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Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners
What can i do to minimise my childs stress levels?
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My child seems to be stressed about everything what can I do as a parent to help minimise stress? Is having a routine going to help my alleviate my child’s stress or make it worse? -
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Dr Laurie Lumsden
Psychologist
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Stress is the body's response to challenge. Some level of challenge is needed to keep us alert and active but too much causes distress. Children need some level of challenge so that they can learn how to handle stress. Clearly high levels of psychological, social and physical challenge can be harmful to children.
The triggers that cause stress can be current actual physical, psychological or social challenges, remembered ones or constructed ones. I use the word constructed because these challenges are often not products of our imagination but logical projections of past experience.
Children construct their experience in different ways to us as adults. They see the world differently, literally from a different perspective and sometimes simple misunderstandings become internalised and troubling. Children also pick up stress being experienced by adults, especially parents. Predictability is important to children so yes, a routine is valuable.
One important step is to identify the problem that is causing the stress and solve it. You may need to have your child talk through this with a child psychologist. Physical activity is good for stress management as long as it is not forced or over competitive. Social activities are also important. Children need to learn problem solving and social skills and this need to do this through interaction with other children in a supportive environment. Fun is a great way of reducing stress.
Children can also be taught relaxation techniques like progressive muscle relaxation. A child psychologist can help with this too.
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