Only adults are under stress right? Well not really. Stress is relative to situations and age. Worrying about paying your bills at the age of forty is probably the equivalent of worrying about having your lunch money stolen at the age of ten. So kids do worry, suffer from anxiety and feel the discomfort of stressful situations as much as an adult. A parent or a teacher may not take the child’s stress as seriously because they have their own stress and the kids stress just seems to be hard to understand. They may communicate their worry to us and it may get blown off with words like “don’t worry about it, or when I was your age, or you don’t know how good you have it.”
Mom and Dad Can’t Do It
Adults don’t manage stress well in our society; and there is a lot to be stressful about: the economy, unemployment, relationships, and their own upbringing; which has everyone dragging the baggage of their own imprint from childhood into adulthood. That youth conflict that they had at the age of ten is now an adult conflict and they are still searching for answers to some of life’s most basic problems and that includes how to handle stress.
Evolution
From an evolutionary standpoint the brain stem or the reptilian brain developed first, that’s where the heart rate, respiration and adrenalin flow comes from. Something the caveman needed as he battled and hunted animals for food or ran away from when he was at a disadvantage and felt like he was going to lose the battle. That type of stress was necessary for survival and one minute or two of this type of stress helped keep this guy healthy and fed. But what happens when a brain is placed under stress for years, like thirteen; the amount of time that a kid spends in school. Stress hormones end up swamping our bodies for days, weeks, months. Research shows that cortisol, specifically, chews up the brain if it loiters there long-term. When lab rats in Israel, Germany, USA, China, and Italy were given daily injections of rat cortisol for several weeks, it killed brain cells in their hippo-campus region, leaving them depressed, anxious, fearful, immature, needy, and unable to learn new behaviors.
None of this is good for the adult brain, but children’s fast-developing brains with dendrites numbering in the millions are especially vulnerable to the ravages of cortisol. Study after study has found that children who are exposed to extremely stressful situations — via violence in the home or corporal punishment — have significantly lower IQ’s than children not exposed to such traumas.
Different Reasons For Stress
In a modern society we don’t battle saber tooth tigers, our stress come from slow drivers, our kids, our boss, and at times our spouse, and other things that frankly we have very little control over. We worry, fret, get uneasy when we have to have a confrontation and we assume too many responsibilities that we were never intended to have. For sure at times we put ourselves in bad situation because of poor choices and the lack of self control by over eating, drinking, spending, and by going crazy when the toothpaste tube doesn’t have a cap on it. Unwittingly we put our minds and bodies under constant stress and we operate in a state of constant survival. The primary function of the brain is survival of its owner and all that stress puts us in survival mode daily with those stress hormones eroding our brains. We will either run or fight but in reality as a society we don’t handle stress very well. It makes us sick, obese, it could result in the onset of high blood pressure, heart problems and type 2 diabetes. We meditate, exercise, practice yoga, seek therapy, and when all else fails we begin to believe in God again and pray.
Our Kids Need The Help
A bleak picture you say. Well yes it is, but things will get bleaker if we don’t help our kids manage stress and develop the resiliency to cope with the trials of life. There are more young people today who are anxious, depressed, and who fear age appropriate responsibilities then in past generations. Responsibilities that are just basic to a household like taking out the garbage or to school like completing a homework assignment. This fear of responsibility has resulted in higher levels of anxious and depressed adolescents than ever before. In America today, high school and college students are five to eight times as likely to suffer from depressive symptoms as were teenagers 50 or 60 years ago, according to Psychology Today.
Responsibilities Produce Pressure
When kids are not held accountable for their responsibilities and are let off the hook they begin to view their responsibilities as nothing more than pressure from adults. They are completely aware of what they need to do but lack the motivation and the desire to complete tasks or follow through on requests from anyone. This awareness with age activates that fight or flight mechanism that we mentioned earlier and kids will either start arguments when they are confronted by an adult with a request (like completing a homework assignment, or taking out the garbage) or run for the hills and disappear when there is work to be done. This now young adult feels the stress and may become anxious or depressed. They can get labeled as lazy, disaffected, unmotivated, and careless. They may seek to ease the stress through the use of a substance such as alcohol or a prescription medication that is gotten either legally or illegally and may begin to think hypochondriacally. (Believing that they may become or are seriously ill)
Responsible Behavior Can Reduce Stress
Do we need to help kids manage stress in a more effective manner or do we need to help kids take their responsibilities more seriously? Irresponsible behavior leads to stress. What is done in moderation as a child gets done in excess as an adult and adults currently are not managing stress very well. The model that the kids are getting is one that stress gets handled by drinking, eating, spending, or medicating. Mom and Dad may just be producing children that manage stress far less effectively than they did and they weren’t very successful.
So let’s teach our kids to manage stress more effectively right? Wrong. Let’s teach our kids to be more responsible adults and instead of running or fighting help them learn to see responsibility as an opportunity rather than pressure.
Looking For The Plan? Jim Burns’ New Book ” Helping Kids Manage Stress” will be out in the spring of 2016. You can pre-order in the comments section.
