PRINCIPAL MESSAGE 

5 ESSENTIAL STEPS TO HELP CHILDREN COPE WITH STRESS

Over the next 5 weeks, I will be framing a parental support newsletter piece on ways of helping children deal with stressful situations in their lives.

Recent studies and research show that children and teens are more stressed out today than ever before. The combined pressures of schoolwork, remote learning, high-stakes testing, social life, sports, or other activities, plus lots of screen time have resulted in much higher levels of anxiety and stress among young people.

We can't completely eliminate stress for our children. Plus, shielding your child from the difficulties of life won’t do them any favours. It’s far more powerful to raise a resilient child who can bounce back from hardship and challenges.

Since stress is a natural part of life, your goal is to teach your child healthy strategies for coping with stress. Based on the 5 step chart we’ll begin with Step 1 Re-framing Stress.

STEP 1. REFRAME STRESS

Help your child shift from a “stress hurts” mindset to a “stress helps” mindset. Stress can be an impetus to growth if children understand that stressful situations won’t last forever. Instead, these situations represent challenges to overcome and lessons to learn.

Cognitive neuroscientist and author Ian Robertson compares the stress response system to the immune system: It gets stronger with practice.

After a strong stress response, the brain rewires itself to remember and learn from the experience. This is how the brain prepares you to handle similarly stressful situations next time around.

“Children need to experience a certain amount of adversity so that both their body and mind become toughened and resilient.”- Dr. Ian Roberson

Stress causes the brain to secrete a chemical called noradrenaline. The brain can’t perform at its best with too much noradrenaline. But guess what? Too little noradrenaline isn’t good either.

Reasonably low-stress levels can actually build stronger brain function, which makes humans smarter and happier, according to Robertson.

Armed with the information above, you’re ready to help your child re-frame stress.

Follow the steps below to get started;

1) Adopt the “stress helps” mindset yourself. Accept that you can’t prevent stress, that some stress is actually beneficial, and that stress can be an opportunity to grow. If you don’t have this mindset, it will be almost impossible to teach it to your child. (Plus, reducing your own stress is vital—stress can be “contagious.” When your child senses your stress, it actually alters their physiology to automatically go into stress mode too.)

2) Understand the reasons behind your child’s stress, rather than dismiss it. To an adult, a child’s problems may seem trivial. But they seem big to the child, and they are causing the child genuine stress or discomfort.  

3) Help your child re-frame stress by discussing the following:

• Stress is a natural part of life.
• Stress comes and goes.
• Stressful situations can be beneficial if you learn from them, take action, and seek solutions. Provide examples from your own experiences.

4) Guide your child to find areas of growth or lessons that can come from their latest challenge.

• Ask your child to think of previous stressful situations. What did they learn from those experiences?
• What strengths did they use to handle these situations?
• What strengths can they use now?

Once stress is viewed as an opportunity for growth, your child will develop a much healthier relationship with stress and find it easier to manage.

CONGRATULATIONS MRS. LEHMAN

Congratulations to Mrs Lehman who obtained her Full Time VIT Teaching Registration. The process required Kiara to construct and presented an amazing project based on using student assessment data to improve student learning. The final draft of the document was 16,000 words and the quality of the project was nothing short of outstanding. Congratulations Kiara on your amazing effort to create a project of such quality.