Helping Your Children Deal with Stress

As an adult we are constantly balancing our stress between money, work, time with family and relationships. What you may not have thought about is that children have a lot of the same life stresses that an adult has. Today's children have the pressure to do well in school, social pressures of having the right items and belonging in the right click. We also must consider the social pressures of the bully, to look fashionable and display the necessary sexual awareness.

Children can feel pressure in any of these areas, that can trigger stress and the inability to cope with the issue. Unfortunately children communicate their concerns through their behaviors. Here are a few behaviors that you may look for:

• wanting to spend more time alone
• becoming clingy or dependent
• loses appetite to eat favorite foods
• very negative about themself
• avoid attending school or social events
• more negative attention seeking behaviors
• complaints of physical pain

Children learning how to cope with stress need a lot of support. Encourage your children to verbalize their fears and then normalize the situation as they have a tendency to exagerate their fears. Ask how you can support them through this difficult time and brainstorm options that they may try to release the pressure they feel. Teaching your children how to cope with stress is an important skill they will utilize as an adult. Helping them to identify healthy ways to release their stress with exercise, music, writing in a journal, reading or talking to a friend will empower them to search for answers to help themself.

Warm regards,

Gina