Stress is the short and long-term physical or mental response to an external cause. As life is full of changes and challenges, it is normal for everyone to feel stressed from time to time. Still, chronic stress can cause serious physical and mental health problems.
Especially for kids, dealing with stress for a long time can cause some dangerous health issues that may affect their long-term success in life.
Individuals experience and perceive stressful situations in various ways according to their personal traits, such as age, characteristics, and gender. Thus, stress response and coping skills can be different for kids when compared to adults.
In this blog, we want to help you out with this process by giving tips for helping kids manage stress. In the following sections, you will learn the signs, effects, and causes of stress and find useful stress management strategies.
Dealing with stress alone can be daunting for kids. Thus, parents and family members play a great role in helping kids while they are coping with stress. As a parent, you probably wonder how you can help your kid's stress management process to provide them with a healthier life.
Well, the first step to supporting your kids in this process is to observe them in stressful situations and try to understand their reactions. Then, you can adopt some habits to help them cope with stressful situations.
Before moving on to ways to improve stress management in kids, let's start with the basics and explain when and how children get stressed.
Even though kids can react differently under tense situations, typically, kids show these common signs when they are stressed:
Stress management is one of the most significant skills to gain for kids as it directly affects their academic life, as well as their physical and mental health. Kids with weak stress coping skills might underperform in school and be unmotivated towards learning.
Considering that tests and grades are one of the biggest stress factors for kids, it is true that kids need to be supported with fun and educational activities to overcome the effects of stress.
If you are looking for entertaining activities to make your kid stress-free while strengthening their cognitive skills, you should dive into MentalUP educational games! 🥳
MentalUP offers more than 150 brain training games and 240 fitness exercises for kids of all ages. By including only 20 minutes of MentalUP activities in your kid’s daily routine, you can help your kid be more successful at school and overcome stress! 😌✨
As stress and health are directly related to each other, being in stressful situations can trigger changes in kids physically, mentally, and emotionally.
| Effects of Stress on Kids’ Bodies | Effects of Stress on Kids’ Minds | Effects of Stress on Kids’ Behaviors |
|---|---|---|
| Weight gain | Concentration problems | Anxiety |
| Dizziness | Poor impulse control | New or recurring rears |
| High blood pressure | Impaired cognition, learning, and memory | Anger, crying, whining |
| Weakened immunity | Aggressive or stubborn behavior | |
| Headaches | ||
| Diabetes | ||
| Heart problems |
Together with sudden and disruptive changes, kids also feel stressed when they have daily problems in their school and family lives. Typically, common stress sources for kids include:
Facing stressful situations is a fact of life for children. Thus, as parents, the best way to help your kids manage stress is to teach them coping strategies to overcome high-pressure situations.
Luckily, there are a lot of stress management strategies for parents to teach their kids how to overcome stressful situations. These stress management strategies mostly include activities that will make kids feel healthier and happier. To be more precise, let’s explore these strategies with some useful tips.
We all know that exercise is beneficial for both the body and mind. In fact, exercising has positive effects on kids’ confidence, self-esteem, cognitive skills, and ability to deal with stress.
Research shows that kids with higher levels of physical activity are also happier. So if you want to strengthen the stress management skills of your children, you can add fun gymnastics games, fitness activities, and exercises for kids to their daily routines.
Do you need entertaining and beneficial fitness activities to support your kid’s mental and physical health? MentalUP is here to help! 🤩✨
MentalUP recently released its fitness feature, including more than 240 fun fitness exercises for strength, stretching, cardio, balance, and fun fitness exercises for kids! 👟🤸
The award-winning app makes kids love exercising for a healthier lifestyle while reducing stress. 😊
With MentalUP, it only takes 20 minutes daily to support your kid’s stress management and cognitive skills anytime, anywhere! 🥳
Kids feel supported when they realize that they are listened to and understood. Especially in stressful situations, they might need a supportive and empathetic conversation with their parents or family members.
Oftentimes, it can be challenging for parents to have healthy conversations with their kids. In this situation, you can use these strategies to reduce the stress that your kid is experiencing:
If you think that talking with your kid is not enough to help them overcome their stress, you can always ask for medical advice from a psychiatrist to help your kids talk it out more.
Overscheduled plans and school tasks might cause kids to feel stressed and be less inclined to play games.
By encouraging your kids to play fun and educational brain games, you can help them overcome stressful situations and improve their cognitive skills.
In MentalUP, you can find 150+ brain games to support your kid’s stress management process and foster their intelligence. 💭🧩🏆
Designed by academicians, pedagogues, and game developers, MentalUP offers a safe learning environment for kids to learn by playing games. 🚀📈
Get started with MentalUP to reduce your kids' stress with fun games and activities! 🙌
Practicing mindfulness games and exercises can ease the stress and anxiety of kids by shifting their focus from negative thoughts to the present moment.
Mindfulness exercises for kids might include:
Naturally, parents want to fix problems for their kids when they feel that they are struggling with stressful situations. Still, it is not the best idea to solve kids’ problems instead of teaching them how to generate solutions.
Thus, instead of fixing your kid’s problems, you should enhance their stress management skills by showing them ways to generate solutions in stressful situations. This can help them build better confidence in themselves in the long term.
Obviously, helping kids manage stress is a long and complicated process for parents. Still, we know that with the right time and effort, it is possible to make your kids healthier and happier. All you need to do is be patient and teach them how to healthily cope with stress. We are sure that you will rock it.
Good luck!