What are the symptoms of stress in a child?
Physiological:
- insomnia,
- loss of appetite,
- headaches and dizziness
- enuresis, encopresis, constipation, etc.
Cognitive:
- memory impairment,
- attention,
- regression in development, etc.
Emotional:
- outbursts of aggression,
- irritation,
- fears,
- anxiety,
- depressive components, etc.
If the effect of stress is prolonged, it leads to disruption of the functioning of the psyche and the body as a whole.
And if adults have some skills to cope with stress, then children do not yet have these skills and children cannot even explain what is happening to them.
Therefore, it is paramount to pay attention to the fact that the child is stressed.
Sometimes parents themselves are in a difficult emotional situation and do not notice that the child is already traumatized. They learn about this already when psychosomatics or other disorders appear, such as neurotic or phobic manifestations.
If you notice that your child has experienced stress, communicate with him gently, calmly, and give him the opportunity to speak out.
Since children don't always understand their emotions, help your child identify and respond to them.
Reinforce your child’s emotional support with the following phrases: you are protected, I’m on your side, I’m nearby, I love you, no matter what happens.
It is also important to spend a lot of time with your child during these difficult moments.
Fairy tales and metaphors, games and special exercises are good for relieving and reducing stress.
During times of stress, stabilization is important for a child.
Make a schedule, plan things. You can do this together on a large sheet using crayons and colored pencils. Having a clear structure for your days will help your child calm down a little. Therefore, your daily routine will also be very important.
Don't forget that during times of stress, proper sleep, proper nutrition, walks and a calm atmosphere at home are important .
If you can’t cope with stress on your own, contact a specialist.
It happens that parents themselves have not yet learned how to support themselves under stress, so you can always start learning together with your baby.
Talk to your child
Most parents fall into the trap. When a difficult situation arises, the elders agree “not to tell the children yet,” so as not to injure them, they believe.
It turns out the other way around. The child feels that something is wrong: the emotional background of the family has changed, the parents are tense, gloomy, and often silent. The child’s questions are answered with “everything is fine,” “you’ll find out later.”
It is very easy for children to fill their ignorance with fantasies, which are sometimes worse than reality. How many stories can you hear from adults: “Dad just left, they didn’t tell me anything, and I thought it was because of me...”.
This fantasy explanation of divorce is much more traumatic than reality. Therefore, talk to your children, tell them about what is happening, explain the situation. “Our family has fallen on hard times. Uncle Tolya has a serious illness, which takes a long, difficult and expensive time to treat. We all worry about Uncle Tolya, so I am often sad or thoughtful.”
Yes, such an explanation may also make the child sad and cry. But the task of parents is not to protect the child from experiences, but to teach him to cope with them, to experience them.
Prevention of nervous stress
Develop stress resistance. A great way to do this is through physical activity. Enroll your child in a sports section. Consider his interests. Swimming, dancing, gymnastics, martial arts, and children's yoga are perfect for preschoolers. It is enough to study three times a week for half an hour. Young children can run, ride a bike in the park, climb the wall bars, and walk in the fresh air in any weather.
Stick to a sleep and rest schedule. The baby should fall asleep and wake up at the same time. The room should be fresh, monitor the humidity level. Before bed, no gadgets, computer games, or cartoons.
Offer your baby a healthy variety of foods. Watch your drinking regime. If you cannot provide a balanced diet, give vitamin complexes. Consult your pediatrician.
Provide comfortable conditions. The climate in the family, your own psychological state affects the baby. He copies your behavior and reactions. Analyze if this is your case.
Young children are closely connected with their mother, especially when breastfeeding. That is why if the mother is exhausted mentally and physically, nervous and anxious, chronic stress in the child cannot be avoided. Don't forget about yourself: rest, delegate, relax.
Different tears are needed, different tears are important
From joy or grief, it doesn’t matter. Tears are one of the body's ways to quickly dispose of those harmful chemicals that are formed as a result of stress. That is why it is so important to understand: in the process of raising children, especially boys, under no circumstances should a ban on tears be introduced.
Photo: Family photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com
“Tears are good! They help a person speed up the physiological process that promotes the breakdown of stress products. Otherwise, it will hit the most sensitive organs: the heart and stomach, for example. And it will cause a heart attack, ulcer, gastritis and other consequences.”
The specificity of stress is that crying is both an emotional and physiological state. Therefore, it needs to be dealt with on three levels:
- bodies;
- emotions;
- consciousness (cognitive functions).
Don't hide your emotions from your child
If you are afraid, sad, angry, do not be afraid to do it in front of your child. He must understand that yes, mom can howl from helplessness or impotence. But then she calms down, collects herself and solves the problem.
Emotions must be named, and their cause must be spoken out. A mother who just bangs on the steering wheel in a car is one thing. A mother who pounds on the steering wheel and explains that she is furious that there is no free medicine for Uncle Tolya again, and then calms down and looks for a new way to solve the problem is completely different. In the first case, the child is scared, he does not understand the situation and comes up with his own explanation.
Types of childhood stress
Children of early and preschool age are characterized by the following types:
- Physical. It manifests itself as the body's reactions to external factors - heat, cold, injury, illness, infection, lack of air. Expressed by weakness, pain, dizziness, eating disorders, sleep disturbances, irritability;
- Psychological. Alternative names: emotional, nervous stress. It manifests itself in behavioral and emotional reactions to stimuli - social factors, intrapersonal conflicts, worries, brain overload, fatigue. The child does not perceive himself adequately, does not establish contact with people well, and is withdrawn.
There are 2 forms: acute (lasts for a short time) and chronic (for a long time).
Rabbit, lion and buffalo
According to psychologists, there are three types of people (children and adults) who differ in the way they react to stress. These are the reactions of a rabbit, a lion and a buffalo.
A “rabbit” is someone who reacts passively to stress, literally freezing, trying to hide from it if there is no way to escape. This condition is probably familiar to parents if they remember their feelings during exams. People of this type are quite capable of resisting stress, but not for long. Having splashed out their energy in one or two desperate attempts to resist the negative impact for them, they quickly move into the stage of exhaustion.
“Lion”, in response to a stressful influence, immediately furiously rushes to attack. This type of people is characterized by a violent and sharp reaction, often turning into aggression. Children can break, destroy, attack with their fists everything that, in their opinion, has caused stress. As a rule, the most striking manifestations of psychosomatic pathologies can be expected in such children.
"Buffalo" can resist stress for a long time and at the same time continue to work with the same intensity as before. It seems that stress has no effect on him, but this is only an appearance, since stress accumulates in the form of colossal tension in the body, which ultimately spills over into nervous disorders and psychosomatic diseases. The onset of sudden, catastrophic exhaustion is typical for the “buffalo”. Unfortunately, psychosomatic abnormalities are the most severe in such people.
It is important for parents to understand what type their child is in order to offer the right model of behavior in a stressful situation at the right time, which will help him return to a state of comfort.
It is important to see not only the fact of emotional experience itself, but also to establish its cause.
The first encounter with the social environment can be stressful for a child. Of course, the most common cause of stress in children is entering kindergarten, school, and in our case, placing the child in an orphanage. In these situations, the child experiences stress because he is in a new, unusual environment, there are no parents nearby, the need to be separated from loved ones, friends, changes have occurred in the usual course of life, having no experience communicating with peers or this experience is insignificant, the child is forced to spend hours in their environment, the need to comply with the regime.
Children begin to understand that someone is smarter, someone is stronger, and someone is more beautiful than them, and this is a serious psychological burden for them. Bullying and insults at school top the list of causes of childhood stress. The main “causative agent” of stress in schoolchildren is teachers and their demands. Every tenth child is afraid of them.
The cause of childhood stress at any age can be a major family event, such as divorce, the birth of another child, moving to another place of residence or moving to a new school, and of course the loss of parents, loved ones, or a pet.
In addition, the cause of stress in children can be internal conflict, an overabundance of extracurricular activities, homework and tests, conflicts with other children, failure or competition in studies, visiting the hospital, watching a television program containing any negative information, fear of loneliness, coercion , onset of puberty, lack of parental care or overcontrol; disruption of intrafamily communication, lack of warmth, antagonism between family members; being raised by a mentally ill or disabled parent; cruelty, sexual abuse, etc.
The most harmful psychosocial stressors for children are: staying in a 24-hour nursery, orphanage, hospital or sanatorium; isolation from family; improper upbringing, rejection or hostility from peers or adults, etc. Stress in children can also be caused by global factors: war, environmental and industrial disasters, natural disasters (explosions, fires, earthquakes, floods).
Children are most susceptible to negative influences in socially isolated families with poor interpersonal connections; in families experiencing stress due to a difficult financial situation, poverty, poor living conditions;
in single-parent families;
in families with immature, hyper-emotional parents;
in families with mental illness, antisocial behavior, alcohol or drug addiction in any of the members;
in families where inadequate parenting methods are used towards the child.
In addition, children can also experience stressors in an educational institution: irrational lifestyle, unreasonable restriction of children’s freedom, poor nutrition and poor organization, improper organization of sleep and rest, authoritarian style of communication between adults and children in the absence of attention and care for them, intellectual and physical overload, unfavorable relationships with peers, etc.
Don't forget about traditional childhood fears. They, according to psychologists, can also cause stress. We are talking, first of all, about the child’s instinctive fear of being left alone. The desire to always be with your family is inherent in the subconscious of every child. There is no need to scare your child by saying that you will send him to an orphanage if he does not obey. These innocent, from the point of view of adults, threats are perceived extremely acutely by children and, under certain circumstances, they can cause deep stress. The consequences of this stress can often poison their entire subsequent lives.
Professor David Elkind, an American researcher in the field of child psychology, created a scale of childhood stress depending on the events that children encounter during one year. It is interesting to note that, just like in adults, many of the events are regarded by children as positive and joyful, but this does not stop them from being stressful, since they entail a violation of stability.
David Elkind Childhood Stressors Scale
If within one year a child gains in total:
- less than 150 points - he has a medium level of stress.
- from 150 to 300 points - he is at risk of showing symptoms of stress;
- more than 300 points - he may have serious health or behavioral problems due to stress
The dangers of stress in children
Unfortunately, many of us consider stress an inevitable companion of modern life and treat it as something unpleasant, but generally safe. But this is not so.
Stress is an extremely harmful condition. Chronic stress can cause psychosomatic disorders and lead to serious and difficult to overcome consequences. Long-term production of “stress hormones” threatens adrenal insufficiency and diabetes. And hypertension, hysteria, asthma and even epilepsy are all possible consequences of prolonged stress.
And if only we were talking about adults! Unfortunately, even babies can experience stress.
Causes of stress in adolescence
- Birth of a brother or sister. Parents pay all the time and attention to the baby, which is why the older child may become jealous of the younger one. He cannot adequately and correctly evaluate the actions of his parents.
- Change of place of residence, sleep problems, conflicts with friends, fatigue that arose due to studying.
- Long absence or death of a loved one or pet.
- Factors from the outside world (TV, Internet, surrounding people).
- Parents' divorce.
How to cope with stress: an integrated approach
Symptoms do not go away, you cannot help your child on your own? Involve specialists - pediatrician, psychologist (psychotherapist), neurologist. There are different methods of helping with emotional stress in children. They are selected taking into account the age and condition of the small patient.
An integrated approach is the key to effective assistance:
- Parents are for support. Identify and eliminate the stressor. Be patient and kind with your daughter and son. Discuss his experiences. Allow him to express his emotions as best he can. Through the game, work through the situation that led to disharmony;
- Pediatrician - to assess health status. Your efforts have not yielded results. Contact your pediatrician. He will assess the general health of the little patient. Will give a referral to a neurologist, psychologist;
- Neurologist - to evaluate the nervous system. If necessary, the doctor will prescribe treatment. For example, physiotherapeutic procedures: massage, exercise therapy, medicinal herbal baths. Swimming and diet help;
- Psychologist - to get out of the situation. The specialist’s task is to help the client get out of a difficult state and restore peace of mind. He will help you survive the situation and not carry it into adulthood, and will give recommendations on developing stress resistance;
- Psychiatrist - to help in advanced situations. If your child has suffered stress and this has resulted in nervous disorders, you may be referred to a child psychiatrist. Don’t be alarmed: no one will register your child and ruin his future life.
If you experience excessive anxiety, tics, or seizures, you will need medication. It will relieve symptoms and improve the child’s condition.
