Teaching children stress management
Sharing your feelings about what it feels like to be overwhelmed and what causes them to be worried can help your child better understand their feelings about being stressed. When they become aware of their own emotions, behaviors, and physical response to stress, they can begin to devise strategies for reducing it. Here are some excellent strategies for talking freely about emotions and stress with children and encouraging them to do so.
Actively listening to children
Introduce yourself and your day to the group by telling them about your personal experience. You could start the conversation with “what made you feel happy today”. After that shift to “what made you feel under stress today” and continue the conversation from that point. During your conversation with them about their day, inquire about their thoughts and feelings about what occurred.
Speaking in the car, on a walk, or before bed can make it easier to open up. It is because you are not in direct contact with your partner or child. It’s often helpful to use words like ‘worried,’ ‘upset,’ and ‘sad’ instead of ‘stress’. Some younger children may understand these words better than stress. A common complaint among teenagers is that they are ‘overwhelmed.’ Make use of the most effective terms for your youngster.
Knowing children stress
Encourage youngsters to pay attention to their bodies and minds when experiencing anxiety. You can inquire as to how stress affects their physical well-being and their mood, thoughts, and behavior.
Continue to play the role of a “stress detective” with younger children. You can do this by guiding them to make connections between their bodies and stress. For example, if you see that your kid is complaining of stomach aches or is more irritable than usual. Also, you suspect that stress is the source of the problem, you can assist them in considering how their current feelings might be because of stress.
Explaining to children the negative implications of stress
Teaching children how stress manifests itself in their bodies can better prepare themselves to deal with the feelings as they arise. First and foremost, reassure your child that it is normal to experience stress. A normal response that triggers inside the body under stress is a natural part of everyone’s life. Within seconds of receiving this signal, the body releases hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates while preparing your muscles for action.
Taking slow, deep breaths to feel calmer is one-way children can assist in “turning down” this natural anxiety response. Other breathing exercises can be beneficial as well.
Conclusion
It takes time and effort to recognize and identify your feelings. Children may be unable to recognize that the feelings they are experiencing are related to a stressor in the present moment.
Teach them words to use to describe their emotions so that they can tell you what they are thinking and feeling. Giving children a name for their emotions can be a great source of relief. You can teach younger children basic emotion words, such as happy, mad, sad, and scared, by modeling them for them. Learning more complex feeling words such as frustrated, disappointed, and nervous can benefit older children as they mature. Feelings can be better managed if they are broken down and explained.
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