Family Matters |
Parenting in Pursuit of Happiness |
Are Your Kids Stress-Free?
Posted in Emotional Intelligence, Kids/Children, Parenting
by Ronit Baras on May 23rd, 2008
Tags: children, Emotional Intelligence, kids, lifestyle, pressure, stress
Stress is considered the number one killer in our society. Whereas in the past, a healthy lifestyle included eating well, sleeping well and exercising enough as the main characteristics, today, being stress-free is another important one.
As a parent, I am sure that you feel stressed many times a day. Juggling home tasks, quality time with your partner, work and attending to all your kids’ needs can be demanding. Stress becomes part of everyday life. Stress is a feeling of tension or pressure because of something that happened in the past, something that is happening now or fear of something that might only happen in the future.
Stress and constant pressure can make you unhappy and unhealthy. The most common problems associated with stress are insomnia, migraine, indigestion and depression.
Firstly, to move into a stress-free zone, you need to examine the things you are stressed about. Sometimes, the feeling is there and yet there is no clear understanding of what it is. PMS produces such a feeling: the body is tight, and if you do not have a good record of your last period, you may not even know that this is the cause of your stress (PMS is a source of stress for women and for men…). Finding the cause is important.
Whenever you feel tense, ask yourself these questions:
- Am I worried about something that happened in the past?
- Am I worried about something that is happening to me now?
- Am I worried about something that I believe is about to happen in the future?
Not all stress is bad. When we talk about basic needs (food, warmth and safety), stress can function as a motivator to ensure that these basic needs are preserved. However, being under stress for too long gradually wears you down and negatively affects your performance and your health.
If your kids are stressed, use the questions below to understand your own level of stress and the areas in which you need to help your kids, to teach them how to be stress free.
Remember, for kids, Mom and Dad are role models. If Mom and Dad live in stress, the kids adopt the same lifestyle because they do not know any better way. Many times, when they finally grow up and understand this, they are already set in their ways so much that it is hard for them to change without professional help.
- Does your kid find it hard to express their feelings?
- Is your kid running late and short of time most of the time?
- Does your kid find it hard to relax?
- Does your kid seem to be unhappy?
- Is your kid afraid of new things?
- Is your kid terrified of change?
- Is your kid grumpy in the morning for no apparent reason?
- Is your kid preoccupied with what he or she eats?
- Is your kid irritated by others?
- Does your kid have problems sleeping?
- Does your kid lose his or her temper often?
Things you need to know about Stress
No one is totally free from stress. We all experience periods in our life when we are stressed, tired and tense. It is not the end of the world.- The difference between people and their levels of stress is not to do with what happens to them throughout the course of their lives, but with how they react to what happens to them.
- Each person has a different resistance to stress. You can gradually increase your resistance.
Join us next week for the post “60 Tips to a Stress-Free Lifestyle”.
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Be happy,
Ronit
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4 Comments to “Are Your Kids Stress-Free?”
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Hi Ronit
Great article as usual. Its very true - my mother is a person who is constantly stressed and as a result I used to stress about everything an anything until I realised what I was doing - but its very hard to change - my husband tell me I still stress too much over nothing - but not as much as before!
Tina,
I remember working with kids that were soooooo stressed, it was affecting everything they did. When I met their parents, I knew where it came from. Their parents were stressed and couldn’t think properly. Everything was a problem, future was dark and negative. Kids do not have any way of saying that this way of life is wrong and not healthy, they think everyone is the same, all houses do the same thing. Their definition of normal depends on the lifestyle at home.
On the other hand, only we can say if we are stressed or not, there is fine line between stressing and being organised, there is a fine line between procrastination and not caring. We have to find it ourselves.
Are you really stressed?
Love and happy day
Ronit
http://www.behappyinlife.com
stress is the ghost which makes a man physically and mentally sick.so it should be avoided.Stress is a normal physiological response of the body to hostile environment.
yoga helps a lot in reducing any type of stress.it’s very useful for the people to reduce their stress in unfavorable conditions.The food which we will take also have its effect to maximise stress.so it is checked.
meditation is also one of the best way to get rid of it.Normally business people undergo more stress when compared with a normal man.so it’s better to drive it away.Stress can affect children, adolescents and adults. Though the stress factor may be different in different age groups, the outcome is more or less the same
Sandeep,
Yoga seems like a very popular way to reduce stress, combining breathing, meditation and physical exercise.
Life coaching is another way with growing popularity.
Thank you for sharing,
Ronit
Life Coaching Relieves Stress