Children and Stress
Many of you who decided to read this article might have done so because you were wondering, “How can children have stress? All they have to do is go to school, play, eat and sleep”.
John Styffe reveals that he felt the same way until he started working with children to help them with attention and concentration problems. In the course of his work he found that many if not most of the children who had such problems suffered from stress (stress related either to the inability to perform or attention problems caused by stress itself). He shares some of his insights with us here:
Children may not suffer from the stressors we as adults know, but the stress can be as intense, if not more intense.
Last month a poll was taken by an organisation called KidsHealth in the USA. KidsHealth is the largest and most visited site on the web providing doctor-approved health information about children ranging from prenatal to adolescence. The Kidspoll as it was called involved 875 children ages 9 to 13. There were some extremely interesting results.
The poll indicated that 36% of the children felt that academics created the most stress, 32% identified family, and 21% specified friends or peers.
The most important information revealed how children relieved the stress:n• 52% play or do something active n• 44% listen to music n• 42% watch TV or play a video game n• 30% talk to a friend n• 29% try not to think about it n• 28% try to work things out n• 26% eat something n• 23% lose their temper n• 22% talk to a parent n• 11% crynEven more alarming was that 25% hurt themselves for example either by banging their heads or bumping themselves against walls and objects. The article did not mention the children who attempt to release stress by cutting themselves, pulling their hair or consuming alcohol and/or drugs – an area that I have a great deal of interest and experience in.
So what is stress? Although I often hear this word referred to by both adults and children alike, most people do not really know what it is, how it can affect us or how we can deal it.
Stress is how we react to a stressor, ie, something that causes mental or emotional strain or tension. Actually anything or anybody can be a stressor. It is how we react to that stressor that is important. Technically speaking there is the flight or fight response of the autonomic nervous system. If we are confronted by a stressor, our mind and body automatically prepare for the action. Our hands get cold as the muscles tense thus restricting the blood flow, heart rate increases, breathing increases, our stomach stops digesting and our body tenses. Once we see that the emergency is over our body returns to normal.
Actually some stress is healthy because it makes us more alert. The problem arises when we do not go back to a normal state. We are constantly on alert. Our bodies are constantly prepared for fight or flight. We are tense, have stomach problems, concentration problems and sleep problems eventually leading to problems such as neck and back aches, clenched jaws, skin problems, headaches, depression, etc. This is when parents decide that the child needs some help. So they bring the child to a doctor to find out what is wrong, and the diagnosis is usually some disorder or another.
The child is then taken to a therapist or brought to someone like me to ‘fix’ the problem. Usually I do an assessment where I ask a lot of questions. I did one such assessment with a family and their 11-year daughter one Sunday morning. On the following Wednesday the therapist who referred the family to me commented how well the girl was doing. I was surprised as all that I did was ask questions –nbut then I remembered that I talked about breathing and the girl went home and practiced the breathing that I taught her. With in a few days her behaviour and school performance had improved.
A common thread in my conversations with children is the usage of the phrases, “have to”, “need to” or “should”. I often ask what they want and they cannot answer the question. There are a lot of demands put on children by school, parents and peers and they feel overwhelmed when they can not live up to expectations.
So, I begin my work and I help children to become more relaxed and focused. I send them home and unfortunately they become stressed once again because the parents themselves are stressed. The parents hurriedly drop off the children and then hurriedly pick them up. I refer to this as ‘therapy stress’. If I confront the parents with the fact that they themselves may have an issue they then run away, because they do not want to be blamed for not being the perfect parents or to confront themselves.
Then we use this diagnosis as an excuse. We end up blaming our children. “He was the problem, not me”. The most difficult and most frustrating part of working with children is the parents. They drop off their children and expect a therapist to ‘fix’ them. I do not fix people. I help people, including children, to learn how to help themselves. What I do is not magic nor is it a pill. It is all about learning.
Often there are parents who really do get involved and make the effort to change themselves. As a result they have a positive and calming affect on their families. This is the reward!
What can we immediately do to help our children to de-stress? We can listen to them, stop trying to live their lives, give them more time for play, try to understand them, make time for them, encourage them rather than tell them where they have gone wrong, love them unconditionally and, above all, work on ourselves – our own personal development and that as a parent.