Like adults, kids and teens experience stress too. While small amounts of stress are a normal part of life, some young people may have worrisome responses to disrupted routines, school closures, social distancing, event cancellations, and missed milestones.
Stress that occurs continually, or is triggered by multiple sources, can take a toll on a child’s physical as well as emotional health.
Can stress be helpful or good?
Stress is a body’s reaction to situations that occur within and outside the body. Stress can be helpful — it has been hard-wired into human physiology for survival. For example, imagine you are hiking in the forest and are confronted with a bear. The body’s natural fight-or-flight response is to pump adrenaline and cortisol into your blood stream to help you fight harder and run faster. But this stress response is only appropriate and useful if you are actually in the woods with a bear.
If the bear comes home with you every night, this is a problem, and the stress changes from being helpful and life-saving to becoming unhelpful and life-damaging. Children are especially vulnerable to repeated stress because their brains and bodies are in a critical and sensitive period of development.
What kinds of stress do children have?
Stress can be subdivided into different categories: positive stress, tolerable stress, and toxic stress.
Positive stress response is a normal and essential part of healthy development. Positive stress is characterized by brief increases in heart rate and hormone levels. Examples of positive stress include the first day of school or the first piano recital, particularly if that stress motivates you to prepare more or try harder.
Tolerable stress response activates the body’s alert systems to a greater degree. Examples of tolerable stress in a child include a frightening car accident or being admitted to the hospital. If the activation is time-limited and buffered by relationships with adults who help the child adapt, the brain and other organs recover from what might otherwise be damaging effects.
A toxic stress response can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent and/or prolonged adversity that results in changes to the baseline state. Examples of toxic stress include physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect, isolation, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness, bullying, inability to keep up with school work, exposure to violence, or the accumulating burden of family economic hardship. This prolonged activation of stress response systems can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems and increase the risk of stress-related disease and cognitive impairment well into the adult years. When blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol continue to remain high, long-term changes in inflammation and immunity can result. Studies have also shown association between toxic stress and changes in brain structure.
How do you recognize stress in a child?
- Anxiety, worry.
- Inability to relax.
- New or recurring fears (of the dark, of being alone, of strangers …).
- Clinging, unwilling to let you out of his sight.
- Anger, crying, whining.
- Inability to control emotions.
- Aggressive or stubborn behavior.
- Bedwetting.
- Loss of appetite or increased appetite.
The presence of social-emotional buffering, such as a healthy relationship support from an adult, determines whether the resulting stress response is tolerable or toxic.
What can we do to help the child manage stress?
- De-stressing — this does not mean watching TV or playing video games. It means laughter, playing outside, and having unstructured fun time.
- Yoga for kids — an excellent way to help lower cortisol levels.
- Coloring, drawing, or reading age-appropriate books.
- Meditation is not just for adults. Children can learn techniques to slow their breathing and stop the stress response.
- Diet — most people do not associate diet with stress, but a diet high in sugar is pro-inflammatory, which also causes stress on the body. Quick meals of cereal, pastries, hamburgers and fries may be comforting in the short term but end up being harmful in the long term.
- Adequate sleep — lack of sleep is stressful for the body.
- Mindset — start the day with a 5-minute mindfulness and mindset activity. Sit down, take deep breaths, and calmly review the day’s activities and plans. This is much more productive and helpful than yelling at children to get dressed, gulp down some juice and cereal, and run out the door for school.
- Talk. Ask open-ended questions like “What went well today?” instead of “How was your day?” Try “Tell me about …” This approach teaches your child that you are a resource and support for him or her no matter the subject. When something bad happens, invite the child to discuss it and talk about how what the best response would be.
Life is stressful for all of us. Let’s teach our children how to manage it so that they learn the coping skills necessary for a productive, less stressful life.
