When we are helping our kids to be better people, there is a lot of talk about circumstances being “character building”. And this is usually just an excuse for putting our children through something really stressful or something that they really cannot cope with. But, is there any valid point in putting our children through stressful situations? How much should we really expose our children to stress and change?
Coping With The Grieving Process
If we are to support our children, especially if there are things going on in the family that require them to process information in a certain manner, we have to expect some form of stress. But at the same time, if it's something like your parents or grandparents, having to go into a home, if they feel powerless to do anything about it, this could make them feel more stressed. As such, a better solution would be to have them be involved in the process. For something like their grandparents going into a home, they could benefit from having a part in the decision-making process. They could go on a website like https://www.pegasussenorliving.com/ so they can provide a valid contribution, rather than just sitting there feeling anxious about what's going to happen to their beloved grandparent. And it's these more productive aspects of stress that can have a positive outcome.
Increasing Their Comfort Zone
When it comes to something like grief or stress, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. But what we can do as parents is that if we feel our children get stressed about seemingly minor problems, we have to work at increasing their comfort zone, while at the same time, improving their confidence. When it comes to something like grief, or family troubles, they can feel out of their depth, but they can also feel powerless to do anything. And this is why we have to work at increasing their comfort zone and give them the essential building blocks so they can tackle these problems. It's more difficult with younger children, and this article on https://www.todaysparent.com/ highlights what can happen when children are put through a lot of stress, and they end up regressing.
It's very much a situation where you have to tread carefully depending on their age. Ultimately when there are preschoolers and children under 10 going through a stressful situation, you've got to be there for them in as many ways as possible, but then there is a point where they have to learn how to rely on their own resilience, rather than having us hand support to them on a plate. Gradually increasing their comfort zone can work wonders so they start to gain more perspective in terms of stress.
They say that a little bit of stress is good for us, but too much is detrimental. And when it comes to our children, a lot of people will say that being put in difficult situations is character building, but when it comes to exposing our children to stress, we've got to manage the situation carefully. If we don't have any control over the stress they are feeling, this will impact their mental health over time. There are going to be numerous changes in life, and we need to provide our children with the toolkit to go through these problems.
