Helping Children with Stress
Stress can impact anyone, including kids of all ages, but it can be managed and you can help your child through the process. Let’s talk about what stress is for a military-connected child, what it might look like and a few strategies to deal with it.
Listen via your favourite podcasting app
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRADIO | Stitcher
Special Guest
Dr. Linda Scott is the former Program Manager at the Esquimalt Military Family Resource Centre and a trainer with the Psychology Foundation of Canada. She’s currently retired, but she has a years of experience working with families.
Highlights
- Children also experience stress.
- 3:27 Stress is a normal part of life.
- 9:25 Body, mind, feelings, behaviour.
- The science of stress.
- A few factors to consider such as goodness of fit.
- A few strategies to help children deal with stress.
- 19:28 Preventing stress in the first place, managing stress and then adaptation.
Quotes
“When I first started looking at the Kids Have Stress Too materials, I couldn’t believe that it was for three year olds. Because I thought, as an adult, I’m trying to learn how to manage stress. But imagine if you started gaining some of those tools when you were three years old. What a difference that could be.” – Dr. Linda Scott
Connect
Links
Thank you
- This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
- Thank you to Organized Sound Productions for their help bringing this podcast to life.
Transcript by Otter.ai
Intro
This podcast is made possible by funding from True Patriot Love Foundation.
Pete
My name is Pete Fraser. I’m a petty officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, and I’m a weapons engineering technician on board the HMCS Vancouver. My youngest daughter had some behavioral issues when we did my big deployment a few years ago. A lot of it was just that stress of the deployment of having a parent gone for a prolonged period of time. She wasn’t sure how to cope with that. On the other hand, once we were reunited, after that deployment, we actually were able to get things balanced and back to normal fairly quickly. So it seemed to be completely related to that deployment.
Intro
The military lifestyle is all encompassing. It’s difficult, but rewarding. Dynamic, very, very dynamic. Unpredictable. You are in the Canadian Armed Forces, or a family member connected to the military. You know, the lifestyle can be a challenge. The military lifestyle is always changing. In this podcast, we explore the world of deployments, postings, and transitions. This is the military lifestyle. Here’s your host, Jon Chabun.
Jon
Stress can impact anyone, including kids of all ages, but it can be managed and you can help your child through the process. Dr. Linda Scott is the former Program Manager at the Esquimalt Military Family Resource Centre and a trainer with the Psychology Foundation of Canada. She’s currently retired, but she has a years of experience working with families.
So today we’re here with Dr. Linda Scott. Helping children with stress is the topic and this huge tip of the hat to the Psychology Foundation of Canada and Kids Have Stress Too. Stress can affect your sleep, you can feel it in your back, preoccupied with other thoughts. That’s how I think of stress. Well, so why worry about stress and kids, Linda?
Linda
Children also experienced stress. What we found is that stress can be harmful for children. It can interfere with their learning. They’re at a point where they’re just learning so much at a young age. So they’re learning can be affected if they’re experiencing too much stress. Also, their social interactions, they may have strong emotions, big feelings. And when they’re experiencing those big feelings, it may be hard for them to interact with other children. And so that can also be an issue for them. We wonder what the long term effects will be for stress for children. A lot of parents now wonder about is it stress or is it anxiety with their children? The good news is that there are things that we can do to help children manage stress. And imagine learning at a young age when I first started looking at the Kids Have Stress Too materials, I couldn’t believe that it was for three year olds. Because I thought, as an adult, I’m trying to learn how to manage stress. But imagine if you started gaining some of those tools when you were three years old. What a difference that could be.
Jon
Yeah, that’s totally true. What does research show us when it comes to stress?
Linda
Research shows us that stress is a normal part of life, but too much stress can be harmful. So by too much stress, we mean stress that perhaps we don’t have any control over the stress. It can be the duration, its long term stress, or the intensity, very, very severe stress, or frequency. There’s stress after stress after stress. So there, the body has little time to recover in between. And we know that that kind of stress can be harmful but also, we know that there are things that can make a difference in managing stress. And one of the big things is social support. So for children is having a consistent, caring adult in their life. And that’s just crucial for their development.
Jon
So when you think of stress, and what is stress for young children, and what could be stressing out a military connected child?
Linda
Well stress itself, you know, when you think about stress, stress can be quite a normal part of life. For young children, it might be having to share toys with a sibling or at daycare. It could be having to take turns, going to a birthday party, those are just normal everyday stresses for children. And stresses that are tolerable might be stresses that are a bit more difficult for children to manage like that there’s a move, and that’s where military children you see that with relocation They may move from one side of the country to another. And all of a sudden they’re they’re losing some of their extended family. They might be away from their grandparents who they’ve been with, up until then, and having to reestablish and settle into a new daycare or school. The other type of stress that would be considered to be tolerable would be having a parent be away for a long period of time. And again, that’s something that happens with military families with deployment. A parent could be away for months and months at a time. And that puts extra stress on the parent who’s at home or the caregiver at home is doing more than their share of work during that time. That’s a strong stress. And by tolerable we mean that the child can come through it with support. So another one would be an illness, a serious illness or injury of someone in the family. And harmful stress. When we think about harmful stress, that stress that, as I mentioned before, is that you know, very frequent, longer duration, the stress that you can’t get away from. And without the support. That’s support, if it’s a struggle for the parent at that time to be providing that support, because they’re the one who’s experiencing this additional stress. The parent can encourage others to help too. Friends that the parent can say, look, I can pitch in. And you know, they can have the social support because it’s any caring, consistent adult. It could be the daycare teacher, it could be an aunt, or a good friend, but someone who really cares about the child and can support them through that difficult time. And that in itself, then is more likely for the child to become resilient. And we talk about resilience a lot, but resilience is that really, it’s stress plus support is equals resilience. So if the child is experiencing that stress, but they’re also getting support, they can learn to manage things as they go through their life. Because they’re going to experience other stressors as they go along. We all do. It is a normal part of life.
Jon
Yeah, I’ve got a small child, and I know some people listening I think this is silly stuff. But sometimes my child gets stressed by pants. Pants that don’t fit well. And there’s like this huge reaction, and like the world is ending, and I can’t believe it. Similar things can happen when a hair clip is just not behaving properly. But yes, I just got to work through it.
Linda
Absolutely. And, you know, I think that’s a really good point because there’s individual differences with stress and parents. Sometimes they’ll be talking with someone about the stressor, child’s experience like pants or berettes. And another parent will look at them like, really, but that parent is no this this is genuine, this is what my child experiences. Well, their child might experience something else completely different and stressful. So, as a parent, we get to know our child and the things that stress them, and then we can help to support them. So for example, I had a child who startled easily and I got in the habit of before I ever turned anything loud on like the blender, I would say big noise. And I found I continued it long after I needed to do it. I was just used to saying that and then there’d be the big noise, but it was in fairness to the child who startled easily by big noises. So there’s ways that we can help our child through. Some children might not like the feeling of different textures, they may be sensitive to sounds or materials. Someone will find a type of cloth scratchy and another child has their shoes on the wrong feet, and they don’t notice it.
Jon
And sometimes whatever your child might be exhibiting, there might be a deeper story there. I know that I noticed disturbed sleep, tense muscles, eating inconsistencies. What are a few signs that we can look for stress in children?
Linda
Well, when we think about looking at or as, as parents or teachers that looking at stress and children, we can look at it in terms of body, mind, feelings, behaviour. Body is certainly tense muscles. So you know, a child that has that, you can see tense little shoulders or fists, and they’re trying to lie down and settle and perhaps they’re, they’re restless, so you can see it in their body. And they may say they have a stomach ache, or they don’t feel good and they’re tired. So those could be things in their body. Things in their mind. They may have trouble focusing. They may be inattentive when you’re trying to get their attention, it seems like they’re they’re off daydreaming completely different place.
Jon
That sounds like my, my daughter all the time. Off in space. Where are you staring at? And then my spouse looks at me and says, yeah, she got that from you.
Linda
Yeah. And that’s the other side of it. It can also be the sign of a great imagination. And so we look for that is that a change in in behavior. So if you’re looking at body, mind, feelings, behaviour. Feelings, if a child is normally fairly reactive to a big noise, Well, fine, but if they aren’t, if nothing fazes them, and all of a sudden they be start being reactive to big noises, then you’re seeing a change in their behaviour. So then you might be looking at whether they’re experiencing stress at that time, but you may see with emotions, you might see more child being upset or frustrated or angry or sad. And with behaviour, whining, clinging, saying I can’t do it, fighting, you know, there’s all kinds of reactions that a child might have with their behaviour.
Jon
You just look for sort of abnormal-ness. Something out of the ordinary,
Linda
Out of the ordinary for your child. So, if you have a very active child, and they come in and take the room by storm, then that’s their, that’s what’s typical for them. But if your child is, normally comes through, looks at things, considers what I like to play with this or this, but instead they come in and just start knocking things off shelves and seem to be very restless, then that’s a change. So you might want to be observing them first to see what are those changes? And then checking out with them? How are they feeling? What’s going on for them?
Jon
That’s good. Because something like not listening, I would look at my child and say, wow, seems like she does not listen. A lot. But maybe that’s consistent. Maybe that’s nothing to worry about in terms of stress levels, maybe she’s off daydreaming about Elmo and Daniel Tiger and Nature Cat and whoever, off on some great adventure or whatever it might be.
Linda
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s also a good point, because so much of it is developmental. So we have to look at what is the child capable of right now? And what’s typical for that age and stage in development for them. So you would have different expectations for a two year old than you would have four year old. So aside from individual differences, or temperament, you’d also have differences according to their development.
Jon
How does stress work? I’m thinking of sort of like the science of it.
Linda
Well, the science of it is, I guess, to put it in a straightforward way is that stress is having to deal with any kind of challenging situation. So when we’re faced with a challenging situation, stress hormones are released in our body, and there to prepare us back from caveman days when we had fight or flight response. We have that same kind of response and it could be not that urgent the situation, in spite of that will have the adrenaline that will go through our system. Right away. The adrenaline gives us energy gets our heart rate up, our muscles are ready to move, and we’re up and up and going. And then the cortisol, another stress hormone, which will kick in because it’s longer lasting. It can last for hours or even days, with this going on and in our bodies. We’re prepared then for fight or flight. But that may be going on when it’s something that isn’t that urgent. It could be, well, we’ve all seen situations in traffic where someone gets cut off in traffic and there’s a much stronger response then you would expect from the other drivers. So what was going on with them in terms of their reaction to being cut off, you know, rather than taking a breath and going, okay, yeah, that was close, but I’ll just stay in my lane and, you know, carry on and bringing your own stress level down. But for some people, that stress level just goes way up. So a child, they may experience stress from something as simple as normal, everyday stressor, like we talked about earlier, like having another child take their toy away. They just come in there. They’re happily playing with a toy and someone other child comes in, takes the toy and takes off with it. They may jump up and run after them and try to grab it back and there’s a big squabble ensues, you’re surprised yourself seeing that your child reacted so strongly that there was this reaction to that stress, a child may be more reactive if they are already stressed. So they’re already other things going on for them. Maybe they weren’t feeling that well today, or maybe there’s something else going on at home or they didn’t get a good sleep. So there’s already some stress and they’re more likely to then at that point to to really respond.
Jon
And when it comes to stress, what are a few factors to consider?
Linda
One of the most important things to consider with stress is that we can make a difference. That our response to stress can change. It isn’t predetermined in any way. And in that way, we can also help our children with learning ways to manage their stress. So that’s a real important factor, our perception of stress, is it stressful? The language that you use is really important. So if someone says, oh, you must be really stressed, and you could say, oh I’m just really looking forward to it, I’m anticipating it. Are you worried? No, I’m excited. When you think about some of the normal everyday stressors, people might say that to someone who’s a new parent, if you had a two year old and a new baby, you could consider that to be a normal everyday normal stress. It’s also for the child, it might be a tolerable stress, but some of it is in the interpretation of that. It’s exciting. It’s a happy time, and helping your older child to see it that way. And even talking with your friends and that way, because people might say things like, oh, you know, it’s going to be really difficult. And instead of thinking of it, like the terrible twos, you know, it’s going to be really difficult and instead of thinking of it that way you think, well, I’ve always thought of as the terrific twos, I’ve always thought, look at how much they’re learning and growing and developing at that time.
Jon
It’s only terrible when you’re at a grocery store. And you’re like, oh my gosh. Other than that it’s fantastic.
Linda
And another factor to consider is goodness of fit. So how is it for that child or adult in the environment that they’re in? Does the child seem to be overwhelmed in the environment? Is there a way of helping to balance that environment out for them? Can you make adjustments to the environment? An example might be having your child in a daycare setting. And if you go in at early in the morning, and your child is usually one of the early ones and they seem to be fine. They come in, there’s only two or three children. They settle in. It’s very quiet. There aren’t any problems, but if you came in later in the day to bring your child. And they were faced with a whole daycare full of children and high activity level and noise. It might be overwhelming for them. So you can make practical adjustments in order to look at the goodness of fit. That can make a difference even in terms of temperament. So you might have a very quiet child and a more high energy outgoing parent. And the parent might need to look at how that child is what is that fit like with each other? Or you could have a very highly active child and a quieter parent. But the parent might have to learn to be an advocate for their child and say, yes, my child has lots of energy. My child loves to run and play and find ways for their child to be able to get out and run in the field and kick a soccer ball and have a lot of fun. So you’re looking at the person’s temperament and the environment that they’re in, and what are the demands of that environment, and you’re looking at interpersonal connections as well.
Jon
The military lifestyle can definitely be a stressor for families and for children. Relocations, deployments, the risk that comes with the lifestyle. What are a few strategies to help children deal with stress?
Linda
For myself actually, or for children, or families, parents that I’ve worked with, I like to look at it in terms of prevention, preventing stress in the first place, managing stress, and then adaptation. So if you look at it in terms of prevention right away, you can think of what are some things you can do in the environment, like the things that I just mentioned, in terms of goodness of fit, you might make some changes in the environment. Maybe try to ensure that your child is getting enough sleep. If your child is a child who likes a bit of structure, and children often do thrive on routines, you can have some routines, or use pictures to show them what comes next. If your child is very routine oriented, you might have something along with those pictures of what comes next. Like it’s time to get ready, then it’s time to put boots on, then it’s time to go out the door and go to to school or daycare. But you might throw in a big star. That’s something unexpected is going to happen today. And so then the child’s wondering, Well, what what will that be, but they’ll learn to be flexible with something different that happens that day. So it’s not the same routine every single day. So you’re helping your child learn to be flexible, but those are preventative strategies, just the nutrition, getting enough exercise, getting out in the fresh air. Also, hugs, you know, time for stories and hugs and children need that care and affection. Those are actually preventative strategies, those are helping your child to be able to manage. When we think of managing stress, it’s already there, we’re already activated, the child will, will first need to come down from that stress point, you know, that part where their heart is elevated and their, their muscles are tense. So some relaxation, and some breathing perhaps to help them be able to manage that. Kids Have Stress Too uses an interesting tool. They have a stoplight, and the red light, red part of the light means stop. There’s some stress here, yellow is use your tools and helping kids build up a toolkit. And green is I’m ready, I can go I can cope. And I’m using my tools. And so helping children learn some of those tools. So when you think about how do I help a child learn deep breathing. Like we might, as adults have learned breathing at yoga or something. Well, children love blowing bubbles having a bubble wand. And if you think about blowing bubbles, you have to take a long slow breath because if you just blow suddenly, the bubble won’t form it’ll just pop. And if you’re a really brave parent, you can also do that with a straw and a glass of milk. And that’ll be perhaps a big mess but it also gives them an idea of bubbles. You can do relaxation, by having children make their hands into fists and then their arms and again in Kids Have Stress Too they talk about go tight go tight go tight you tighten up all the muscles and then loose, loose, loose loose. The next time you make spaghetti, you can show them that long pieces of spaghetti and have them stand up hard and tall and straight like a piece of spaghetti and then cook it And then show them the noodles. Kids usually love noodles, and then have them pretend to be as loose as noodles. And those kinds of relaxation techniques can be helpful to do before, you know in the evening when you’re reading stories or before bed so that the child is is relaxed. Another really big important one with managing stress. And once you’ve got the stress level down is problem solving. And very young children can learn to solve problems. And the key thing is for the adult in their life to be their coach, the child will learn if you’re coaching them along so they can say what is the problem. So helping them find the words to say, I’m frustrated, to be able to identify the emotions. I’m frustrated that he took my toy, to be able to think of what can they do about it? What are some ideas? What are some choices they have? And with very young children that might just be two things. And with older children, they might be able to come up with other things. They might say, well, I can find something else to do. And we can take turns, I can get an adult to help me to talk to the other child and get my toy back. So they come up with some solutions, then pick one, and then see how did it go. And you can play this as a fun game with kids when it’s not right in the middle of something too, so that then you can say to them, what could they do. And then finally, the adaptation is when it’s a stressful situation you may not be able to get away from and with a long deployment, it’s a reality that the child is experiencing this long deployment and missing their parent over a period of time. The MFRC I know often has a lot of ideas and suggestions about ways of staying connected. As a parent, you can do some of these activities at home and helping your child with their imagination. If your child is upset, going outside and breathing the fresh cool night air and seeing the moon and saying, you know, I wonder if dad or mom is looking at the same moon right now we can both be looking at the moon together. That helps the child to be positive because being positive having a positive voice, and feeling capable, can help the child be able to feel that they can manage stress, that they can do it.
Jon
Well, thank you very much for your time. That was great. I hope I learned something.
Linda
Thank you. It’s fun talking about it.
Jon
So hopefully you learned something today. The Psychology Foundation of Canada is a great resource. Visit sychologyfoundation.org. For more information on Kids Have Stress Too. They also have lots of great videos. Check that out on their YouTube channel.
Extro
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Military Lifestyle. To learn more about this episode, and to check out our other resources like the deployment app, go to EsqumaltMFRC.com. A special thanks to True Patriot Love Foundation for funding season one of this podcast and to Organized Sound Productions for bringing our idea to life. Please share this podcast with your military family or with someone living the lifestyle. Subscribe to the military lifestyle on your favorite podcast app. Your support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening.
