Stress Management For Children

What Tips and Techniques are there for Managing Your Child’s Stress?

But what can they do to relive this stress?

More importantly what can you do as a parent to help them?

This is article is mainly aimed at pre-teens but I do feel a lot of these techniques work with teens as well.

Tips and Techniques

Discipline

I start with discipline because I see that most parents struggle with this. I feel that most parents nowadays find it hard to discipline their children.

I believe this has arisen from the fact that corporal punishment and discipline were the “in” thing a few years ago. And many of today’s parents were subjected to this type of “discipline”.

Maybe what we’re seeing now is a backlash against this type of punishment.

For me, this corporal style of discipline doesn’t work. By doing this you teach the child it is okay to hit, that violence is okay. This is not the message that we want to be teaching our children.

But due to this bad experience with discipline most parents that I see nowadays will not discipline their child.

What do we mean by this?

Boundaries

For example, a child is kicking the table. “Please stop that Jonny,” you ask. They do it again. “Please stop,” I said. They do it again. “If you do that again you will have to sit on the step.” They do it again so you make them sit on the step.

This for me is discipline. It is so simple but it teaches the child several really important things:

1. There are boundaries, causes for their actions.

2. It shows them who is in charge. And yes, you are!

3. When you say something, you mean it, and therefore you are to be respected because you keep your word.

The first time you do this and carry out the discipline, the child will kick and scream. They will shout and curse. They have been used to being in charge.

But it is so important to leave them on the step, let them calm down themselves.

And when they have calmed down, go to the child and complete. What I used to do was say. “How do you feel?” They would usually say, “I feel sad”.

And I would point out that they feel sad because they didn’t listen to what was said. They are sad because of something they did rather than what someone else did to them.

I feel that this empowers them, for you are showing them that you are not making them sad, but they are. And when they see this and understand this, they change.

And afterwards I would always hug them, congratulate them for understanding the message and show them it was finished. And sometimes they would cry and I would always allow them this space in silence.

The Child is not in Charge

But by having a simple discipline routine in place, you take charge again. This not only reduces your own stress but reduces the stress of the child in the long run (not necessarily to start off with).

Having someone in charge makes the child feel safe. The child will stop playing up, they feel secure. I have seen this first hand and it works. This really helps with stress management for children.

Carrying Out What You Say

There is no clear boundary. And this is confusing for the child. Make it clear for them.

And by carrying out what you say, you will start to gain self respect. People will not walk all over you, including your children, and this will reduce your own stress tremendously.

Getting Outside and Being Physical

Children love being outside. It exercises them, nourishes their lungs and limbs, and they have such fun.

So get them to turn off the TV, have TV and computer-free days where you all go outside. And I mean you, the parents, as well!

Go for walks in the woods, go to feed the ducks or climb trees. Teach them to cycle or play sports. It not only nourishes them, it nourishes you as well!