How can you tell if your child is stressed out?
News flash: Your kids are stressed.
They’re get stomach aches, headaches, have trouble going to sleep, and losing their appetites…
All of these things can be indicators that your child is stressed.
Just because they’re kids doesn’t mean they don’t worry or experience stress.
Where does this stress come from?
Even though you’re well-intentioned and want your kids to succeed and be happy, your kids feel pressured partly because of you…and most parents wouldn’t even guess it.
In fact, in a recent study of kids 8-17 as well as their parents…
The parents were found to guess incorrectly in 4 main areas that stressed their kids out…
The study explored the areas of:
- Family financial problems
- Doing well in school
- Wanting to get into a good college
- Parents’ stres levels rubbing off on their kids
In every case, the parents UNDERestimated the degree to which their kids were stressed by these things.
That means that kids were way more stressed out by those situations than the parents thought they were.
So parents, time to get clued in. Katherine Nordal, a clinical psychologist who is executive director for professional practice at APA, says parents need to come clean with kids about their own worries. “Younger children tend to blame themselves for problems,” she says. “If the kid doesn’t know what’s going on, they’re likely to assume a worst-case scenario or make a problem bigger than it is.”
Here’s how you can help your stop the cycle of mixing kids and stress:
- Be honest with your kids
- Know the symptoms of their stress
- Know the dangers of your kids internalizing their problems
- Spend time with your kids
Indeed, 85 percent of the kids surveyed said they weren’t comfortable talking with Mom or Dad, often because the parents were so busy.
Hello!!
Pay attention here:
Your kids aren’t comfortable talking to you.
This is a PROBLEM.
Your kids should feel comfortable talking to you…and you need to let them see that it’s okay to talk with you.
Be available. Spend time with them. Make sure they’re not silently suffering from stressful things because you’re not talking with them.
Serious stress like this in kids is preventable.
You might even start by asking your 8-17 year old to make a list of all the things that stress him or her out…and share a list with them about the stuff that stresses you out. Then you can talk about the reality of those things and how to solve the problems effectively to ease the stress.
4 Ways To Stop Stressing Out Your Kids [US News]
