Is My Child Stressed or Possessed?

A spinning head and pea-soup-green projectile vomit were the only two things my sweet four-year-old daughter hadn’t conjured in her latest tantrum…over the fact that her socks had seams. (Curse you, evil sock seams.) It was about a week into my husband’s deployment and I was at wits’ end with all the drama. It took me a time out (for both of us) and a call to my girlfriend before I connected the dots that this was probably the only way my daughter knew how to express the stress she was feeling. I wasn’t sold on my friend’s assessment at first, but in the end it was the only thing that fully explained the insanity that had possessed my house over the last week.

Kids carry stress differently than adults and they express it differently too. What stresses out one child, may not bother another and the same principle applies to what works best to relieve the stress for each child. Your child may be feeling stressed if you notice any of the following signs:

• Changes in sleep, bedwetting
• Headaches, stomach aches, fatigue
• Mood swings, emotional outbursts
• Trouble concentrating, decreased performance in school
• Anxiety, chest pain, rapid heartbeat, chewing fingernails
• Social isolation, withdrawal from usual activities
• Physical aggression or negative talk about themselves or others

Once I understood that my daughter was feeling stressed, it made sense and I was a bit relieved to know we could work on learning how to handle stress together. I’m sure she could sense how stressed I was and that probably made her even more sensitive to what she was dealing with. We’d had that typical first week of deployment when everything breaks and it threw us off of our schedule on top of missing our sailor. So now, all I had to do was figure out how to teach her more productive ways of dealing with stress. After talking with other parents and reading articles, I found the following strategies worked for us and I hope they will help you too.

Discuss stress with your child. Let your kids know it is normal and that everyone experiences stress. Ask what they think the word stress means and when they have experienced it. Their answer will help guide you on how to talk about stress in terms they can understand.

Remember that stress affects everyone differently. What may stress out your child may not faze you and vice versa. If you have multiple children, remember they will each handle stress differently too.

Share with your kids some healthy ways to deal with stress.

1. Physical activity – This can be anything from playing an organized sport or working out at a gym to dancing in the living room. (When my son was little we would take a walk or he would ride his bike while I walked and we both felt better afterward.)
2. Relaxation strategies – There are many strategies, but the two that worked well for us were the progressive muscle relaxation (Start with toes and work your way to your head by tensing each muscle for 5 seconds and relax it for 30 seconds before going to the next muscle) and coloring or drawing together.
3. Breathing techniques – Get in a comfortable position and concentrate on your breathing. Count to five while you inhale and count to 10 when you exhale. Repeat until you feel more relaxed.
4. Mindfulness – Pay attention to stress in the moment and make a purposeful choice to respond, not react. Take a deep breath and think about what you are going to do before you do it.

Model healthy ways of dealing with stress. Actions speak louder than words and kids are little sponges that soak up everything they see and hear. Be a healthy example for your kids and practice ways to deal with stress together. It’s good for them to know that parents struggle too, but even better for them to know that you keep working at it.

Replace some screen time with quality time together. Sometimes the quickest way to relieve stress is simply to spend time with those you love. Take your child on a hike, cuddle up and read a favorite or new book, play a board game or with play clay together, get out of the house and have an adventure.

My kids and I are still learning together to deal with stress in healthy ways, because life still happens. I’m so thankful for my milspouse friends that have helped guide me from their experiences and I hope that our family’s experience can help yours.