Is Your Child Stressed Out? How You Can Help

Children face more pressure than ever before to perform well in school and sports, to hold down jobs and family responsibilities, and to have social lives. It’s no surprise they sometimes feel overwhelmed. Unfortunately, stress is a part of our daily lives, but you can help your child learn to cope with it. You also can recognize and manage your role in adding pressure to your kids.

Signs Your Child Is Stressed

Most excessive stress manifests itself as a change in your child’s physical, emotional or mental health. You may notice some of these behaviors:

• Insomnia
• Unhealthy eating, overeating or not eating enough
• Becoming withdrawn
• Being sick more often
• Neglecting responsibilities

How You Can Help

Children can improve their ability to cope with stress and daily hassles if they have previously succeeded in managing the challenge, have a keen sense of self-esteem and get emotional support from family and friends.

Helping your child manage stress is all about communication and finding ways to connect. You can begin by asking about your child’s day. Showing you care may encourage openness about your child’s life and concerns. For younger kids, having fun and playing may promote conversation. For adolescents, having a meal together might help them talk with you about their stress. Once your child tells you about pressures, you can be a calming presence by empathizing and creating a safe haven at home.

What You Can Teach Your Child

You can help your child by both limiting the amount of pressure on your child [LC1] and by teaching strategies for coping with it. For example, use praise more than criticism when talking with your child. You may be speaking from a place of concern, but they perceive criticism as more pressure. Another way to limit the stress you put on your child is to talk about solutions to problems without attempting to solve them yourself. Encourage your child to set healthy goals with daily stressors and to practice mitigating the pressure.  Coping strategies could include:

• Journaling
• Practicing mindfulness
• Going outside
• Exercising
• Increasing communication
• Spending quality time with friends and family

You should also model self-forgiveness and dealing with your emotions. Using past experiences to help your child learn how to handle situations and teaching coping skills to address current circumstances can help motivate your child to improve and not allow negative experiences to continue.

Dangers of Too Much Pressure

When kids feel threatened, attacked or scared, their brains release powerful hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol and oxytocin. They may activate different stress responses:

• Freeze: If children cannot escape a threat, they may feel powerless and then dissociate from it.
• Fight or flight: Your child may use the surge of stress hormones to find the courage to confront the threat or to flee from it.
• Affiliate: Your child may make new alliances against a common threat. Finding such support is the healthiest of these responses.

If your child is under stress for a long time, it can lead to health problems. This is especially true if your child doesn’t have the love and support of a caring person to help lower stress hormones and feel safe again.

Stress can change your child’s developing brain, hormones, immune system, metabolic processes and even genes. This can lead to health risks that range from asthma and infections to dental problems to mental health conditions.

That’s why it’s important to prevent excessive stress or help your child work through it. If you have concerns about the effects of stress on your child, contact your pediatrician to discuss next steps. Your child might benefit from therapy if their stress is not part of daily life.