Helping your children identify and cope with stress

From the moment we become parents, we do everything we can to protect our children both physically and emotionally. We teach them not to touch the hot stove, to look both ways before they cross the street, how to ask for help when they need it. As they get older, those physical risks may seem more under control, but then we embark on perhaps a more challenging, and certainly, for us, a more anxiety-producing journey: teaching our children how to protect and take care of themselves emotionally. As your child becomes school age and older, his world becomes larger, and along with the increasing opportunities for enjoyment, come increased opportunities for stress. How the stress manifests itself will vary from child to child, even within the same family.  One thing is consistent, though — there will be stress!  You can help your child go through the process of learning how to identify and deal with it in ways that will support your child develop healthy coping skills and strength.

When facing stress, whether it be due to school work, social situations or anything else, your child may express anger, frustration, sadness, fear, or may shut down and act as if nothing at all is happening or affecting them. They may be the kind of child who can readily identify what is bothering them and express it, or they may be one who truly does not understand what is going on within them. They may act out (blaming you, yelling, slamming doors) or act in (getting quiet, sad, blaming themselves.) This may be scary and perhaps trigger shame or guilt for you, but try your best to not personalize their feelings and fight the urge to try to soothe your child by telling them that everything is okay. From their perspective, and likely yours, things are not currently okay!

Your opportunity here is to teach your child that these feelings are not “bad”, intolerable or harmful. They are part of a healthy process that we all go through during times of loss, disruption and change. So how do you tackle this task? It is really not as daunting or complicated as you might think. Remember, you know your child best, and you’ve likely had many opportunities to help them identify and express their feelings, albeit perhaps not in circumstances quite as significant as this one. You can use your knowledge of your child’s temperament to guide you. Does your child do best talking while snuggling at bedtime? Or do these conversations happen more freely while taking a walk, engaging in some shared activity, or over a meal?

Help your child name and express their feelings. If they have difficulty naming how they are feeing, suggest to them some words or ideas. Don’t worry – you won’t put ideas or feelings into their heads. If your suggestions aren’t on target, they will tell you. Just try to make sure that you are not getting your own feelings confused with theirs. Try to be attuned to where they are, rather than assuming that they must be feeling a certain way. And importantly, doing this will help them know that their feelings are acceptable, tolerable and manageable; they also need to know that they don’t have to like feeling the way they are feeling. That yes, it is highly uncomfortable to recognize, express and feel the stress, but they can do it, and feeling and talking about it authentically are the very things that will help them progress through and problem solve the challenges in healthy ways.