Recipes

Recipe for Helping Your Child Deal With Stress

Stress is a normal, unavoidable part of life. It affects everyone, even children. A teenager feels stress as she tries to figure out what she is going to do with her life.

Parents can ease the stress that children feel and teach them to cope with stressful situations. It is important to remember that stress is a natural part of your child's life. It only becomes harmful when the problems and hassles of daily life overwhelm your child.

So many people today are in such hurried lives they do not even know what they want or where they are going.

Children cannot escape the stress and the pressures that come with living in today's society. But they can learn ways to cope. As a parent, you can help your child in a number of ways:

1. Teach your child to solve problems. He or she needs to learn to identify the problem, possible solutions, pros and cons of possible solutions, and then to select the best choice.

2. Talk with your child. Set aside a special time to talk. Commit to weekly family meetings. Find out what's happening in his or her life. Be honest and open with him. Tell children about the family's goals and discuss difficulties, without burdening them with your problems. Compliment children when they do well, and don't forget hugs and kisses.

3. Make sure you and your child have periods of quiet time so that we can all relax.

4. Create daily delicious habits to look forward to.

5. Get physical in some way each and every day.

6. Practice listening skills. We all like to be heard.

7. Ask questions before jumping on your child's side - seek first to understand.

8. Be supportive. Mutual respect and shared values help during periods of stress. Your child needs to let off steam. He will also benefit by seeing how you cope successfully with stress. Be a role model.

9. An overextended child is a tired child. Keep extra curricular activities to a minimum based on what is most important to the child, building on natural abilities and strengths.

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Parenting Tips

1. Teach your child to identify stressful situations. He should talk about them or write them down. Teach him to transfer coping strategies to other situations.

2. Role-play a stressful situation with your child.

3. The average child in America receives only 12.5 minutes per day in communication with his/her parents. Take time to listen.

4. On the average a child receives 400 negative comments compared to only 32 positive comments per day. Focus on what your child is doing right and encourage this behavior.

5. Children between the ages of 1 to 7 look to their parents for their self-esteem. Keep your perception of your child positive while building on her strengths and natural abilities.

6. Children today feel a lot of pressure in their sports world which leaves little room for average. At early ages children are competing for select sports teams having three or four tryouts before the cut. What are these children learning about themselves and what decision about life positive or negative could they be deciding. Am I enough? Life experiences at these tender ages are supposed to build self-esteem and confidence. Do a parent check up with what is going on. Is competition the joy of outdoing others or the joy of doing what is important to you?

7. Children today have an increased pace of life. Time has become a stressor for children, with too much stimulation and not enough down time. Create healthy habits in younger years that will set your child up for success, not failure.

8. Teens spend 7 minutes a day speaking with Mom and 5 minutes a day speaking with Dad. Find common ground that speaks to your teen. Ask curious questions about their world. Favorite music, their hero, one thing they would change about their parents?!

9. Couples spend 29 minutes per week communicating. What could you do differently to role model a healthy relationship based on mutual respect and open communication?

10. Let your failures be your most significant learning experiences and become the building blocks for success.

11. If we do not major in the minors we will be focusing on the relationship at hand, not the issues.

12. Your life is no one's responsibility but your own.

13. Your response alone determines whether circumstance becomes resolved positively.

14. Being responsible is when we learn to choose our responses freely and consciously. We are free to build a life of continued growth and increasing happiness.

15. We are free to figure out a constructive way to deal with stress.

16. Use humor to buffer bad feelings and situations. A child who learns to use humor himself will be better able to keep things in perspective.

17. Don't overload your child with too many after-school activities and responsibilities.

18. Help children learn to pace themselves. Don't enroll them in every class that comes along, and don't expect them to be first in everything.

19. When you are under extra stress, check to be sure that you are not passing it along to your child.

20. Get professional help when problems seem beyond your skills. This is a way to exhibit self-respect, thereby increasing the respect shown to you by others.

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