”7 Stress Relief Tips For Your Children” is a collaborative post. Please see the disclosure page for more information. Disclaimer – always verify medical information with your doctor or a professional.
Being a child doesn’t mean you live a stress-free life. Even though your children don’t have meals to cook or bills to pay, they still feel the pressure of life. Parents view their kids as joyful and carefree, but that isn’t always the case. The worries they face may be different from yours, but they affect them in the same way. If left unchecked, this stress could develop into more serious mental and physical health problems. Thankfully, there are many ways to help your kids combat the troubles they face.
With that in mind, here are seven stress relief tips for your children.
Eat Healthy Meals Daily
Food has a direct impact on your health, both physically and mentally. While many people know of the impact on their physical health, most don’t realize that certain foods can contribute to or alleviate stress. To relieve stress in your child, you must provide three balanced and nutritious meals every day, as well as healthy snacks. When possible, you should incorporate anti-anxiety foods into these meals. Along with this, you should offer plenty of water to keep them hydrated. While cake, ice cream, and candy are sweet, the kids bouncing off the walls one minute and then having a sugar crash in another minute is not good for anyone’s body or mind! Limit the sweets and processed foods as much as possible. Help their body chemistry stay stable and that will help their mental health stay more stable.
Make A Bedtime Routine
Lack of sleep will leave anyone cranky, especially a young child. Without a good night’s sleep, your little one won’t have enough time to rest their mind or body. This will put pressure on both, resulting in stress. The stress can also flow into their school work and their friendships. It can become a mess! Although you can’t always ensure a decent night’s rest, making a bedtime routine will help. With activities and a bedtime to stick to every night, your child will find it much easier to drift off. It helps to have a comfortable bed too, as well as a quiet and dark bedroom.
Encourage Them To Exercise
Rest may be crucial, but so is activity. When you exercise, you trigger the release of endorphins. These are chemicals in the brain that fight feelings of stress and help to return your body to a relaxed state. Keeping that in mind, you must encourage your children to exercise. If my kids could, they would be permanently glued to the couch with electronic devices in hand 24/7. Sign them up to sports teams, send them to swimming classes, and get them their own bikes. Because children often copy their parents, finding ways to exercise as a family will usually help too.
Speak With An Expert
Parents always assume they know what’s best for their children. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. This is especially true for parents of children who live with developmental challenges, like autism. With one of my children on the spectrum, I learned right away that I was not equipped to help my child with his every need for social and educational development. If your child is on the autistic spectrum, you should consider sending them to ABA Therapy. There they will receive behavioral therapy that helps them to pick up everyday life skills. Even children without autism often need therapy, so don’t be scared to ask for professional help.
Other therapy that has helped my son was group-based behavioral therapy at a very young age. ABA Therapy was interwoven with it. Not only did he gain social skills that are innate for a majority of people but not those with high-functioning autism, but he also gained positive self-esteem and a since of belonging that he never had experienced before. I remember picking up after his first “play group” therapy session with 5 or 6 other boys around his age. He burst out of the room yelling, “Mommy, I made a friend! I made a friend!” I still tear up thinking about it. How my shy, introverted, mentally overwhelmed child could be calmed, feel included, and make a friend in a short 30 minute meeting was a turning point in my eyes for my son’s entire life.
So please, please, please, speak with an expert about what your child is facing. Help them to gather tools to navigate what they are dealing with. Momma, you aren’t superwoman and you aren’t Einstein. We don’t have all the answers but if we need them, we can search and search until we find someone that does. It could be a turning point for an even more positive direction for your child’s life.
Cut Down Their Schedule
Busyness doesn’t always equal happiness, particularly for young children. Even though you want to keep your child engaged and active, you must remember they need time to relax. Piling your child’s schedule high will activities can put unnecessary pressure on them, causing stress. Luckily, my kids aren’t in the season of life where they want to join every single clue or team that there is but I know that time is just around the corner. I don’t want them to be overbooked to the point they are stressed out! For this reason, take a look at your little one’s day and consider cutting out certain commitments for a stress relief tip. This allows them time to play with friends, watch television, and just chill out.
Do Fun Activities Together
Having fun is effective stress relief. As well as providing a distraction from your worries, fun will also improve your mood, leaving you happier overall. Make time to have fun with your little one. Whatever activity you choose, it should be one that you both enjoy. Taking up a hobby together, like painting, knitting, or building LEGO creations, will give you an excuse to have this time together regularly. My kids and I will play a board game or chess or checkers right after dinner some nights. They are all competitive but also have a good time playing. Being happy is the only goal of these interactions.
Calm Your Own Worries
Kids are more intuitive than most adults give them credit for. I remember going to a “How to take care of a baby” class before our first baby was born. I had nooo clue about how to take care of another human being! One of the things I remember most from the class was the statement that “Kids are emotional sponges; they soak up whatever you are feeling.” Children of all ages pick up on emotions, especially strong ones, like stress. Since they also learn by mimicking the actions and behaviors of their parents, your child might feel stressed just because you do. For this reason, you must reduce your own stress too. Thankfully, many of the tips that help children also help adults. If you feel like you can’t overcome your worries alone, then speak to an expert for help.
Children have stress to deal with, just like their parents do. While the causes are often different, the results are the same. Ignoring the stress your child feels will only make it worse. Hopefully, with the stress relief tips advice above, you can turn your little one into the joyful and carefree person you want them to be.
If you think your child’s life or health might be at risk, seek professional help. Mental health is just as important as physical health, and more & more kids are feeling hopeless. “Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 3,069 attempts by young people grades 9-12. If these percentages are additionally applied to grades 7 & 8, the numbers would be higher. Suicide attempts can begin before 10 years of age.“(http://prp.jasonfoundation.com/facts/youth-suicide-statistics/) If your child is feeling down or depressed for more days than not, please seek medical attention. If you or your child are feeling like you cannot go on, please call the suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or chat here>>> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/ Or visit the suicide prevention lifeline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Louis wilson says
Hi, amazing tips on Stress relief dear. Keep sharing such good stuff for us. I urge everybody to follow these tips. Health should be the main priority.