It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Or is it? On the one hand, there is the delicious suspense of gifts hidden away for the big day. There is a barrage of sweet treats at school parties and holiday celebrations with our faith communities. On the other hand, our schedules turn upside down, and bedtimes shift. The colors, lights, scents, and sounds of the season overwhelm the senses. Adults learn over years of holiday experiences how to manage the differences the holidays bring. But how do we teach our kids to manage their stress when consistency, predictability, and calm fly out the window like reindeer taking flight?

Trauma Makes Kids Susceptible to Stress

In a recent CreatingaFamily.org interview with Dr. Stuart Shanker, he said there is no such thing as a bad, lazy, or stupid kid. However, the trauma that many of our kids have experienced can impact their brains, making them hypersensitive to stress. Their response to that sensitivity shows up in their behavior: meltdowns, outbursts, shutting down, procrastination, avoidance, and other dysregulation.

Parenting a Child Exposed to Trauma: get a free guide!

The good news is that everyone can learn to self-regulate in moments of stress. Our kids can learn to manage stress in ways that promote growth rather than constrict development.

It’s also good news that there is no such thing as a “fixed outcome” when we are helping our kids learn new ways to manage their stress. The trajectory of their self-regulation can be changed at any point in their growth when we provide tools to help them improve.

Five Steps for Helping Your Kids Manage Stress

Our kids want (and need!) our guidance to handle the big emotions that create stress and dysregulation inside them. We must learn how to manage our big feelings to lead them toward new skills and healthy behavior changes that they can adapt for themselves.

Dr. Shanker offered practical help with this five-step method for managing stress.

1. Reframe your child’s behavior.

Observe your child in both calm and challenging moments. Learn the difference between their misbehavior and stress behaviors. How do stress behaviors show up for this child? When your child is having a meltdown or any other stress response, ask yourself why they are feeling stressed, as well as why now. Trace the line from their behavior to the instigating stressor. Use what you observe to help you reframe their behavior to a stress response rather than willful disobedience or non-compliance.

2. Become a “stress detective.”

Consider the typical stressors appropriate to your child’s age. Here are a few examples. We’ve made them specific to the holiday season for timely, practical help.

  • Bright lights, holiday music, once-a-year aromas of holiday foods, irregular schedules, and exhaustion may stress your infant or toddler.
  • A school-age child might feel dysregulated by too many sweets at the school party, a late bedtime after last night’s Winter concert, or expectations around the traditional family dinner at Grandma’s.
  • Tweens and teens could be dealing with stressors like grades or homework going into Winter Break, peer relationships, gift expectations and exchanges, hormonal changes, and exhaustion from irregular routines.

Think also about the “hidden stressors” that lead to delayed responses and thus impact their behavior later.

  • Did your child watch a scary movie that later disrupted their sleep?
  • Are they melting down today because yesterday’s visit with their birth parent was triggering?
  • Did frosting (and eating!) holiday cookies before bedtime interrupt sleep as their body processed the sugar?

The clues are in your child’s behavior. Tracing connections between the stressors and the impacts will be unique to each child. We understand your frustration! Your job is more complicated if several children are having stress responses simultaneously. However, do your best and be patient as you untangle the lines from stressor to behavior.

3. Reduce Stress Where You Can.

Parents and caregivers can frequently sense or see when a meltdown is coming. If your child is already in or approaching a stressful state, step in. Help them take a detour to reduce or turn off the pending stress response before it escalates.

You can start by making physical contact – with their permission if they are ramping up – to help ward off a more significant stress response. You could give a hug, a back scratch, holding hands, or a shoulder rub.

Building Resilience: Helping Our Kids Overcome a Traumatic Background

Here’s a pro tip: try talking in a calm, peaceful moment about what type of touch they would welcome when dysregulated. It gives them agency over their body, a voice in the process, and control when they may have experienced loss of control previously.

Other methods of reducing stress and preventing dysregulation might include:

  • Dimming the lights or turning them off
  • Turning on instrumental music
  • Talking it out or doing deep breathing together
  • Trampoline time or riding a bike
  • Warm shower or bath
  • Finger painting, crafting, or building blocks
  • Singing at the top of your lungs together
  • Playing with or petting the family dog or cat

None of the preventative stress reducers need to be a big event. Please work with your child to incorporate them in significant and small moments of your day. You will tell them that stress management is for all kinds of stress across the day.

4. Pause to Reflect.

We can help our kids recognize what dysregulation feels like by naming the physical sensations and the emotions they are experiencing. However, it’s just as critical that we teach our kids to pause and express how it feels to be calm and regulated. Name the sensations and the differences they can identify between stress and calm.

For example, your young child might label their dysregulation as anger. Their body feels hot and sweaty. Their face is red and itchy. Anger feels different than happiness because “happy” is soft and warm inside. Their face smiles, and their eyes crinkle.

Once you’ve helped your child pause and reflect on the sensations and experiences of regulation vs. dysregulation, revisit the stress reduction tools you worked on together in the previous step.

It will take time to break the cycle of chronic dysregulation. Your child will need you to work with them (co-regulation) to master self-regulation. However, once they get it, you will see them return to a calm state much more quickly. You will also likely see a boost in their confidence!

5. Pursue restoration.

When your child’s stress response has resolved, it’s crucial to help them experience the feelings of restoration. Dysregulation drains their energy and emotional balance. It also puts a strain on their relationship with you. Plan restorative activities that make them feel good about themselves.

  • Watch a favorite funny holiday movie together.
  • Make a traditional family food to share.
  • Sing carols or traditional hymns at the top of your lungs.
  • Snuggle under a cozy blanket and read together.
  • Make snowflakes and hang them in the doorway or window.

No matter how intense those moments of dysregulation get between you, remember how far the phrases “I’m sorry,” or “I love you” will go in restoring their relationship with you.

Learning to Manage Stress is a Life-long Journey.

Of course, stress is not exclusive to the holiday season. It’s a part of life that none of us ever outgrow. Every developmental stage your child experiences will also bring new stressors. It’s common for kids to regress to earlier behaviors when faced with stress. These steps are not a program for managing behavior. Instead, they are a tool to help you understand their stress responses and resulting behavior.

Be patient and give yourself grace as you learn self-regulation – especially if this information is new. Stress management and self-regulation is a life-long learning journey. Communicating honestly with your child that you are also learning these skills will allow them to learn and try out what works for them.

November is National Adoption Month. All kids deserve the benefits of permanency. To learn more, check out The Children’s Bureau National Adoption Month campaign.

Image Credits: Any Lane; Andrea Piacquadio; Askar Abayev