Every modern teacher, who often in practice has to deal with students experiencing “hard times” (certain unfavorable living conditions) or a state of acute grief that occurs after a significant loss, and every parent needs to learn to identify the presence of symptoms of a stressful state in children and master a set of special techniques and technologies for working with such children.
Stress accompanies a person throughout his life
The famous Hans Selye, a Canadian biologist and physician, the creator of the doctrine of stress, said: “Complete freedom from stress means death.” He did not consider stress to be harmful, but viewed it as a reaction that helps the body survive.
Hans Selye divided stress into eustress and distress. Eustress is characterized by a positive effect on human activity. Distress (“distress”, English - grief, need, suffering, malaise, exhaustion), on the contrary, produces destructive effects in the human body. Distress can also increase a person’s adaptive capabilities, but still inhibits his development and leads to exhaustion of strength.
Psychological stress is a state of increased emotional tension. It occurs in a person as a result of intellectual and emotional overload.
Stress leads to various changes in the body, personality and its relationships with the outside world.
Different stressors, activating hormonal systems, lead to different types of diseases. In medicine, a distinction is made between active stress and passive stress. With active stress, symptoms of heart failure are more often observed; with passive stress, diseases associated with malfunctions in the immune system are observed.
A person’s adaptive capabilities are quite large, so many minor deviations that arise in the body’s activity under the influence of stressful situations are easily reversible.
But in situations of prolonged nervous tension, diseases such as hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, stomach ulcers, etc. can develop. Negative conditions arise when the load exceeds a person’s resistance to adverse effects. A little stress does not have a destructive effect on a person’s health and often mobilizes his reserve and creative capabilities, promoting somatic, mental and personal development.
What situations cause stress in a child?
– Any significant but natural changes in the child’s life. For example, entering kindergarten or school, the appearance of a younger brother or sister, moving, changing schools, divorce or remarriage of parents. Of course, different children may perceive the same situation differently.
– Crisis situations (violence committed against a child or in front of his eyes, entering a military conflict zone, acts of terrorism, a natural disaster that deprived a family of a home or property, an accident, illness or loss of a loved one, etc.). It is important to remember: for a child, a psychologically traumatic situation can be an event that is insignificant from the point of view of an adult - for example, the death of a beloved hamster.
– Ordinary life situations associated with the unknown, or separation from family, or pain. For example, the first trip to summer camp, a visit to the dentist or prescribed medical procedures (injections, gastric probing, etc.), examination in the hospital, upcoming surgery. Joyful events can also serve as a source of stress. For example, an upcoming date or visiting guests.
– Intense mental and emotional stress: school overload, tests, examinations, tests, situations of constant rivalry, competition with other children, information overload (television, Internet).
– Unfavorable situation in the family (quarrels between parents, broken relationships between the child himself and his parents or other family members), tense relationships with classmates, conflicts with teachers.
An adult sooner or later develops his own ways of responding to conflicts, his own ways of dealing with mental stress. The child has not yet developed such protection against stress.
Main signs of stress in children
1. The child’s mood often changes or he has a persistent negative mood.
2. The child's sleep becomes poor, he has difficulty falling asleep and sleeps very restlessly.
3. The child gets tired quickly after a load that was very easy for him just recently.
4. The child becomes touchy for no reason, can easily cry over an insignificant reason or, conversely, becomes too aggressive.
5. The child shows signs of an uncomfortable psychological state: he is absent-minded, forgetful, restless, he lacks confidence in himself and his abilities.
6. In a child, a state of psychological stress can manifest itself in previously unobserved antics and stubbornness, fear of contacts, and desire for loneliness. He stops participating in the games of his peers and has difficulty maintaining discipline.
7. Sometimes a child constantly chews or sucks something that has not been noticed before. Or he has a persistent loss of appetite.
8. Signs of a stressful state in a child also include previously unobserved coughing, trembling hands, shaking the head, twitching of the shoulders, playing with the genitals, night and even daytime urinary incontinence.
9. Some children under prolonged stress begin to lose weight, look exhausted, or, on the contrary, they experience symptoms of obesity.
10. The unfavorable psycho-emotional state of the child is indicated by such signs as impaired memory functions, difficulties with imagination, poor concentration, loss of interest in everything that previously caused activity.
All of the above signs may indicate a stressful condition in a child only if they have not been observed previously. It should also be noted that not all of these signs can be expressed explicitly. But adults need to start worrying already when some of them have been noticed.
The presence of the above symptoms indicates the appearance of psychosomatic disorders, which affect both the well-being and behavior of the child. Ignoring them can lead not only to persistent problems in the child’s health, but also affect the formation of his personal qualities.
Psycho-emotional stress deprives a child of a natural state of immediate joy for his age and can lead to the development of neuroses. With neurosis, control of body functions deteriorates. Therefore, children not only become irritable and touchy, they begin to complain of frequent headaches or disorders of the digestive system, their heart rhythm may be disturbed, and an increase in blood pressure is noted.
In what cases may a child need professional help?
– if the child is unable to fully control his behavior for a long period of time (he is aggressive, unable to control his actions and expressions, quick-tempered, overly touchy, whiny, etc.);
– if he has a complete lack of expression of feelings (the child has become lethargic, indifferent to everything, has lost interest in activities that previously fascinated him, etc.);
– if the child shows persistent loss of appetite or has had insomnia for a long period of time;
– if the child has strong fears;
– if a child’s process of experiencing acute grief is too long, he cannot return to the usual course of life, or adjust to the changes that have occurred to him.
Basic means of prevention and correction of psycho-emotional stress in children
1. Adults need to learn to recognize signs of emotional distress in a child, try to hear how the child signals that he is overexerted, and not ignore unfavorable symptoms, expecting that everything will go away on its own.
2. Each child has a certain limit of physical and mental capabilities. It is imperative to study the characteristics of a particular child and protect him from unbearable loads, skillfully distributing and wisely combining them with periods of rest to recuperate.
3. It is impossible to protect a child from stressful situations. It is necessary to develop his stress resistance skills and provide him with the necessary support.
To do this, first of all, you need to teach your child not to lose an optimistic approach to life under any circumstances. “We’ll break through!”, “Every cloud has a silver lining!”, “Is this such a big problem?” - such phrases should firmly enter the child’s vocabulary and become his life credo. Humor and self-confidence are one of the best ways to prevent and relieve stress at any age and in any people.
You can teach your child to look at difficulties in life from different positions: how your favorite book or movie hero, the Sage or Superman, would react to this. The child must understand and always remember that the difficulties and problems encountered in his life are temporary and will definitely be resolved, each problem has several options for resolution, and there are always close people next to him, ready to help and support him at any time.
4. As a rule, in order to get out of a state of stress, the child tries to use up the excess of released hormones that caused irritation. To do this, some children will smash toys or dishes, others will hit someone around them, others will run, fuss, scream or listen to loud music. Sometimes children begin to chew something, often without feeling the taste of the food.
Do not pull the child back, forcing him to calm down under pain of punishment. This way of interacting with him will only cause additional stress. Find a rewarding outlet for your child's pent-up energy by using physical strength around the house, in the classroom, or outdoors. Let your child be sure to engage in active sports and often play outdoor games with other children.
5. The risk of stress is especially high in childhood if conditions for normal physical development are violated. Science has long proven the interdependence of a person’s physical and mental state. The feeling of health, physical capabilities and bodily well-being contributes to a stable sense of inner comfort.
The child needs to be provided with the most comfortable working and rest conditions: long sleep in a well-ventilated room, a properly selected diet, well-distributed physical and intellectual stress according to the individual characteristics of the child. A prerequisite for optimally favorable development of a child must be adherence to a daily routine specially designed for him.
6. Teach your child the skills of muscle relaxation, auto-relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, evoking positive visual images, etc. They can be found in popular literature. Muscle relaxation causes a decrease in emotional stress and leads to calm and restoration of breathing.
Reliable ways to relieve stress vary from person to person. For some it is physical activity, for others it is communication with nature, with like-minded people or art, someone enjoys solitude or meditates.
Help your child find his own, individual ways to get rid of excessive emotional stress.
7. In crisis situations, do not neglect qualified assistance from specialists. In St. Petersburg there are special services for helping children and adolescents, hotlines, psychological consultations and other types of assistance for children and adults.
In our Center, you and your children can be provided with highly qualified assistance in the form of psychological consultations, differential diagnostics to determine the current mental state and find the most effective ways to resolve the current situation, classes are conducted on individual or group psychocorrection of observed difficulties in children.
Teacher-psychologist of the highest qualification category Oksana Vladimirovna Gyuninen
The dangers of stress in children
Unfortunately, many of us consider stress an inevitable companion of modern life and treat it as something unpleasant, but generally safe. But this is not so.
Stress is an extremely harmful condition. Chronic stress can cause psychosomatic disorders and lead to serious and difficult to overcome consequences. Long-term production of “stress hormones” threatens adrenal insufficiency and diabetes. And hypertension, hysteria, asthma and even epilepsy are all possible consequences of prolonged stress.
And if only we were talking about adults! Unfortunately, even babies can experience stress.
Talk to your child
Most parents fall into the trap. When a difficult situation arises, the elders agree “not to tell the children yet,” so as not to injure them, they believe.
It turns out the other way around. The child feels that something is wrong: the emotional background of the family has changed, the parents are tense, gloomy, and often silent. The child’s questions are answered with “everything is fine,” “you’ll find out later.”
It is very easy for children to fill their ignorance with fantasies, which are sometimes worse than reality. How many stories can you hear from adults: “Dad just left, they didn’t tell me anything, and I thought it was because of me...”.
This fantasy explanation of divorce is much more traumatic than reality. Therefore, talk to your children, tell them about what is happening, explain the situation. “Our family has fallen on hard times. Uncle Tolya has a serious illness, which takes a long, difficult and expensive time to treat. We all worry about Uncle Tolya, so I am often sad or thoughtful.”
Yes, such an explanation may also make the child sad and cry. But the task of parents is not to protect the child from experiences, but to teach him to cope with them, to experience them.
Don't hide your emotions from your child
If you are afraid, sad, angry, do not be afraid to do it in front of your child. He must understand that yes, mom can howl from helplessness or impotence. But then she calms down, collects herself and solves the problem.
Emotions must be named, and their cause must be spoken out. A mother who just bangs on the steering wheel in a car is one thing. A mother who pounds on the steering wheel and explains that she is furious that there is no free medicine for Uncle Tolya again, and then calms down and looks for a new way to solve the problem is completely different. In the first case, the child is scared, he does not understand the situation and comes up with his own explanation.
