Parents and Stress

As a Parent, Why Should I learn About Stress?

Because few jobs are as stressful as parenting! Learning to handle stress is vital to the health and happiness of your family. Stress is built into family life. The demands of a career, children, personal needs, your partner, are often at odds. An ability to adapt to change, which is constant in families, will reduce stress. You, your relationship, and children are constantly changing in families - this is natural.

Some Causes of Stress in Families

A poor understanding of children:

A poor understanding of childrens developmental stages and their ability to reason is a common source of stress in many families. Many parents see children as small adults and expect them to act that way. These parents often say to themselves, "All I have to do is explain the golden rule of why you cant do something and they should agree with my wisdom and logic!" When children dont, these parents often feel frustrated, angry, and self-defeating.

Often parents will explain and explain, reason, lecture about the wisdom of their decision. These parents often get emotionally hooked when they fear the child doesnt like their discipline. This is nonsense! The job of a parent is to appropriately discipline their child and not get them to like it or them! Who, after all likes to be disciplined?

Lack of Support:

Parenting takes time and energy - a lot of each! At times parents may have trouble meeting childrens needs and their own. As well, conflict between couples over small things like co-parenting styles (how to teach about trust) often camouflages the values (i.e. trust, honesty, respect) they agree upon. Without support from the extended family, friends, and community, many parents become worn out.

Today, while parents more than ever are informed about how to parent successfully, there is less support from the extended family, neighbourhood, and community for parents than in the past. This leaves many parents with a greater sense of responsibility and less time to "do it all"! Add to this the dual-career or dual-pay cheque family and working out co-parenting strategies becomes more important.

The Myth of the Perfect Family:

Some parents judge their family against an imaginary "perfect family". The pressure to live up to this false ideal leads to stress. Usually because it is impossible! Thus, believing in the perfect family is a recipe for failure!

Low Self-Concept:

Many parents are unsure of their parenting skills. After all, who took Parenting 101 in school or university? Parents with low self-concept have trouble taking the ups and downs of family life in stride. As well, developmental transitions of family life (first child, school age, adolescence, etc.) become times of stress rather than times of celebration! The inability to deal with a new stage becomes frustrating and is seen as a personal failure.

Other Sources:

How Stress Affects the Family

The whole family may suffer when parents are under stress. Thats because stress on a parent can lead to:

1. Abusive Behaviour

Stress can wear down a parents self-control. At these times, often disciplining children will include high emotion when stress is high. This results with the parent lashing out - often at children - over simple things.

2. Depression

Stress can make life seem hopeless. It can weaken the will to work, to care for others, even to live.

3. Illness

Stress related illnesses can affect everyone in the family. Stress can show up as chronic headaches, stomach aches, ulcer, nervous break down, heart problems, to name a few. Check with a doctor if you notice any stress related body responses.

4. Abuse of Alcohol and other drugs

A parent may turn to alcohol or drugs for relief from stress. Instead the parent finds more stress - and trouble. Parents who rely on drugs or alcohol often become emotionally unavailable to their spouse and their children.

5. Damaged Relationships

Stress can make a parent irritable. Stress and irritability may be shared by other family members, and affect how they treat each other. Stress can also create distance between you and the people you love. Over time this might affect a family in areas such successfully resolving conflicts, affairs, sense of safety and belonging.

Coping With Stress

This is one of the most important jobs as a parent. You are not only coping with your own stress, but you are indirectly teaching your children how to cope with stress as well. Here are four tips!

1. Learn to manage anger and frustration

Recognize your feelings. Anger and frustration are nothing to be ashamed of - all parents have these feelings sometimes. Face up to your feelings - it's the first step in gaining control over them.

Find out what causes your anger and frustration. Try to notice relationships, issues, even time of the day that tend to lead to trouble. Avoid difficult situations whenever possible, but be realistic too!

Find an appropriate outlet for frustration. Read a magazine, call a friend, or go for a walk.

Communicate your feelings in a positive way. The next time someone upsets you say what you feel about the problem behaviour, not the person who did it. Avoid "getting into it" when your emotions are high, take a break and wait for the feelings to pass.

Get help if necessary. If you're having trouble expressing your feelings in a positive way, don't shut others out - ask for help.

Above all be patient with yourself! Learning to deal with your feelings takes time. Especially if you have never learned to accept and address them while growing up. Expect to make mistakes now and then - and try to learn from them. you are not perfect - your are human. And, remember to keep a sense of humour - learning to laugh at yourself or situations can be relieving.

2. Find Sources of Support

Stress is not new and you're not alone! Look closely and you will see it all around you. Businesses often have stress workshops for their employees, schools offer seminars to students, colleges provide community courses, and health units give talks on stress. Find out what is available in the community and learn more about what you can do.

Build a support network. don't underestimate the importance of family and friends. Talk with them often. Share your concerns, and ask for help when you need it. Offer your support in return.

Communities often offer services that can help you and your family. Many communities offer emergency aid, sick child care, home health visits, after school programs, and more.

Stress can make a parent irritable and damage all sorts of important relationships: couple, parent/child, extended family, co-worker, etc. Stress and irritability may be in turn shared by other family members, and affect how they treat one another.

Stress left unattended can lead to illness. Being a martyr or not knowing how to take care of yourself is not modelling self care to your children. Think about what you are teaching your children about how to be a woman or a man when you do not take time to care for yourself as a person. People under too much stress may develop heart disease and other illnesses. In turn, illness of a parent can cause even more stress for the family.

A parent may turn to alcohol or other drugs for relief from stress. Instead, the parent finds more stress - and trouble!

3. Learn more about parenting

A key to rewarding family relationships is feeling confident, comfortable, and competent as a parent. To do this you need to learn about children - and specifically each of your children. Remember children are not small adults. They have their own ways of thinking and growing. They usually don't misbehave on purpose.

Learning to understand your children and their behaviour can make your job as a parent less stressful. If you think there is a problem with your child - hearing problem, learning disability, chronic behaviour problem - then get help. For example, knowing that your child has a short term memory problem may help you feel better about what you are dealing with and help you structure their lives in a more productive, less frustrating way for both of you.

Discipline is a major challenge for all many parents. The most common problem is disciplining your child and then getting them to like it. Without planning and communication between parents about the goals of discipline- it can be ineffective and even harmful.

Understand the difference between discipline and punishment. Positive discipline helps children learn.

There are numerous parenting workshops focusing on specific age groups - from infants to teens. These are good ways to learn about effective parents as well as reinforce what you are already doing well! Programs are often available through schools, health centres, The Ministry for Children and Families, counselling services, and community centres.

4. Take care of yourself and your couple relationship

A common problem for many couples is when the first child comes along, the focus changes without a lot a previous talk or understanding of how children impact the couple couple relationship. Role expectations about what it means to be a mother and father suddenly come forth. As well, expectations that you have for your partner and this new role emerge.

A few years into child rearing it is no unusual for couples to they have no time for themselves, let alone the couple relationship. Couples who do not take care of their emotional well being are destined to have more problems. A big risk is growing apart emotionally.

First, in order to maintain your own well being, set aside a few minutes each week to nurture yourself. Read a book, take a bath while the other parent trouble shoots, go for a walk, connect with a friend, etc. Learn what to do to energize yourself emotionally and physically.

Secondly, identify and protect some couple time once a week. Your children need to learn to respect your couple time. Leaving your children with a babysitter teaches them to trust that you will return. Remember children will take all the time and energy that you give them - that is their job! It is your job to make time for your relationship. It is a positive when couples take time for themselves. If you are having a problem with this idea, reflect on what you are teaching them about maintaining their own relationships as adults? What do you want them to learn from you as how to take care of yourself?

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References