Help children to cope with stress

IT should not be surprising that a recent World Vision household survey found children experiencing a sharp rise in stress and mental illness during the Covid-19 lockdown, with their parents loss of income and lockdown stress, etc.

As parents play a key role in easing their kids’ stress, experts emphasise that anxious parents or carers who unduly share their stress may raise a generation of nervous children as anxiety in children is “learned” from adult’s behaviour.

The key is for parents to teach children the skills to be resilient, calm and think logically, and generally to make them “mentally fit”.

Besides spending quality time with their children, the following tips for parents may help anxious children:

> Listen carefully to your child’s emotional responses and worries;

> Review your child’s reactions and help them with logical explanations to relieve their anxieties;

> Help your child to think positively and understand that Covid-19 fears are short term; and,

> Develop your child’s social and personal skills which can make a big difference to your child’s level of anxiety.

Ultimately, it’s not about you as your job as a parent and role model is to be your child’s “coach” to facilitate their ability to look at things positively, and to help reduce their stress and anxieties.

Sze Loong Steve Ngeow

Kajang