SingleDad.com is the #1 Single Parent Resource for the Holidays. Caron Goode shares her advice on helping transform holiday stress into connection with our children.
Transform Holiday Stress to Connection
| Author: Caron Goode | Posted: 11/03/09 | ||
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Traditionally, holiday stress for single parents and kids revolves around time, schedules, miscommunications and those overwhelming feelings of doubt about ourselves or our ability to handle things. Stress is like a virus that everyone catches unless we nip it in the bud. The simple antidote to stress is called connection.
Kids & Stress
Children may react to excess stress with behavior that seems immature, inappropriate, or even disturbing. Stress can be terrifying to children who lack the emotional maturity or experience to understand and deal with it. The challenge for parents, teachers, and other caretakers include how to recognize signs of stress in children of different ages, how to know when stress threatens to overwhelm a child, and what to do about it. A stressed-out condition can result from a specific cause or from life in general. Here are some examples:
Jen: At 17, Jen was a high school senior expecting to graduate with honors in the Spring. Just before Christmas, however, Jen's father lost his job and the family had to move into the basement of a cousin's house. Jen soon developed a severe allergy, then asthma. The illness cost her so much time from school that she required home-schooling to make up the difference.
Mark: Mark was only two when his parents divorced. Confused, Mark wandered the house, calling plaintively for his father but weekends with Dad made him cry. Most weekends, Mark developed upset stomachs that were so bad he'd miss preschool on Mondays.
Miranda: When her brother was born, four-year-old Miranda started sucking her thumb. This behavior continued for a year. As the baby grew, Miranda's behavior became aggressive to the point that she would yank the pacifier from his mouth. She'd then put the pacifier in her own mouth while her brother cried.
Age-Related Stresses
Toddlers need to feel safe and comfortable. Stress for preschool children can arise from a new face at home or at day care, the disappearance of a familiar face, visiting lots of new places at once, or abrupt changes in the family's structure, relationships or daily routine.
During the grade-school years, children become concerned with pleasing people like teachers, parents, guardians and coaches. School life—even a change in assigned seating or having to take a test—brings higher levels of stress every year. And when it comes to peers, even the threat of diminished acceptance is terrifying. Sleep-overs, birthday parties, sporting events and music competitions can trigger stressful reactions.
Through middle school and beyond, the pressures kids feel from parents, teachers, peers, society at large, and from within increases. Children have to adapt to these pressures. Because they have grown in their intelligence, curiosity and knowledge of community, demands for their attention, time, energy and effort can often feel like a tug of war.
How You Can Connect
There are many ways parents can help their children deal with stress and stressful situations.
- Don't try to fix everything for the child, and avoid offering advice. Sometimes just listening so that your child feels truly heard may be enough to relieve the stress.
- As you listen, ask questions that encourage your child to think a situation through. "What's the next step?" or "How would you handle that?" are good questions. Ask a lot of "what-if" questions, too.
- Help children listen to themselves. Nurture Your Child's Gift suggests quiet-time techniques for children to listen to nature sounds like rain or waves upon the beach, to their own heartbeat, or to recordings of whales, dolphins or birds.
- Encourage children to spend time listening to their thoughts. When they feel free to speak their own thoughts aloud about a situation, things suddenly become clear.
- Nurture Your Child's Gift details a diaphragmatic breathing exercise for kids and parents. Shallow breathing is associated with the production of cortisol, the stress hormone. Deeper, effective breathing produces feelings of relaxation and calm. (insert picture)
- Use soothing and rhythmic music, even simple drumming, to help your child relieve muscle tension. It works!
- Don't overlook exercise for releasing stress and tension. It works for your child just as it does for you. Have children walk the dog, get on the treadmill or stretch. Any movement they enjoy will help ease stress away.
Parents can do much to alleviate stress in their children's lives. Effectively dealing with your own stress is the first step. Showing your kids how to release their stress comes next.
About The Author ...
Dr. Caron Goode is a well-respected leader in the parent coaching industry as the founder of the Academy for Coaching Parents International (www.academyforcoachingparents.com) that trains students in the empowerment model of parent coaching, Dr. Goode has shared her holistic approach to achieving parenting success and managing family relationships in magazines, newspapers and radio. Her most recent books include The Art and Science of Coaching Parents and award-winning Raising Intuitive Children. (www.raisingintuitivechildren.com)
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