EARLY ANXIETY
How parents can help children cope
This generation is growing up in a fast-changing cultural ecosystem unlike any other. In what has been dubbed the age of anxiety, childhood stress has quickly become front-of-mind for parents and teachers alike.
The latest national survey shows over 70 per cent of teachers name student stress as one of their top concerns in the classroom. But when it comes to stress, it is time to change the conversation. Instead of viewing stress as a potentially crippling obstacle, support children in the face of it — help them see the benefits of facing down their stressful challenges — empowering them with resiliency tools for life.
When it comes to childhood stress, there’s a desire to place blame — school pressures, overscheduling, overuse of technology, changing diets, lack of exercise, the death of free play, the list goes on. The truth is, our culture is constantly changing. We have the choice to recalibrate our lifestyles with tools for becoming more resilient or suffer the impact.
The neurobiology of stress is clear. Chronic pressure leads to a cascade of stress chemicals that in the long term, wreaks havoc on the body and developing brain system. Unrelenting stress leads to increased cortisol, triggering stem cells to malfunction and cells in key areas responsible for memory and learning to become smaller.
Simply coping in the classroom becomes a challenge. The physical impact also means more children are complaining of headaches and sleep problems than ever before, with almost half of all youth reporting that they can’t sleep at night
When kids learn that those scary symptoms can actually help them handle a crisis ... they become empowered.
because of stress.
But, is all stress bad? At programs like CHI Kids in Vancouver, children are learning that stress need not loom like a threat and can even have its benefits.
“We’re teaching kids how to face the symptoms of stress by helping them understand its benefits,” says Jill Schmidt, a CHI Kids teacher. “When kids learn that those scary symptoms can actually help them handle a crisis, get a task done quickly, motivate them and even help them meet their highest potential, they become empowered.”
According to Schmidt, parents can easily incorporate the tools she uses at CHI Kids (play-based cognitive behavioural therapy), into home life. By doing so, children learn new ways to think and behave. Kids discover a new way to be. It’s based on the premise that our thoughts, emotions and behaviours are interrelated, that by changing one, we can transform the other. Children learn how to monitor and modify energy and information, including thought, and sensory and emotion regulation, creating new governing pathways in the brain.
But parent involvement is key. CHI Kids’ teachers recommend parents have conversations with their children to demystify stress.
Instead of turning away from their fears, identifying symptoms such as a racing heart and monkey mind helps children learn how those stress signals can help them decipher emotions, giving them the tools they need for a healthy body and mind. They can learn to soothe their internal storms with techniques like mindfulness meditation, imagery, progressive relaxation and other methods designed to calm their nervous systems.
Our kids are calling on us to show up in a playful, non-anxious and connected state of being.
So when parents and kids destress together by writing their worries on sticky notes, building worry walls, or getting a move on with a little yoga or exercise, everyone benefits.
What’s the single most important thing a parent can do when their child is facing stress?
Be available with support. Validate the idea that feelings are meant to be felt, that beneath all that internal noise exists an authentic strength.
And convey to them that they are deeply valued — no matter what.