Stress is a normal part of life. Whether it is a minor challenge or a major crisis, it is our body’s way of telling us that things are out of balance. When a child is experiencing stress, it is important to help them identify and name the feelings they are having. It is equally important to let them know that it will pass and help them develop a tool kit of strategies that they can use during times of stress. Including them in the process will promote a sense of choice and control and make it more effective to their individual needs and responses.
This is our top 5 ideas for adding to your child’s tool kit.
Breathing
Learning to control our breathing is such an important skill for managing stress across our whole life. When we are feeling stressed or anxious, our breathing rate increases as our body prepares for an emergency situation. This can be beneficial if you are being chased by a lion, but not so much if you are attending an appointment at the hospital or having an ECG.
For younger children it can be hard to help them regulate their breathing. Using a windmill or blowing bubbles can begin to teach them how to focus on their breathing and how to take a deep breath. For older children, you can begin to teach them strategies like 5 Finger Breathing, where they inhale and exhale while tracing around their fingers. You can also pretend that your fingers are candles and have them practice blowing them out.
Distraction
Distraction is a very effective way to help a child refocus their attention on something other than the stressor. You can talk to your child about what they love to do and come up with a list of things that will help them focus on something else, allowing their brains and bodies time to regulate. This may include things such as:
· Listening to music
· Having a warm bath or shower
· Reading a book
· Playing a game
· Watching a favourite TV show or movie
· Playing with a pet
· Having a cuddle
Movement
Movement and exercise, in almost any form, can help by acting as a stress reliever. Engaging in movement increases endorphins (your brain’s feel-good drugs), acts as mediation in motion, distracts us from our stressors and boosts our mood. Movement can look like many different things, and you can talk to your child about what this might look like for them. There may be limitations to what your child can do physically, so help them work out a list that suits their limits.
· Stretching
· Walking
· Running
· Star jumps
· Bike riding
· Dancing
Mindfulness
Helping a child emotionally regulate can be difficult in the moment. Practising these strategies when they are not heightened is also important. Teaching them how to be present and focus on one thing can help them in those moments when they are feeling overwhelmed.
Ideas to support this include:
· Mindfulness colouring
· Calming technique – 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste
· Coping statements – ‘This feeling will pass’, ‘I am safe and I will be ok’, ‘I can cope. I am strong’, ‘Just keep breathing’.
· Guided meditations
· Counting forwards or backwards
Get Creative
Having a creative outlet can be a wonderful way for your child to release anxious feelings or worries. They can draw, paint, write, use a journal, sing, read jokes, create a board game, or explore nature. You can make a ‘worry monster’ and then get your child to write down their worries and ‘feed them’ to the monster.
Coping tool kits are very individual and need to reflect your child’s interests and strengths. Help them take charge and remind them of the things that they can control.
Kate Strickland has a background in Occupational Therapy and Education and has been a Child Life Therapist working with infants, children and young people in the cardiac space for many years at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Seeing the gap in service provision pre and post hospital, she started the organisation Healing Hearts Beyond to provide a community-based Child Life Therapy service to support infants and children along with their families in managing the stresses associated with procedures, hospitalisations and medical trauma.
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