Parents and Children
Good morning Listeners and welcome to another addition of “Stress Free Living”
Stress is something that we all experience, stress is a part of life, and stress is blamed for up to 90% of all illness. All illness has a stress component– that is what scientists are telling us. That is why it is so important to have a tool that can effectively counteract our everyday stress, and that is what the techniques that we share on this program can do for us.
This morning we will be taking a look at how stress effects our children.
Our children are under so much stress and it shows up in many different ways.
And as we have been told that 90 % of all illness is stress related, is it possible that our colds and flu and other winter ills are also stress related?
Yes, it is , because Stress interferes with immune function.
I won’t be talking specifically about the immune system today. I want to talk about our children and the stresses that they experience growing up, and what we can do to help, because when we manage our stress, we support our overall health and happiness.
Childhood stresses have a very long- lasting effect. How often don’t we as adults still carry around childhood traumas, fears and anxieties, so it makes perfect sense to equip our children with tools that will make a difference to their lives now and as adults.
Before teaching our children how to manage stress effectively, it is very important for adults to first clear their own stress. Very often parents, caregivers and teachers are so eager to ‘help’ their children, that they become frustrated, upset and even angry.
We must remember, we can’t help others with their stress if we ourselves are stressed. Have you ever heard a parent say ‘I’m so angry, but it is because I care’? Or perhaps we’ve said it ourselves.
If you are angry or upset because you care, remember this, you can’t help others when you yourself are upset.
Sometimes we need to reflect a little.
Why are we angry?
Why are we so upset?
I have found that when parents are upset with, or on account of their children, there is always genuine concern for the children’s wellbeing, but, often beneath this genuine concern is a fear of how their children’s behaviour or lack of success reflects on them. This is something that we all need to be aware of.
Beneath it all – parents are often worried about what other people might be thinking about them because of their children’s behaviour, or failure to perform at a certain level. This will have an impact on how they approach the problem and on how successful they are in handling it.
Perhaps we feel judged by others, by other parents or teachers or family or friends.
Perhaps we judge ourselves – perhaps, underneath – we feel that it is our fault that our children are not stars on the sports field, or the class captain, or the top student and, perhaps, ….. deep down, – we feel that we have failed as parents.
All this will impact on how we deal with the problem. Children are very impressionable and we are always influencing them, – so we should be very careful, sometimes we could be influencing them unintentionally in ways that we would never intend to.
When we see something that our child might not be dealing with very well, – when we see them unhappy, or not doing as well as we expect them to, – this is stress – not only for the child, but for the adult too.
Very often when we see something wrong in our children’s lives, it is a reflection of ourselves.
Think about that. Does what your child struggling with, remind you of yourself in some way?
Sometimes we see our children having to face the same problems that we battled with when we were children, so naturally we will feel for them. But how we approach this will determine our success or failure in supporting them.
We need to let go or our stress 1st , then we will be able to see the situation more clearly. Then you as a parent will be able to focus on what you can do, you will be able to support your child as a caring adult.
We also need to be careful about not presuming that we know what the problem is.
Give the child time and space to express their fears and concerns. The problem is not always what we as adults think it is, in fact it is very seldom that the adult understands the problem from the child’s point of view, it is important to know what the child is feeling.
Spend time with the child, ask them to tell you what they are feeling. Ask them what the worst part of the story is. Perhaps it was what someone said, or didn’t say, perhaps it was a look that someone gave them. Perhaps they were ignored.
Ask if it reminded them about something – this can give great insights, because the upsetting feeling could be triggered by something in the past.
Sometimes you might notice that your child is just not himself.
Perhaps they don’t want to talk about it. This calls for loving patience.
Spend some time being supportive and encourage them to talking about how they feel.
Ask questions – ‘what word would best describe how you feel?’ Give them some choices …. Do you feel Sad, mad, angry, unhappy, or just yukky ……..
If they are afraid of something take time to find out more.
Ask ……is it a person? Someone at school, a teacher, a child, a dog, cat, insect, an earthquake, tsunami, ghosts, the dark, a noise – show that you do care.
A fun way to get young children to open up is to ask them to imagine that they had a big box full of balloons – all different sizes and colours.
What size balloon would they choose to best describe the size of their sadness, or unhappiness.
What colour would best describe it?
Why did they chose that balloon and that colour?
Use your imagination to allow them to get to the bottom of the problem.
Sometimes there might even be some secondary gain in having a problem.
For example – children have been known to develop a fever because they didn’t want to go to school because of a test. Children have been known to get ill and not go it school when the real issue turned out to be that they didn’t want to leave a parent at home alone. – Bear in mind that the problem might not be the actual problem. It is important to know what the real problem is, – this takes time, patience and love.
Time is a big problem in modern life – we all need more of it. Our children need more of our time – give them time to get to the bottom of their emotions – allow them to talk about their feelings. This will strengthen their trust in you and they will feel loved and cared for.
A lack of self-esteem is something that can have a negative impact on a child’s life.
They might just not feel good enough. Children are sometimes given the impression that if they don’t always do well in a test or sports event, that they are not good enough or worse, that they are bad.
Adults need to be aware of the pressures that they might unintentionally be putting on their children.
Be aware of the signs that all might not be well.
Has the child become more shy than usual? Perhaps they don’t want to take part is sports. Perhaps they are not sleeping well, perhaps they don’t want to eat their meals, perhaps they are disobedient.
Ask ….’What is bothering you?’
You might get ‘Nothing’ or ‘no one likes me’ or ‘I’m no good’. We know that this is not true, but these feelings are very real for the child, so be patient.
Bullying is becoming a problem, not just in the schoolyard, if your child has a phone or computer – you need to be aware of any changes in behaviour.
Low self-esteem can invite bullying – and then the child with low self-esteem moves into ‘victim’ mode,
They begin to think that there is something wrong with them, or that they deserve this treatment.
Often the Bully is the one with low self-esteem. Think about it – if you were feeling confident and good about who you are, would you delight in hurting someone?
Recognise that the Bully also has issues. It is always helpful to point this out to the one who is being bullied. Bullies need help! it is very empowering for the victim to understand this.
Reprimanding and punishment is not always the only answer for a Bully. Punishment is appropriate, but be aware that it often won’t fix the problem, it could teach them to be more careful about not being caught.
So remember – the Bully and not only the victim needs support.
This morning we have had a look at some of the problems that our children face and how we can be helpful and supportive.
After the break we will look at how we can use the Meridian Tapping Techniques that I teach to help our children, allowing them to grow up into well balanced, confident and successful adults.
For the full Tapping techniques please listen to the above podcast.