By Gwen Chambers
While some stress is positive when teaching children that life isn’t always about having fun, some stress can negatively influence a young child’s attitude about school.
When your child makes comments that indicate a disinterest in school or a dislike of a teacher, this may be the red-flag that you as a parent need to stop, listen and make some changes. Many parents attribute the negative comments a child makes about school to a bad mood or an attempt to avoid doing schoolwork. Those comments can, however, also indicate the beginning stages of a bigger issue -- stress.
Studies have shown that children as young as 4-years old can have stress or “study stress”. Why does this occur?
- High expectations
A recent Newsweek article, entitled "The New First Grade: Too Much Too Soon", highlighted the fact that children entering elementary school today are expected to come to school prepared for an intensely competitive environment. "Kids as young as 6 are tested, and tested again, to ensure they're making sufficient progress. Then there's homework, more workbooks and tutoring." Children are pushed to get good grades in order to attend the best colleges. While starting good study habits early is important, pressuring them to do things that won’t affect them for many years can be stressful.
- Overscheduling
Tae-Kwon-Do, ballet, soccer, piano, and chess lessons after school? Most can remember a time when we did our homework and went out to play (unsupervised). It's a whole new world. Today's schools offer after-school programs that extend the school day to accommodate dual career and solo parents. Parents schedule supervised activities to keep their children occupied on the weekend. Even playdates are planned around a specific activity and time-frame.
We're raising our children to adhere to a pretty tight schedule. Inherent in scheduling is the stress to stick to the schedule. If a child, for example, stays late at school to attend an “enrichment program”, it delays homework completion. The child is then rushed to complete homework, eat dinner, bathe and get ready for bed at a reasonable hour so that they can start the whole routine the next morning. This kind of routine can be taxing on a young child.
Controlling stress starts at home. There are lots of things parents can do to incorporate stress reduction techniques into daily life:
- Schedule time for unstructured play
Children learn a lot by interacting through free play with you, their siblings and their peers. Ask your child to make up a game to play or make up a story and watch your child come alive.
- Offer more variety
Help your children take an active part in making decisions on the activities they participate in. Encourage older children to research activities, hobbies and skills to explore. They can get ideas by surveying friends on what they do for fun, or get ideas from books, TV or online.
- Help your child make decisions and help them succeed
Let your children know, in advance, the time and effort required to reach some level of competency (piano lessons, for example). It's important for a child to learn the discipline of working through something hard to reap the suceess. This is what helps build that indominable spirit we call confidence.
It's also important, however, to let children opt out of an activity that no longer holds their interests. Boxing great, Evander Holyfield often tells a story about how his mother would only allow him to make the decision to quit boxing after he had defeated an opponent. As a teen, Evander Holyfield recounts how he wanted to quit everytime he lost, but after winning he never wanted to stop.
Encourage your children to provide you regular feedback on what they like and dislike about their current activities, classes and experiences inside and outside of school. Also give your children choices when you can. For example, consider setting a mutually agreed upon time frame or achievement level at which your child can make the decision to opt out of an activity that no longer holds their interest.
- Encourage open dialogue about schoolwork
Initiate conversations that let your child know that they can feel comfortable asking questions about assignments and problems they don’t understand. Relatedly, help make learning fun and relevant. For example, if they are learning fractions, help them with a cooking project using measuring cups on a weekend. See Kids in the Kitchen by Mary Moss.
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Teach your child coping and stress reduction techniques
Encourage children to take deep breaths or count backwards to address the frustrating times that are sure to occur.
- Build confidence
Encourage positive self-talk when your child is tackling a challenge and celebrate successes.
- Get help when you need it
Work with teachers to help diagnose issues before they erode a child’s self confidence.
If you'd like to read more about this topic, here are a few recommended online resources:
About the Author:
Mother of two young children, Gwen Chambers is the founder of HobbyMatch.com. She's in active battle against overscheduling, balancing the high expectations of her children's pre-school and elementary school.
