Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
Considering Kids and Stress, Part II

Lisa Belkin, of the New York Times, takes a more in-depth look at the American Psychological Assocation’s recent “Stress in America” report that I mentioned earlier, drawing attention to some of the statistics that I glossed over.

(The disparity between children’s stress levels concerning certain things and how little their parents recognise those levels is particularly interesting. I can only conclude that most adults are really, really bad at understanding and sympathising with children – sometimes especially their own.)

Belkin also considers recent research that looked at stress and college students. Gee, that’s unfortunately all too familiar.

Nov 07, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

Stress Greatly Impacts Today's Kids

By Daniel Bigler :: Thursday November 5, 2009

Increasingly, health and psychology professionals as well as the public at large are recognising that adults aren’t the only ones impacted by stress – children are as well.

In what could probably be considered a milestone, the American Psychological Association included children, for the first time, in their annual survey of stress in America. USA Today has a run-down of the results of the survey, which cites school and their family’s finances as chief among the things that children were concerned about in their lives.

A major thing that sticks out as perhaps unexpected: full schedules of activities for children don’t particularly seem to affect their stress levels. It’s one area most adults worry is particularly stressful for kids – fearing children might be getting burnt out from doing too much, whether they’re “losing out on childhood.” Interestingly, most kids didn’t mind it at all.

Gabby and Izzy Cano, 11-year-old twins from Alexandria, Va., are cases in point. The sixth-graders are involved in lots of activities, but their busy lives don’t seem to cause them much stress.

They’re leaders on the student council at school, where Izzy is president and Gabby is secretary. They’re wrapping up soccer season (three times a week) and will start a weekly dance class this winter. They also take weekly cooking classes and are enrolled in violin lessons at school. “Sometimes it’s pretty busy, but it’s not too busy,” Izzy says.

I suppose that certainly does highlight how adults’ sociological concepts of what is and should be “childhood” – including our own Western idealised hopes for our children to experience a care-free, blissful growing-up, wrought out of a “Leave it to Beaver” nostalgia – often don’t match up with the real thing, or even what kids want for that matter.

I don’t want to read too far into this without consulting kids, but I might guess that children ultimately just want to feel a sense of connectedness and engagement to a broader life and culture, in some way. Many kids fulfil this need on their own, through their own unique, peer-based communities and by “hanging out” – but perhaps they’re also generally alright with meeting this need through programming and activities.

Another gem from the survey:

63% of the 235 parents who were among participating adults said they believed their stress levels had slight or no influence on their child’s stress levels.

I’m just blown away by that number – which of course doesn’t reflect the reality of kids. How can such an overwhelming percentage of parents believe their lives and behaviour doesn’t have an effect on their kids? Naturally children’s social relationships and the well-being of the people around them are going to be a profound role in the well-being of children’s own lives.

To end with, an ultimate reminder of how truly connected kids are to the broader world, even when we think they aren’t paying attention or don’t care:

Gabby Cano says she sometimes worries “about the problems of the world.”

“You kind of want to help, but it’s not easy to know what to do.”

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Helping Kids Cope with Stress

I’m a bit sick of solution-touting parenting books, but I don’t really mind the idea behind this one: Helping parents recognise when their own child is stressed, and helping them process that stress.

I’m glad the idea that stress can equally affect children as well as adults is making it out into the public sphere, and I often wonder if we truly underestimate how stressed some of the children in our communities become. Unfortunately, “every day” stress on kids is a relatively new topic of study among academics and we just don’t know much about it.

Dr. Michele Borba has a few (uggh) “tips” for parents, though, about how they might recognise an stressed-out kid:

Think stress is just for adults? Not these days. In fact, a recent iVillage poll found that almost 90 percent of mothers think kids these days are far more stressed than when they themselves were growing up. Research finds that between 8 and 10 percent of American children are seriously troubled by stress and symptoms; if left untreated, stress can not only affect your child’s friendships and school success but also his physical and emotional well-being. Overscheduled days, competition, school, treadmill-paced lives, home problems, scary nightly news, and stressed-out parents are just a few contributors.

Interesting that the sources of stress she lists are almost universally parent-afflicted.

Sep 10, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #