Chapter 7

Introduction:
This chapter will describe the factors that effect the nature of resilience and stress for children. This lecture will show us that children do in fact suffer from stress and their stressors can be quite similar and in some case the same as those experienced by adults. There are certain stages of stress that will be examined as well as some guidelines that will assist us in helping children deal with the stress they encounter.

Learning objectives:
> Define resilience and stress.

> List to major sources of stress and explain how stress can affect children.

> Describe stages in responding to stress.

> Explain the connection between stress and physical health.

> Describe developmentally appropriate strategies for helping children cope with potentially stressful events.

Body of the lecture:
Resilience:
Is a set of qualities enabling a child to adapt successfully in spite of risk and diversity
Protective factors that foster resilience:
* *AUTHORITATIVE CAREGIVING*
* a caring relationship (warm)
* high expectations (reasonable)
* opportunities for participation (valued)

Certain parts of the brain, nervous system, and endocrine system affect one’s reaction to potentially stressful events.

Stressors:
Stress can be either physical or psychological separately or in combination with each other.

PHYSICAL – excessive stimulation that can injure the tissue of some part of a child’s body (i.e. excessively loud noises, infections, drugs, extremely harsh lighting, decreased oxygen, injuries, extreme hot or cold) Prime example of why not to leave your child unattended in a car, especially on a hot day.

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS – excessive stimulation with the potential to threaten a child’s sense of well-being. It is a relationship between the child and their environment.
· Can the child understand and evaluate an event as well as coping with it?
· Psychological stress will occur when the child feels overwhelmed by the inability to cope
· Children will often feel stress when internal/external conditions keep them from meeting a need such as security, bonding, acceptance, status, meaning, and mastery
· What one child may find stressful another may not
· Life events can be “potentially” stressful (i.e. moving)

Acute Stress – (profound, deep, extreme, intense, short-lived) – occurs suddenly and unexpectedly (i.e. emergency room visit for broken arm)
Chronic Stress – (persistent, unceasing, continuous) – like a disease, they will have experienced poverty, illness, abuse, inappropriate parenting, loneliness (no friends)
The effects of chronic stress will seem to accumulate to cause problems even for children who are well adjusted.


Sources of stress can be internal or external
Internal – (i.e. hunger pangs in the neglected infant, or emotional feelings if the child is now shown how to handle)
External – (i.e. coming from the child’s environment such as abuse, neglect, anger, developmentally inappropriate practices, death or injury, moving, divorce.)

How Stress Affects Children
The child under stress would like to say “There’s something wrong in my life”, but may express it in ways such as aggression, lack of concentration, anxiousness.

Physical Effects of Stress
- racing heart, dry mouth, headache, or stomach ache
- stress lowers white blood cell count ; therefore, they have a lowered resistance to infectious diseases

Stressors such as abuse or neglect signal the body to prepare for fight or flight, to defend itself from danger. If a child is in constant threat of abuse they will be in a state of readiness; therefore, the child’s body may produce an excessive amount of stress hormones and an excessively high level of stress hormones can kill brain cells and reduce the number of connections among brain cells (the synapses). Studies have found that abused children’s brains can be up to 30% smaller than the brains of children who don’t experience the stress of child abuse.

Behavioural and Psychological Effects of Stress
...Psychological distress that children feel often shows up as a behaviour. See pg. 179 Figure 7.1(and as previously discussed in Chapter 3 Figure 3.3).

...Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is a psychiatric disorder in childhood. Although it is normal in childhood to test limits, the psychiatric community believes that hostile and openly uncooperative behaviour can become a concern when it is so frequent and consistent that it stands out when compared with other children of the same age and developmental level and when it seriously impairs a child’s functioning.

...Children with this disorder will have frequent tempter tantrums, are touchy and easily annoyed by others, show a lot of resentment and anger and argue frequently with adults. Symptoms of ODD will increase when a child is under stress. One of the treatment methods is training parents.


Stages in Responding to Stress
Alarm – child stops what they are doing and focuses on the potentially stressful event.
Appraisal – this stage is complex and involves review what this event meant in the past.

The following can affect the child’s appraisal:

- developmental level (memory and perception) an older child can evaluate and remember better
- experience with adults – how have they modeled to look at and evaluate events
- self-esteem – if it is positive they will cope better


Searching for a Coping Strategy Possibilities:
1st – the child is familiar with an event, has actively dealt with it in the past and used a good coping strategy = this enables the child to think that he can master the current event
2nd – the child is familiar with an event, has actively dealt with it in the past, but used an ineffective coping strategy = this will make the child wary because they have not figured out how to cope
3rd – the child is familiar with a stressor but has not really dealt with it first hand = second-hand experience will impact emotional or physiological arousal
4th – the child is totally unfamiliar with a stressor = the anxiety the child will experience will depend largely on how the adult plays a role in assisting the child to understand (the adult may consider changing the situation or be a buffer to cushion or “de-mystify” the event)

Coping Effectively with Stressors
~ A person who copes looks for something inside or outside herself to come to terms with stressors.
~ Your goal in working with children is to help them cope as effectively as possible with stressors; however, coping does not mean that the child will necessarily have a happy outcome. (I.e. child abuse)
~ There are different ways to cope with stressors no one way is best for every person, remember children are individuals.
· some people cope by getting information on the stressor through memory (inside) or through help books, therapy etc. (outside)
· some people cope by taking direct action (withdrawing or asserting their rights (i.e. parent takes time to cool down when angry with child)
· some people cope by restraining movements or actions
· some people cope by denying or avoiding the problem (defense mechanism)
~ To cope well you have to be able to think about more than one thing at a time – consider options from different angles:
· you must be able to problem solve – categorize options – adults need to help children because emotions often over shadow their ability to solve problems and they have difficulty seeing how things can change and classifying things into logical groups
· you need to be able to manage unpleasant emotions – young children tend not to understand their emotions, adults can model and teach children how to manage
· you must understand how your reactions affect situations ~ perspective taking and knowledge base
· you must think purposefully – young children tend to focus on the obvious – their own agitation



General Guidelines for Helping Children Cope with Stress
· Model Good Stress Manage children observe
· Manage the classroom so it is a “Low” Stress Environment
· Acknowledge and Learn About the Variety of Stressors in Children’s lives
· Act as a Buffer (supporter) between a Child and a Stressor
· Teach Children the Skills of Calming Themselves and Relaxing
· Learn and teach good coping skills

In summary:
Stress is a very real part of a child's life and can affect their mental and physical health. We know that being an authoritative caregiver will give us the necessary skills to help a child deal with the stress in their life. We need to recognize our limits as ECEs and when we find ourselves dealing with something quite challenging it is our duty as professionals to help the child and their families receive the help they need. This may be through offering advice such as speaking with the child's school teacher or consulting their family physician.

Teachers can help children develop resilience. It is important to be a "buffer" to children that may experience a potentially stressful event and to teach them coping skills in a loving and supportive manner. Through careful and ongoing observation a teacher will be able to understand what items might trigger stress individual children. When this is learned, a teacher will be able to help a child avoid or work through stressful situations.



Text Readings:
Chapter 7
Please read chapter 8 for next week.

Website:
www.parenting-ed.org

Learning activity:
Complete the chapter review.