Is stress good for our kids?

Stress is demand of the physiology of your body and it is a normal part of everyday life.

“Stress is essential to healthy development, and it is the essential element of building resilience” Bruce Perry.   That is, GOOD stress (challenges), which should be moderate, predictable, and controllable.

Good stress builds resilience, each time you put yourself in a stressful situation that is predictable and controllable then your brain is activated…. we build confidence and have thoughts like ‘I can do this’ ‘I am good enough’. 

This builds resilience and resilience is the ability to be able to respond to stress and then return to regulation. 

If we want to be able to do well in life (school, work, relationships etc) we need to be able handle stress. 

The best time and most important time to build resilience (tolerance to GOOD stress) is in our childhood years, when our brain is developing and when we have lots of supports around us.

So, as children grow and gradually experience GOOD stress (school, exams, sport, social stress etc etc) they build resilience to life challenges which prepares them to leave home.

Unpredictable, chaotic, and uncontrollable stress that is prolonged creates vulnerabilities and sometimes even mental health issues.

The best way to implement predictable stress (or developmentally appropriate challenges) to kids’ lives is to gentle put them into stressful situations like, first day of school, joining a soccer team, encouraging them with presentations in front of their class, or it can be as simple as allowing your child to walk into the shop to buy the milk (for older kids). 

The tasks (& stress) involved in getting ready for school (walking up, breakfast, uniform, shoes, socks, siblings, etc etc all in a time frame) is sooooo important in building resilience and life skills…… as simple as it sounds to us!!!!

Remember to give kids developmentally appropriate levels of challenge, so you wouldn’t expect a 5-year-old to go into the shop alone and buy the milk, but you would a 14-year-old. 

Some kids need more support than others and need you to hold their hand the first few times and just be there, but if you persist over time, they will gain their confidence to face the next challenge.  The goal is that children feel like they have succeeded! We want kids to master activities. 

When implementing challenges try to make it consistent and weaved into the weekly routine as the predictability of the stress (or challenge) creates a sense of safety.