Does Your Stress Affect the Children in Your Life?
Our Stress = Their Stress!
We all know that we are living in stressful times. As adults, we are thinking about Covid, flu, politics, the environment, the economy and more! I don’t mean to stress you out right from the start of this article! However, the first step in dealing with anything, stress included, is acknowledging it. Much has been written on how stress affects our physical, mental and emotional health. As caregivers, educators and families, everything we say and do impacts the children in our lives as well. They learn from us how to handle stress. They also feel the stress that we are under, even if we are not talking to them about it.
You have heard the phrase “Little pitchers have big ears.” It makes sense to us if children hear or witness adults arguing or lashing out at another person or even yelling to themselves when angry and stressed. But what about the more subtle effects of stress on us and how it might be taken in by the children around us. Our own stress or anxiety have been linked to our children’s emotional problems, including behavior issues, aggression, anxiety, and depression (FIELDS et al., 2021).
Think about how you view the world, your schedule, your environment, and the people around you when you are already stressed about things seemingly unrelated. Are you impatient, quick to judge, noticing the negatives around you? The research shows that is what happens to most of us when we are experiencing stress.
In an article in US News and World Report, the author shares their experience as a counselor. “Kids of all ages who I see in my office often tell me that their parents are stressed.
Sometimes they describe the morning stress that starts their days off on a negative note – yelling, rushing and more yelling before they even leave the house. Others talk about the evening stress: They’re late for a sport, they haven’t finished their homework and dinner isn’t ready.
Parents are often surprised by how much their kids seem to notice at home. It’s the natural instinct of the parent to protect the child from negativity and grownup problems. But kids are naturally curious and intuitive. They know when something is amiss and may expend great effort to understand the problem. Kids also tend to internalize that stress and react accordingly.” (US News and World Report 4/21/17).
As educators, we know that our words and behavior are no less of an influence on the children in our care than that of their family members. Family and educators under stress impacts children, whether it be angry words or the added stress they sense from the adults they depend upon for security. Even when adults are able to remain calm and avoid yelling, children pick up on the tension and experience stress, anxiety and other negative emotions.
Children are sponges, after all – and we all know this intuitively. And there’s a small but intriguing body of evidence suggesting that beyond a child’s disposition, an adult's stress level can affect a child’s very makeup, including their risk of mood disorders, addiction, and even disorders like ADHD and autism.
Teachers play a huge role in our children’s lives. While most parents are painfully aware that their own stress affects their child, they rarely consider the effects of teachers' stress. Children in childcare may spend as many as 12 hours, 5 days a week with their caregivers/teachers. And from the age of 5 to 18 children spend about 1000 hours, each year, in school.
A recent report, from the Robert Johnson Foundation (RJF), reveals high levels of stress in the teaching profession and this is having a big impact on our children, (BabyMed 6/5/20).
Children’s experiences in early learning environments are critical for developmental outcomes. A growing body of research on preschool settings indicates that high quality interactions between teachers and students foster children’s academic and social-emotional readiness skills (Burchinal, Zaslow, & Tarullo, 2016; Raver et al., 2011; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). At the same time, literature reports that teachers’ experience with stress can reduce the quality of these important interactions with students (Li-Grining et al., 2010; Yoon, 2002).
Stressed teachers without the emotional resources to meet the challenges of teaching have poorer quality interactions with their students. Consequently, students spend more time off task and show more problem behaviors, which in turn, produce a more stressful classroom climate. The stressful classroom climate leads to more challenge, stress, and exhaustion for the teacher and the cascade continues (Jennings and Greenberg’s (2009).
As teachers and family members, we must recognize when we are under stress. Then, we must share with our children in developmentally appropriate ways that we are upset or concerned about something and that they are not to blame. We must find ways to support each other. In our programs we need to have a system which allows us to “take a time out”, even if it is to step aside and take several deep breaths. We also must create an environment where children feel safe to share their feelings, observations, and concerns. First come recognition, then acknowledgement, and lastly management of our stress is what we can do to minimize the stress we bring to our interactions with the children (and adults) we care for.
This article is part of our Winter 2023 Newsletter. See all articles.
