How is your stress affecting your kids? 

Being a parent is stressful, but now and then, when you are dealing with higher levels of stress than normal, it can start to spill over and affect those around us too. Have you ever wondered how your stress could be affecting your kids? 

What is stress and what does it do to you? 

Stress is considered a mental health condition – because it affects our mental health. If you look up a dictionary definition, it might say something along the lines of stress being “mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances”. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of stress; it can even be good for you. A little bit of stress motivates you to get things done or to perform well. But when you don’t have an outlet to be able to relax, and rebalance your body – things can take a turn. 

The stress hormone, cortisol in the body for too long – stops the body from getting the signal to return to normal. With chronic stress, those same motivating, survival reactions in the body can disturb the immune, digestive, cardiovascular, sleep, and reproductive systems when left on high alert for too long. This can also result in irritability, anger, poor sleep and sadness. So it’s important to deal with stress before it becomes a problem. To learn more about stress as a condition – book on to a course.

How might stress be affecting the kids? 

You are constantly on high alert, snappy, irritable? It’s not looking great for a harmonious household, where children can be themselves. Being relaxed helps you to help your kids feel the same way too!

As an adult, if you are around someone who is visibly tense, looking for danger, looking for problems – it doesn’t feel great. Not only does it feel a bit naff,  it potentially puts you on edge too – like an animal instinct. If the subconscious signals you are putting out into the home environment or the way in which you are interacting feels strained, your stress will be affecting your kids. It’s not likely to encourage them to be relaxed either. Stoking the stress fire some more with heated interactions.  So now everybody needs to calm down!  Shouting about shoes in the hallway, laundry found on the floor? Shouting more often than you aren’t and the volume levels are consistently going up? 

People photo created by yanalya – www.freepik.com

What can you do to manage stress before it gets to this point? 

• Know your stress triggers, and increase your awareness through diary or journaling
• Reduce alcohol or substance intake, even caffeine can have an effect so noticing what your body reacts to can help you make the changes that work for you.
• Take action before it gets too bad
• Exercise, walk, run, jog, dance around the house – movement is brilliant
• Breathing exercises or mindfulness
  

Develop a regular practice of taking note of your own feelings, or doing something for yourself, to maintain your own mental and emotional wellbeing. This will help keep stress levels low.

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. – Sydney J. Harris

How might kids behaviour change when they are stressed? 

If stress is affecting your kids, you might start to notice little changes (or big ones) in the way the kids are behaving at home. In really young children, these might be things from being unsettled, restless, a bit more clingy than normal. In infant/primary aged children, they may be grumpy or irritable. You might also see them struggling to sleep. In older kids you might sense that they are withdrawing, answering back, becoming upset, experiencing low mood and more. You can help prevent this – by managing your own stress. The better you look after yourself, the easier the kids will be. 

Managing stress takes practice to figure out what works for you. And sometimes, you need to change things up. If you’re short on time and would like some more ideas – download my free guide for 10 different ways you can take just 10 minutes – these activities can be stretched out or just done in 10 minutes to help you hit refresh.