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Parents play a big role in helping a child cope with stress.

• Be on the look-out for signs of unresolved stress in your child.
• Provide a safe, dependable and  secure home environment. For example, have supper together every night, avoid the morning-rush and chaos by getting up a bit earlier. Keep a family calender in the kitchen with every family member’s important dates and deadlines. Do not compare children with each other as this will increase sibling rivalry and is hardly ever conducive to building a child’s self-esteem.
• Work together as parents. Do not allow a stressful parenting situation to cause friction between parents as this will add to the child’s stress.
• Do not  outsource problems or problem behavior to a nanny or Au pair. Be available for a child to voice feelings and fears.
• Listen to your child without being critical of his or her feelings.
• Allow space for negative feelings. Saying things like “Mommy understands that you do not always like school just like mommy do not always like cleaning up. It is ok to feel that way.”
• Do not trivialize fears with statements like “Do not be ridiculous, there’s no monster under your bed.”  Rather give him a “monster-banishing charm” – a special brooch with mom or dad’s special “kiss-power” to sooth the fear of the dark.
• Banish negative media images and violent fantasy characters from your child’s environment.
• Keep a journal of your child’s feelings, comments and moods. This may highlight situations that the child find stressful.
• Show that you love him or her with words, hugs and kisses. This builds a child’s  self-worth and confidence. Create situations in which your child can succeed like  setting the table, watering the plants etc.  Use positive encouragement and rewards instead of punishment to control negative behavior.
• Spend time with them playing, swimming, laughing – we only get one chance to spend our kid’s childhood with them.
• Give them time to relax and do nothing.
• Talk, talk and talk to your child. Emotions often lose some of it’s negative power when one talks. If fear has a name it becomes less powerful.
• Be aware of situations that can create stress and turmoil in your a child. Familiarize potentially threatening situations by visiting the school/ dentist/ hospital beforehand. Introduce him to the teacher or doctor. Explain to your child what is going to happen. Break the situation down into little steps. For example, mom will sit with you for the first half-hour while you play with the new friends, then mom’s going to leave for a short while because your teacher wants to teach you new things before you have to go home.
• Some children are fearful that mom may not come back when school is finished. Leave something with them like a lipstick or extra pair of keys for the house. They then feel more confident that mom will at least return for her special lipstick.
• Allow the child some control over his life by allowing him to make some choices for himself. Research showed that the more a person feels that he has control over a situation, the better he will respond to stress. Let him pick his new school bag, clothes, breakfast etc.
• Keep your child informed about changes before they happen.
• Get to the root of the stress. Bullying can be traumatizing to a child. Though our first instinct as parents is to sort out the “little pest” ourselves it may not be the best route. Handling the situation on behalf of our children can leave them feeling victimized and weak. There are definitely situations  that need a parent to step in, but normally it should not be the first route to follow.
• Do not underestimate the importance of good nutrition. Stress tend to awaken cravings for junk food.
• Encourage physical activity. Exercise reduces stress by relaxing muscles and  improving blood-flow to the brain to combat that “foggy, dull” sense associated with stress. During exercise Endorphins enters the blood-stream which gives a person a sense of happiness and well-being.
• Sleep deprivation makes a stressful situation seem worse. Some parents will be surprised to see how much sleep a child needs.
• Relaxation exercises can help reduce tension in a child as young as 4 years old. Teach your child to breath deeply while tensing and relaxing various muscle groups. If a child can learn to stiffen his muscles he can learn to relax them as well.  Have them go through their body, limb by limb stiffening and relaxing muscles for 10 to 30 seconds. This is an excellent way of getting them to settle down before bed.

A child under stress needs a lot of patience and positive encouragement. Though yelling and being short-tempered seem to come naturally to parents dealing with a stressed-out child, it will only worsen the situation. Rather try to calmly set firm boundaries and be consistent in applying them. This will help create a child’s sense of security.

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