Stress

Stress is how the body reacts when we are feeling threatened or under pressure. Everyone can feel stressed from time to time.

Stress can be helpful in daily life. It can motivate your child to achieve things like preparing for an exam or interview, or keeping up with their home life.

Experiencing too much stress  can become overwhelming and make your child feel out of control. This may affect their relationships or how they feel and behave.

What stress feels like

When we feel under pressure or encounter something that we find physically or mentally scary, it triggers a response called the ‘Fight or Flight.’ It causes Adrenaline release in the body, which gives us the energy to fight or run away from the situation that is causing us stress.

When this happens, your child may notice some of these signs:

  • Racing thoughts 

  • Dry mouth 

  • Fast heartbeat 

  • Nausea 

  • Feeling dizzy or lightheaded 

  • Fast breathing 

  • Sweaty palms 

  • Tense muscles 

Support your child deal with stress

Help your child recognise their stress signs

Everyone experiences stress differently. It’s helpful for your child to recognise early signs that they’re getting stressed. This will make it easier for them to manage. Help your child identify their Fight or Flight signs.

Use a situation where they experienced stress in the past, to help them recognise how they felt, what they thought and how they behaved.

Help set achievable goals

If your child puts themselves under a lot of pressure to get things done, it can make them feel overwhelmed. Help your child set achievable goals, instead of trying to do everything at the same time. Taking small steps towards accomplishing goals will make them feel more in control.

To set achievable goals, you may find it helpful to help your child identify SMART goals:

Specific – Setting a specific and clear goal

Measurable – Making sure the goal is measurable e.g. if your child’s goal is to revise for their Maths exam, revising alone is not a measurable goal. So we can change this by adding the amount of time they would like to revise for per day for example.

Achievable – Ensuring the goal can be achieved. E.g. If your child’s goal is to revise all of the content for their exam in 1 hour, this is something they won’t be able to achieve. When we set goals that aren’t achievable this can often leave us feeling self-critical and more stressed because we are unable to meet our goals.  

Relevant – Setting goals that are relevant for your child

Timely – Setting a goal that has a deadline can be helpful to keep your child motivated to work towards it. Your child may find it helpful to use a timetable to support with this.

Encourage self-care

When your child is feeling stressed, it is easy for them to forget to look after themselves. Help them practise self-care by ensuring they eat and sleep well, and exercise. Suggest that they make time to do the things they enjoy, such as something creative, reading a book or talking to friends, as this can help manage their feelings.

Use breathing techniques

Help your child practise breathing techniques to help them feel calm and regulate their emotions. Breathing techniques can help to make emotions feel manageable and free energy to focus on problem-solving.

Breathing techniques work better if they’re practised. You may find it helpful to practice together.

Learn about how to take slow breaths to feel grounded from the Parent Talk website.

Prioritise one-to-one time

Children can find it difficult to talk about their feelings when stressed. Set aside some time every week to talk to your child about anything that is worrying them. This can help your child feel comfortable sharing their feelings.

You may find it useful to create a self-soothe box to help with these conversations.

Learn more about how you can help your child share their worries with you.

Books

There are a variety of books you can use to engage younger children to talk about their worries and stress:

●      Huge Bag of Worries (age four to eight).

●      Ruby’s Worry (age three to seven).

●      The worrysaurus (age three to six).

 

Get support

 

●      Parent Talk: Find further information and guidance on how you can support your child deal with stress. For advice on your specific issue, speak to one of our parenting coaches.

A Peaceful Butterfly

Watch this video with your child to help them relax.