to cope with stressful situations, changes or problems. Resilient children use coping skills that they developed from past experiences to cope better with new situations as they arise. To help children build coping skills we can encourage them to express their feelings, help them recognize other people’s feelings, help them accept responsibility for their own behaviour, teach them strategies to make themselves feel better in difficult situations and encourage them to use problem-solving skills and decision making skills to find solutions that might work. Children will model adults who show them how to manage stress in a healthy way. When adults are calm, confident, flexible and optimistic, provide a safe and consistent home environment, give comfort and encouragement to children in stressful situations, we will teach children the skills they need to cope with life’s stressors. For more tips and information you can visit www.kidshavestresstoo.org.
