What is Childhood Stress?

As providers and caretakers, adults tend to view the world of children as happy and carefree. After all, kids don't have jobs to keep or bills to pay, so what could they possibly have to worry about?

Plenty! Even very young children have worries and feel stress to some degree.

Sources of Stress

Stress is a function of the demands placed on us and our ability to meet them. These demands often come from outside sources, such as family, jobs, friends, or school. But it also can come from within, often related to what we think we should be doing versus what we're actually able to do.

So stress can affect anyone who feels overwhelmed — even kids. In preschoolers, separation from parents can cause anxiety. As kids get older, academic and social pressures (especially from trying to fit in) create stress.

Many kids are too busy to have time to play creatively or relax after school. Kids who complain about all their activities or who refuse to go to them might be overscheduled. Talk with your kids about how they feel about extracurricular activities. If they complain, discuss the pros and cons of stopping one activity. If stopping isn't an option, explore ways to help manage your child's time and responsibilities to lessen the anxiety.

Kids' stress may be intensified by more than just what's happening in their own lives. Do your kids hear you talking about troubles at work, worrying about a relative's illness, or arguing with your spouse about financial matters? Parents should watch how they discuss such issues when their kids are near because children will pick up on their parents' anxieties and start to worry themselves.

World news can cause stress. Kids who see disturbing images on TV or hear talk of natural disasters, war, and terrorism may worry about their own safety and that of the people they love. Talk to your kids about what they see and hear, and monitor what they watch on TV so that you can help them understand what's going on.

Also, be aware of complicating factors, such as an illness, death of a loved one, or a divorce. When these are added to the everyday pressures kids face, the stress is magnified. Even the most amicable divorce can be a difficult experience for kids because their basic security system — their family — is undergoing a tough change. Separated or divorced parents should never put kids in a position of having to choose sides or expose them to negative comments about the other spouse.

Also realize that some things that aren't a big deal to adults can cause significant stress for kids. Let your kids know that you understand they're stressed and don't dismiss their feelings as inappropriate.

Signs and Symptoms

While it's not always easy to recognize when kids are stressed out, short-term behavioral changes — such as mood swings, acting out, changes in sleep patterns, or bedwetting — can be indications. Some kids experience physical effects, including stomachaches and headaches. Others have trouble concentrating or completing schoolwork. Still others become withdrawn or spend a lot of time alone.

Younger children may pick up new habits like thumb sucking, hair twirling, or nose picking; older kids may begin to lie, bully, or defy authority. A child who is stressed may also have nightmares, difficulty leaving you, overreactions to minor problems, and drastic changes in academic performance.

Reducing Stress

How can you help kids cope with stress? Proper rest and good nutrition can boost coping skills, as can good parenting. Make time for your kids each day. Whether they need to talk or just be in the same room with you, make yourself available. Don't try to make them talk, even if you know what they're worried about. Sometimes kids just feel better when you spend time with them on fun activities.

Even as kids get older, quality time is important. It's really hard for some people to come home after work, get down on the floor, and play with their kids or just talk to them about their day — especially if they've had a stressful day themselves. But expressing interest shows that they're important to you.

Help your child cope with stress by talking about what may be causing it. Together, you can come up with a few solutions like cutting back on after-school activities, spending more time talking with parents or teachers, developing an exercise regimen, or keeping a journal.

You can also help by anticipating potentially stressful situations and preparing kids for them. For example, let your son or daughter know ahead of time that a doctor's appointment is coming up and talk about what will happen there. Tailor the information to your child's age — younger kids won't need as much advance preparation or details as older kids or teens.

Remember that some level of stress is normal; let your kids know that it's OK to feel angry, scared, lonely, or anxious and that other people share those feelings. Reassurance is important, so remind them that you're confident that they can handle the situation.

Helping Your Child Cope

When kids can't or won't discuss their stressful issues, try talking about your own. This shows that you're willing to tackle tough topics and are available to talk with when they're ready. If a child shows symptoms that concern you and is unwilling to talk, consult a counselor or other mental health specialist.

Books can help young kids identify with characters in stressful situations and learn how they cope. Check out Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst; Tear Soup by Pat Schweibert, Chuck DeKlyen, and Taylor Bills; and Dinosaurs Divorce by Marc Brown and Laurene Krasny Brown.

Most parents have the skills to deal with their child's stress. The time to seek professional attention is when any change in behavior persists, when stress is causing serious anxiety, or when the behavior is causing significant problems in functioning at school or at home.

If you need help finding resources for your child, consult your doctor or the counselors and teachers at school.

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Truth Behind Bullying

The public perception of bullying is that bullies are acting out to cover their own fears. They may indeed be afraid, but accepting this as a reason makes bullies sound like victims of their fears -- like we're supposed to feel sorry for them and not hold them responsible for their abusive actions.

The issue is not whether bullies are afraid. Bullies bully other people to feel powerful around them and to feel power over them. Bullies start out feeling like zeroes, like nobodies. When they intimidate, threaten or hurt someone else, then they feel like somebody. The key is the feeling of power.

We often think of the child bully as being male, but the percentage of girls who intimidate their classmates and siblings is increasing dramatically. Bullying doesn't stop at the end of the school day, either. Whether bullies are at home, at school, or they’re threatening and intimidating other kids on the Internet, they're going to act out to make themselves feel powerful. Many kids who are bullies at school are bullies at home. The most common victims are their innocent siblings.

What are the consequences of bullying? You may have heard about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when it comes to sexual victimization or assault. PTSD can occur any time people feel they have no control over the way their pain is delivered. They live in fear, not knowing when they're going to be hurt. Kids who are constantly bullied and not protected will develop symptoms of PTSD -- constant anxiety, constant fear, idiosyncratic behaviors to compensate for those feelings. They'll fall behind in their development.

Dealing with bullies requires holding them strictly accountable for the abusive, hurtful or disrespectful things that they do to feel powerful. They need to practice appropriate ways to feel powerful -- using social skills, articulating their feelings, communicating honestly with others and solving problems. Those skills are difficult to develop. It takes work; it’s like learning how to multiply or learning how to add. But it can be done. Holding bullies accountable for inappropriate behavior gives them boundaries and gives them a roadmap for doing that work.

If your child is a bully?

If your child starts to exhibit bullying behavior, the first thing to do is realize it's something you need to address. You can't kid yourself that it will go away on its own. If adolescent bullies are not stopped, and not taught more appropriate ways to solve problems, they become abusive parents, spouses and bosses. We all feel powerless at times, but there are better ways to deal with that than to abuse other people.

You as the parent have to set a standard: No excuse for abuse. There's no excuse for cursing someone out, for breaking something, for hitting anyone. The bully always has an excuse, a way to justify this behavior. This justification is so powerful that it takes the place of empathy for the other person. That’s why you have to have a no-excuse standard.

A kid may curse out his sister and say foul things to her and then make up some justification about what she was doing to him -- "She went into my room again" or "She wouldn't get off the computer." Let the kid tell you the excuse, and then reiterate, "There's no excuse for abuse." Don't shut off communication, but don't validate the thinking errors that go into the justification of abusive actions. There should be consequences for abuse. Later, you can talk about appropriate ways to handle a problem.

If your child is bullied?

If your child is a victim of bullying, it may be because he is the sort of child who has difficulty standing up for himself. Bullies look for easy targets, because that makes them feel powerful. If you can teach a child not to respond to bullying, to walk away, bullies are less likely to press that child.

The most effective strategies for dealing with bullies are "avoid" and "escape." These are things you can teach your children: Avoid bullies when you can. Walk away from them if they’re in your vicinity. If you’re being bullied and that doesn’t work, you need to get help from somebody who has more power than the bully. You shouldn’t have to fight because somebody else is a bully. Go to someone who has more power than the bully, like the teacher or the police. Teach your child that he has to hold that person responsible. Getting hit in school is still assault, and parents shouldn’t back off if that happens. You want the other kid’s parents down at the police station. You want them to be as uncomfortable as you are.

It hurts to be bullied, and this fact should never be minimized. Teachers, parents and school officials are sometimes inclined to say, "Well, they’re only kids. It happens." It shouldn’t happen, and it's adults' responsibility to provide a healthy environment for our children. The best schools are the ones who develop a zero tolerance for violence and zero tolerance for bullying, and parents should demand that and support it.

At the same time, if your child is experiencing abuse at the hands of another child, ask this question: "What would you find helpful?" Find out what your child would find helpful to improve the situation. Here’s why this is important. If a child is being bullied at school and his parents just take over the situation, then he's powerless on both ends. Be encouraging, give him a chance to work it out, offer some help and ideas. But also let him know that if it's still a problem, you're going to step in and protect him.

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What to Do When Your Young Child Has a Tantrum

Does your head ever spin from all the suggestions you get about how to manage your young child’s temper tantrums or out-of-control behavior? Your in-laws tell you you’re spoiling your child, your best friend thinks you’re being too strict, and the other parents you know all seem to follow a different playbook.

Knowing how to effectively handle your young child or toddler can feel overwhelming at times.There’s so much advice about what we should do that it’s easy to start feeling confused and unsure of your own parenting skills.

The truth is, there is no “magic,” one-size-fits-all way to parent your toddler. The true expert of your child is you. Believe me, I understand that it can be hard to trust your parenting gut when your toddler is having a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store! But part of becoming the most effective parent you can is to begin to develop parenting skills that combine your intuition, your strengths, and the values most important to you. What I tell all parents of young kids is the following: As you navigate through your parenting years, you’ll try some methods that will work and you’ll put them in your toolbox. You’ll quickly discard the methods that don’t work. And along the way, you’ll figure out what works best for your family.

Part of finding your way is learning what not to do when parenting your tantruming child. This can be confusing, since so much parenting advice is based on what you should be doing—but the truth is, figuring out what pitfalls to avoid is just as important.

Here are the top four “Don’ts” when dealing with your toddler mid-tantrum:

1. Don’t be inflexible. Toddlerhood may represent the most stubborn, inflexible time in the life of a child. Too often parents do not recognize this as a normal part of their child’s development, and are frustrated as their child increasingly seems irrational and out of control. In response some parents tend to clamp down on their child, hoping that by being a stronger disciplinarian their child will become less willful. Unfortunately, when you do this, you are creating a battle of wills, a tug-of-war between you and your child in which no one wins. The key instead is to be more flexible, giving the strong-willed child more choices, not fewer.

Giving your child a sense of control on issues that are not that important in the long run allows your child a sense of autonomy in a world that is very structured and rule-oriented. Simple choices on a daily basis make it less likely that your child will want to fight you on the big stuff.

2. Don’t be too flexible. Confused yet? Don’t be. Just as it’s important to give your strong-willed child choices, this can backfire if you become so flexible that your child doesn’t know what to do.

Toddlers need someone to be in charge, and that’s you. While you can benefit from giving your child choices, you will also benefit from setting loving boundaries so your child can feel safe and satisfied in the choices she has made.

3. Don’t reason with a defiant toddler. Toddlers are irrational by nature, and as a parent it’s important to simply accept this fact. Too often parents work under the faulty assumption that if they can simply explain things to a tantruming child, the child will fall in line and stop misbehaving. As a result, many parents talk over the developmental level of their toddler. The outcome is simply more screaming and misbehaving by the child—and more frustration on the part of the parent! A rule of thumb is to try using approximately as many words as the age of your child.

For example, if your two-year-old bites, you say, “No biting” and remove her from the situation. If your 5-year-old starts having a tantrum in the middle of the store, you say, “We don’t cry over toys,” and you leave. The point is, a long, drawn-out speech by you solves nothing—and your young child or toddler will just tune out. The best way to deal with a defiant toddler is to take swift, immediate action that involves the smallest number of words possible.

Since we as adults communicate (hopefully) in rational, mature ways with other adults, we assume that we can do the same with our toddlers. Bear in mind, though, that your toddler lacks the maturity at this stage in their development to be reasonable most of the time. Brevity and calmness are a parent’s best friend at this stage.

4. Don’t scream back. Toddlers between the ages of two and six are notorious for losing their tempers and screaming at the nearest human. The main reasons for this are a lack of maturity, an inability to express themselves verbally, and frustration over not being able to process the situation in front of them. 

Besides handling the situation calmly and effectively, Sam’s mom modeled for him how he can react in the future when he becomes frustrated and angry. Toddlers don’t know what to do when faced with a rush of emotion, so they do what comes naturally: they have a fit! This type of behavior is perfectly normal for all toddlers, but it is imperative that they learn early that while it’s normal, it won’t be tolerated in your house. Your job is to show your child the right way to react; staying calm and consistent is the best way to teach them.

By the way, if you find that you are having a hard time controlling your own temper, seek out support in the form of friends, other parents with same-age children, or by taking a parenting class at your local rec center or church. Having a support system during these difficult years of child-rearing can be a life saver.

Toddlers are interesting little beings, filled with passion, humor, curiosity, and willfulness. They are just beginning to understand the bigger world around them, to navigate the daily routines of their home and school life, and to test boundaries to see what the outcome may be. As your child leaves babyhood and enters the independent stage of their development, it’s important for you too to grow as a parent and to recognize that your parenting style needs to change along with your toddler. Parenting a baby, while difficult at the time, may seem downright easy when faced with a screaming three-year-old. It’s really important at this age for you to take an inventory of what works and what isn’t working when dealing your young child or toddler. By trusting your instincts and implementing rules that you are comfortable with, you will be doing all the right things to help not just your child, but your entire family.

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Day Care and Behavior Problems are Not Linked

Time spent in day care doesnt link to problems for older children at least, not when that day-care time is separated from the socio-political context in which the care is provided. A team of researchers from Norway, Harvard and Boston College, examining the varied research that sporadically associates an increase in hours in day care with increased behavior problems, noted that the work was all based on child-care studies done in the United States. And the United States, they argue, is a lousy place to study the impact of early child care on children.

Most parents will remember the headlines from the last round of the "Does day care harm children?" battle here in the United States: "Does Day Care Make Kids Behave Badly? Study Says Yes" (ABC). "Child Care Leads to More Behavior Problems" (Fox). "Day-Care Kids Have Problems Later in Life" (NBC). "Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care" (The New York Times). "Bad Mommies" (Slate).

All that (and more) from a single, small finding, published in 2007, based on a study of 1,300 U.S. children from 4 years old through the end of sixth grade. Among those children, researchers found that those who spent a year or more in day care while of preschool age were slightly more likely to become disruptive in class during elementary school.

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