Why does my 13 year old get so emotional and overwhelmed about everything? She’s only in middle school.
The number one complaint we hear from kids is that parents pooh-pooh their fears, concerns, and stressors. Many parents’ think that since they survived middle and high school unscathed, so can their kids. They also compare all of the stress and responsibility they face in their adult lives with their children’s stress and come to the conclusion that their children don’t have anything to be stressed about. In other words, their children’s lives are simple compared to their own (what does Billy really have to worry about?)
What these well meaning parents fail to take into consideration is that stress is relative and feels real and overwhelming to their child. Adolescents don’t “experience” their situation from an adults’ perspective or by comparing their level of stress to an adult’s. They can’t.
Cognitively speaking, children’s frontal cortex isn’t fully developed until age 23. So, your 13 year olds’ brain is only half as developed as an adult brain. They can’t see solutions or manage their emotions the way an adult can.
Although their objective degree of stress may be less than an adult’s, they don’t experience their situation as less stressful. They feel the pressure to achieve, perform, fit-in, and form connections with others, as strongly, if not more strongly than adults.
They need help; your help. If you aren’t willing to really listen to and validate their concerns and stressors, guess what? They will turn away from you and towards their friends who are going through similar emotions. The problem here is that other teens are as emotionally ill-equipped to deal with their stress as your child.
To teach your children how to manage stress start by listening and validating their specific concerns, struggles, and fears. Teaching them how to prioritize, manage their time, and confront peer conflicts will reduce their level of stress. Similarly, role playing peer conflict situations with your children can provide the self-confidence they need to stand up for themselves or begin a difficult emotional conversation.
Showing posts with label stress management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress management. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tips to Reduce Stress
Tips to Help Families Deal with Stress
We are all dealing with increased levels of stress in both our professional and family lives. Our children experience our stress as well as their own. Here are some tips to help your children, and the entire family, cope with stress more effectively.
1. Create daily, quiet moments with each child. Offer time to talk about how things are going, to ask, tell, discuss and listen. A few quiet minutes for airing little worries can prevent them from growing into big ones.
2. Listen to your child when he or she is ready to talk. Try to stop what you are doing at the moment and engage with him or her. If it's not a good time, schedule a date for an hour later. Avoid trying to always fix problems, just listening is powerful.
3. As a family, share ways that you effectively deal with stress. Let your child know that you feel stress and that you can cope with it. This is reassuring and is effective modeling.
4. Be mindful of your own negative reactions to stress (e.g. shouting, drinking, smoking, slamming doors, isolation). Intentionally or not we teach by example. When you’re tense, try a walk, talking things over, or taking deep breaths.
5. Encourage drawing, storytelling, creative play and physical activities that are healthy, readily available ways to discharge anxiety. Exercise is one of the best ways to reduce stress.
6. Talk about stressors in the family rather than trying to hide them. Even when you think children don't understand the stressors in your life, they can sense them. It’s not necessary, nor fair, nor wise to share all adult problems with kids, but they probably sense when things are not right. Offer reassurance when you can and create an environment in which it’s ok to ask questions.
7. Share perspective. Remind children that although they may be having a really bad hour, or a really hard morning, somewhere in this day some nice things will happen too. At the dinner table, ask each person to offer a positive or highlight of his/her day.
If your child is having great difficulty dealing with stress please contact your school Prevention Specialist. We are here to help!
Scottsdale Prevention Institute
www.spi-az.org
480-443-3100
We are all dealing with increased levels of stress in both our professional and family lives. Our children experience our stress as well as their own. Here are some tips to help your children, and the entire family, cope with stress more effectively.
1. Create daily, quiet moments with each child. Offer time to talk about how things are going, to ask, tell, discuss and listen. A few quiet minutes for airing little worries can prevent them from growing into big ones.
2. Listen to your child when he or she is ready to talk. Try to stop what you are doing at the moment and engage with him or her. If it's not a good time, schedule a date for an hour later. Avoid trying to always fix problems, just listening is powerful.
3. As a family, share ways that you effectively deal with stress. Let your child know that you feel stress and that you can cope with it. This is reassuring and is effective modeling.
4. Be mindful of your own negative reactions to stress (e.g. shouting, drinking, smoking, slamming doors, isolation). Intentionally or not we teach by example. When you’re tense, try a walk, talking things over, or taking deep breaths.
5. Encourage drawing, storytelling, creative play and physical activities that are healthy, readily available ways to discharge anxiety. Exercise is one of the best ways to reduce stress.
6. Talk about stressors in the family rather than trying to hide them. Even when you think children don't understand the stressors in your life, they can sense them. It’s not necessary, nor fair, nor wise to share all adult problems with kids, but they probably sense when things are not right. Offer reassurance when you can and create an environment in which it’s ok to ask questions.
7. Share perspective. Remind children that although they may be having a really bad hour, or a really hard morning, somewhere in this day some nice things will happen too. At the dinner table, ask each person to offer a positive or highlight of his/her day.
If your child is having great difficulty dealing with stress please contact your school Prevention Specialist. We are here to help!
Scottsdale Prevention Institute
www.spi-az.org
480-443-3100
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