Child Stress Management Methods

A lot of children suffer from different forms of stress. Here you can find child stress management techniques so that parents could help their child throughout these difficult times. Child stress can cause children to have nightmares and to lose their self-confidence. I hope you find the following interesting and beneficial.

Children who have nightmares 

There are different reasons why children could start having nightmares.  I have two children, both of whom at a variety of stages of their lives wake up crying and upset.   

My young son began to have nightmares after watching the film Lord Of The Rings.  He really enjoyed watching the movie and needed to watch it regularly and would even re-enact the battles.  The film itself is pretty long and he would usually be watching it by himself as his mother and I would be occupied doing other things. 

I started thinking why he may have begun to have these types of dreams and believed it was as a result of this movie.  I then made sure to watch it with him and continued reassuring him that the people did not really die and that they were only acting.  I even started laughing at several of the more gruesome scenes and also made comments like, as if that would ever occur.  By doing this and also by letting him watch the film once a week, it helped to stop the period of nightmares he was having.  So this method worked great for managing stress on my child. 

Children can also grow nightmares after an stress illness.  This condition can start, for example, after having a time away from school.  They might begin to worry that they might have fallen behind with their work, or that they may not be able to get back into their crowd of friends.  Also, they could fear that their best friend may have found a new best friend.   

Under this stressful situation, I would advise that when the child is feeling better and before he returns to school that you re-introduce them to the work that they were studying before they got ill.  You could even ask the teacher to provide some of the work that the child has missed, to assist them in catching up.  I myself usually phone up the parents of my children’s friends and invite their child over for a meal and to play, the evening before my child is set for returning to school.   

Thus when my children are ill, I always tell them not to worry about the work they may miss or about their friends as they know now how I operate etc. 

Children who stress 

My daughter at one time was feeling stress out for the reason that she was not in any of the top groups in the different subjects she was taking at school.  She was stressing out because she felt like she was a failure and that we would not be proud of her.  To calm her down and make her feel better, I advised her that we understood she was doing her best at school and that as long as she continued to try her best that we would always be proud of her.  After all not every child could be in these top sets. 

I reminded her that she was in the netball and athletics teams and tried to make her learn the positive way of thinking.   

She now understands that even when she thinks she's not able to complete a certain task that it is better if she still try it out.  When she makes a mistake, there will always be somebody there to explain what she did wrong, which she can then learn from for the next time. 

As parents, it is essential also that we don't criticize our children that often.  This could cause them fearing disaster and could lead to them not even attempting to try certain tasks. 

You can keep children motivated by making homework fun.  Praise the child as frequently as possible, when they finish something well, this is one of the great ways to increase self esteem on children.  Instead of yelling at the child when they are doing something wrong, make an attempt to talk to them as if they were an adult.  

In summary, I always try to treat my own children in a fair and relaxed way.  I let them know that I am proud of them even if they don't achieve one hundred percent at school.  If they have nightmares, I like to find out the reason why this may be happening and to break whatever cycle is occurring.  I try to work out what each child is worrying about and then attempt to help them to find the best solution.  This is a great stress reduction method that works well for me and my children.  Try it out and it may work for you as well.