August is National Wellness Month, a great occasion to consider what you can do when your kids complain about being really stressed. How do you help them cope with it? Experts agree on the following points:
LISTEN TO YOUR KIDS: WHAT’S GOING ON?; HOW ARE THEY FEELING?
It’s important to sit your kids down and ask them what’s going on and how they are feeling. Listen calmly and non-judgmentally to what they have to say. “Children learn (and take cues) from the adults around them,” says child psychologist Dr. Lyn O’Grady, “so it’s important for adults to be mindful of how they approach stressful situations.” If you overreact to what they are telling you, they most likely will overreact, too. But if you stay calm and collected, you will have a much easier time helping them cope with whatever it is they are dealing with. As clinical psychologist Dr. Barbara Greenberg succinctly puts it, “No child wants to talk to a parent who is losing her cool.”
Child psychotherapist Katie Hurley, the author of The Happy Kids Handbook, says that “knowing that you will listen and help them empowers them to work through their stress, instead of stuffing it down and potentially making it worse.” Remember that your kids are not looking for you to solve all of their problems once and for all. Rather, they are looking for you to truly listen to them as a way for them to work through their problems on their own. “Sometimes,” says child psychologist Dr. Jamie Howard, “parents avoid having conversations with kids because they’re worried they won’t say the right thing or they won’t know how to answer their questions.” But the truth is that there is no such thing as the one right answer. The only wrong thing is failing to make yourself available to your kids when they need you the most.
REASSURE YOUR KIDS THAT THEY ARE STRONG AND CAPABLE
Listening to your kids is an important first step, but you also need to reassure them that they are strong and capable of coping with whatever it is that’s stressing them out. Experts agree that you should try to convince your kids that it’s better to confront their stressors head on than to shy away from them. “If a child faces his or her fears,” says professor of child psychology Dr. Amy Przeworski, “the child will learn that the anxiety reduces naturally over time.”
Dr. Przeworski says that it’s also important to cultivate as positive an outlook as possible since stressed kids have a tendency to get lost in negative thoughts and self-criticism: “They may focus on how the glass is half empty instead of half-full and worry about future events. The more that you are able to focus on your child’s positive attributes and the good aspects of a situation, the more that will remind your child to focus on the positives.”
It’s useful to give your kids some perspective by reminding them of how they dealt with similar situations in the past which turned out all right. When confronted by a stressful situation, it’s easy for kids and adults alike to lose perspective and forget the previous times they confronted a similar situation and that the outcome was not so bad after all.
HELP YOUR KIDS EXPERIMENT WITH VARIOUS COPING TECHNIQUES
Once your kids are reassured that they are truly capable of handling stressful situations, try to experiment with various coping techniques. A one-size-fits-all strategy for dealing with stress doesn’t exist, but certain time-tested techniques have proven effective.
One useful coping technique is to have your kids write down what’s causing them to be stressed. It teaches them to articulate what’s bothering them instead of bottling it up, and it helps them work through the problem and what to do about it. Mrs. Hurley suggests that they write down their stressors “on a piece of paper, read them to you, and then tear them up and throw them away for the night. This helps kids say their worries out loud and let go of them.”
Another useful coping technique is to aim for balance in your kids’ lives. Instead of insisting that your kids do well at school at all costs, emphasize that to be happy and stress-free, kids also need time for play and physical exercise. Dr. Greenberg suggests that parents sit down with their kids “and come up with a well-balanced schedule that includes all three of these important aspects of life.” When engaged in play or physical exercise, kids have the time to let their minds be free to come up with creative solutions to their sources of stress.
MAKE SURE YOUR KIDS’ PHYSICAL NEEDS ARE MET
Finally, make sure your kids’ physical needs are met. As Dr. Greenberg puts it, “none of us at any age can deal with pressure effectively if we’re exhausted and hungry.” This last piece of advice applies to you as much as it does to your kids. If you are not well-rested and satisfied, you won’t be able to listen to and support your kids as much as you need to, since your mind and body will be focused on other things.
Tanni Haas is a Professor in the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences & Disorders at the City University of New York – Brooklyn College.