December/January 2010-Tip on Coping With Stress
Everyone deals with stress. How do you deal with stress at home, work, and school? You child will likely pick up on your own ways of handling stress so before teaching your child how to relax and cope, take a look at your coping strategies. Are they ways you would like to pass on to your child?
You job as a parent is not going to be to try and eliminate stress in your child's life. Stress is a part of everyday living. However, there are some things you can do to decrease and minimize stress.
1. Is your child overscheduled? Have your child choose one or two activies they really want to participate in per season. Anything more than that could be causing undo stress.
2. The most common stressors are social or psychological. Divorce, moving, new school, death of a loved one, or personal illness affect children at any age.
3. Stress managment techniques must be learned and is a continuous process. If you go into the process as "This won't work." It probably won't.
4. Experiment with different strategies, calm music, favorite scents (lavendar, vanilla, or any other calming scents) on pillows at night time, deap breathing, excercise, or warm baths are all good rituals to begin implementing.
5. Teach your child to monitor their own body-does his/her face get hot when mad? Does she/he feel stomache aches when nervous? How does she/he know when they are on overload?
6. Take a look and research children's books on the subject, please preview the Bibliographies located in the menu on this website for ideas.
7. Take care of yourself.
8. Practice healthy coping strategies.
9. Show your child that although one cannot eliminate the sources of stress, she/he can react to it in a way to decreases the body's reactions to it. Stress increase the levels of cortisone in the body and over time, this can hurt the body.
10. If your child has chronic stress and you are having difficulty pinpointing the source of the stress, please feel free to call me at 206-329-3260 X 220.
Thanks!
Jennifer
You job as a parent is not going to be to try and eliminate stress in your child's life. Stress is a part of everyday living. However, there are some things you can do to decrease and minimize stress.
1. Is your child overscheduled? Have your child choose one or two activies they really want to participate in per season. Anything more than that could be causing undo stress.
2. The most common stressors are social or psychological. Divorce, moving, new school, death of a loved one, or personal illness affect children at any age.
3. Stress managment techniques must be learned and is a continuous process. If you go into the process as "This won't work." It probably won't.
4. Experiment with different strategies, calm music, favorite scents (lavendar, vanilla, or any other calming scents) on pillows at night time, deap breathing, excercise, or warm baths are all good rituals to begin implementing.
5. Teach your child to monitor their own body-does his/her face get hot when mad? Does she/he feel stomache aches when nervous? How does she/he know when they are on overload?
6. Take a look and research children's books on the subject, please preview the Bibliographies located in the menu on this website for ideas.
7. Take care of yourself.
8. Practice healthy coping strategies.
9. Show your child that although one cannot eliminate the sources of stress, she/he can react to it in a way to decreases the body's reactions to it. Stress increase the levels of cortisone in the body and over time, this can hurt the body.
10. If your child has chronic stress and you are having difficulty pinpointing the source of the stress, please feel free to call me at 206-329-3260 X 220.
Thanks!
Jennifer