Coping Skills for Kids – Strategies That Work

What Are Stress Coping Skills

Stress coping skills are a set of actions or strategies that children can apply to maintain their physical health and mental well being in stress-inducing situations. 

Coping skills for kids are vital in helping them deal with life’s stress. However, having skill by itself is not a panacea. Coping skills are only effective under certain necessary conditions. Parents can teach kids positive coping skills by providing this necessary condition and avoid pitfalls when helping a child or teen manage stress.

Nowadays, children and adolescents face a multitude of stress, including conflicts with their parents, relationship problems with friends, school performance issues, peer pressure, etc. 

Unmanaged stress can cause kids, especially teenagers, to become unmotivated to study or do anything.

Failure to cope positively contributes to an increased risk of academic failure, social behavioral issues​1​, interpersonal difficulties, and depressive symptoms​2​.

Prolonged stress can also turn into a type of stress, called toxic stress, which can disrupt a child’s brain development​3​.

Learning healthy coping skills today is essential to a child’s development.

mom and boy are both negatively impacted by stress need coping skills - cope and seethe boys

Where Does Stress Come From

Neuroscientists Jeansok Kim and David Diamond have found that there are three components in stress formation​4​.

  1. Stress requires heightened arousal, such as increased heart rate and stress hormone levels,
  2. The experience must be perceived as aversive, and
  3. There is a lack of control to some degree.

Developing Healthy Coping: What’s missing from the picture

What is coping? Coping is how people mobilize, manage and direct their actions under conditions of the challenge, threat or loss. Effective coping involves the development of emotional, attentional, and behavioral regulation.

When parents teach healthy coping strategies for kids, they tend to teach coping skills and mechanisms that they think the child should master to alleviate the child’s big feelings.

However, coping skill alone is not a “magic bullet” that can instantly restore emotional balance​5​.

Dealing with the lack of control, the third component in stress formation, is one aspect that is often absent from the coping skills picture​6​.

Studies have found that having the feeling of control over an aversive experience can mitigate how stressful it feels.

When children believe that they can influence stressful events, even if they don’t have actual control of the current event, they still perceive they are empowered.

They do not feel helpless or at the mercy of external forces.

This subjectively perceived control affects how much stress the child feels, how likely they will apply coping strategies, and whether this experience will lead to psychological issues​4​.

Children with low perceived control do not believe they can change an undesirable outcome.

Therefore, even if a child has a bag full of tricks for positive coping with stress, they won’t try to use them if they don’t believe they can change anything.

When children feel helpless, they develop maladaptive responses such as bottled up emotions, opposition, escape, rumination, or avoidance coping​7​.

girl covers face with hands with strong reactions we help kids cope with stress coping skills meaning

How Perception of Control Forms in Childhood

Perceptions of control are not isolated judgments based only on a specific problem. Instead, they are shaped by a person’s life experiences.

See also  वयस्क जीवन में सफल होने के लिए किशोरों के लिए 3 प्रकार के जीवन कौशल

Perceived control is one of the most powerful personal resources that can be called upon when kids deal with difficulties or stress. Humans have a fundamental psychological need to be effective when they interact with the environment​8​.

Children who have experienced repeated uncontrollable events in early life believe that they cannot influence the environment. They may feel incompetent or believe that events are uncontrollable.

These children are more susceptible to developing stress-induced anxiety​9​ or other psychological vulnerability.

How To Help Kids Learn And Use Coping Skills

Step 1: Use Authoritative Parenting And Help Kids Develop Healthy Perceptions Of Control

To help your child develop healthy perceptions of control, parents need to allow them autonomy, when possible.

Researchers have consistently found that the development of control beliefs in children is enhanced if parents encourage independence.

These parents have the following characteristics:

  • Encourage child independence and autonomy​10​.
  • Less controlling or intrusive​11​.
  • Use suggestions rather than commands.
  • Responsive to their child’s needs​7​.
  • Warm and emotionally supportive​12​.

These are the exact same characteristics of parents who practice an authoritative parenting style.

Step 2: Teach Adaptive Coping Skills

There are two types of coping skills: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping​13​.

Problem-focused coping skills

Problem-focused coping skills refer to an action that aims to remove or circumvent the source of the stress. These coping skills emerge during early childhood starting in preschool. Also known as primary coping, problem-centered coping is more effective for issues that are perceived as changeable.

The problem-focused coping mechanisms for kids include the following strategies

1. Active problem-solving
Active problem-solving is taking active steps to try to remove or circumvent the stressor or to alleviate its effects. The goal is to resolve the problem that created the stress if the child knows how to proceed.
Example: Talk things over with the person involved in the conflict.

2. Planning
Planning is contemplating how to cope with a stressor. It involves coming up with actionable strategies, steps to take and ways to best handle the problem.
Example: Plan to study harder for the next exam.

3. Seeking assistance and information
Seek assistance is asking for social support for advice, information, or help.
Example: Ask the soccer coach for more practice to improve the game at the upcoming match.

4. Screening out competing activities
Screening out competing activities is putting other projects aside to avoid being distracted to deal with the stress.
Example: Play less video games to make time for homework.

5. Restraint coping
Restraint coping is holding oneself back and waiting until a suitable opportunity presents itself before acting.
Example: Refrain from arguing to cool the crowd down.

Emotion-focused coping skills

Emotion-focused coping skills refer to the attempt to manage or regulate difficult feelings created by a difficult situation. This type of coping skill develops during later childhood and early adolescence. Also known as secondary coping, emotion-focused coping is more effective for issues that are recognized as uncontrollable.

See also  आकार देना क्या है (मनोविज्ञान)

Emotion-focused coping is predominant when people see the stressor as something that must be endured.

The adaptive coping mechanism includes the following strategies for kids:

1. Body-mind exercises
When talking about the many ways to help kids reduce stress, body-mind exercises are what people usually refer to. These exercises aim to calm a child’s fight-or-flight nervous system through practices such as deep breathing exercises or meditation.
Examples: Physical activity such as taking deep breaths, hugging a stuffed animal, and aerobic exercises. Mindfulness techniques such as meditating, progressive muscle relaxation, and using biofeedback.

2. Positive reinterpretation
Emotion-focused skills are more than just calming the nerves. Another great way to cope is reappraising the stressful situation in a positive light to manage distressing emotions or turn it into positive stress called eustress. However, positive reinterpretation should not be confused with denial (more about this later).
Example: Look for the good in what is happening without denying its existence.

3. Acceptance
Accept the reality of a stressful situation and accept that there is no active solution at the moment.
Example: Accept that this has occurred and it can’t be changed.

4. Seeking emotional support
Seek social-emotional assistance for moral support, sympathy, and understanding.
Example: Talk to trusted friends to seek more support.

5. Seeking meaning
Seeking meaning is the attempt to discover a new faith or a new meaning in life. This involves praying as well as trying to change or grow as a consequence of the stressful experience.
Example: Join a religious organization.

6. Use humor
Using a sense of humor to diffuse the negative emotions that accompany distress.
Example: Find something funny in the distress and look for something comical to say.

kindergartener cries on mom shoulder coping skills for elementary students

Step 3: Avoid Teaching Or Encouraging Maladaptive Coping

Not all coping techniques are adaptive. Many parents unknowingly encourage maladaptive coping strategies for kids in their daily lives. Maladaptive coping techniques can impact kids’ mental health negatively​14​ .

Maladaptive coping skills

The following strategies are not healthy ways of coping with stress:

1. Escapism
Escapism is a form of emotion-focused coping that includes fantasizing, daydreaming, or ruminating. It also involves drinking alcohol or using drugs, sleeping excessively, and avoiding people to escape from stress.
Example: Drinking alcohol or taking drugs in order to think about the distress less.

2. Denial
Denial is denying the reality of the event. This is the most common mistake parents make when trying to help children who are having a difficult time. When little kids are stressed or upset, parents who insist “It’s ok”, “It’s no big deal” or “It’s not that bad” are encouraging denial. They are denying the stress is real because it doesn’t look stressful in their eyes.
Example: Refuse to believe that it has happened.

3. Disengagement
Disengagement is giving up trying to achieve goals when the stressor interferes.
Example: It’s too hard. I’ll stop trying.

4. Self-blame
Blaming oneself is a passive strategy that is directed inward instead of outward toward the problem at hand.
Example: Take the blame for what has happened by believing, “It’s all my fault.”

See also  मोंटेसरी बिस्तर क्या है? खरीदने से पहले विचार करने योग्य बातें

Step 4: Model Coping Skills

One of the most important but often neglected ways to teach kids coping skills is the parent’s modeling. Children learn coping by observing and watching us all the time. How we deal with stress can directly affect how our kids handle stress. Make sure you walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

Also See: Coping Skills for Teens

girl is having a panic attacks on mom's shoulder what's coping skills for kindergarteners

Final Thoughts On Coping Skills For Kids

While it is crucial to teach children ways to handle stress, they are not miracle cures by any means. Life skills such as coping only work if the child believes they are helpful in coping with the distress. When parents employ external control methods to deny children autonomy, kids lose their sense of control, and thus their ability to deal with stress adaptively. If your child has trouble learning coping strategies, you can seek help from mental health professionals.


References

  1. 1.

    Jones DE, Greenberg M, Crowley M. Early Social-Emotional Functioning and Public Health: The Relationship Between Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness. Am J Public Health. Published online November 2015:2283-2290. doi:10.2105/ajph.2015.302630
  2. 2.

    Frydenberg * E, Lewis R, Bugalski K, et al. Prevention is better than cure: coping skills training for adolescents at school. Educational Psychology in Practice. Published online June 2004:117-134. doi:10.1080/02667360410001691053
  3. 3.

    Franke H. Toxic Stress: Effects, Prevention and Treatment. Children. Published online November 3, 2014:390-402. doi:10.3390/children1030390
  4. 4.

    Kim JJ, Diamond DM. The stressed hippocampus, synaptic plasticity and lost memories. Nat Rev Neurosci. Published online June 2002:453-462. doi:10.1038/nrn849
  5. 5.

    Pearlin LI, Schooler C. The Structure of Coping. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Published online March 1978:2. doi:10.2307/2136319
  6. 6.

    Compas BE, Banez GA, Malcarne V, Worsham N. Perceived Control and Coping with Stress: A Developmental Perspective. Journal of Social Issues. Published online January 1991:23-34. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1991.tb01832.x
  7. 8.

    Elliot AJ, Dweck CS. Competence and Motivation: Competence as the Core of Achievement Motivation. In: Handbook of Competence and Motivation. Guilford Publications; 2005:3-12.

  8. 9.

    Chorpita BF, Barlow DH. The development of anxiety: The role of control in the early environment. Psychological Bulletin. Published online 1998:3-21. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.3
  9. 10.

    Spokas M, Heimberg RG. Overprotective Parenting, Social Anxiety, and External Locus of Control: Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Relationships. Cogn Ther Res. Published online December 30, 2008:543-551. doi:10.1007/s10608-008-9227-5
  10. 11.

    Loeb RC. Concomitants of boys’ locus of control examined in parent-child interactions. Developmental Psychology. Published online 1975:353-358. doi:10.1037/h0076584
  11. 12.

    Nowicki S, Segal W. Perceived parental characteristics, locus of control orientation, and behavioral correlates of locus of control. Developmental Psychology. Published online 1974:33-37. doi:10.1037/h0035563
  12. 13.

    Scheier MF, Weintraub JK, Carver CS. Coping with stress: Divergent strategies of optimists and pessimists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Published online 1986:1257-1264. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1257
  13. 14.

    Carver CS, Scheier MF, Weintraub JK. Assessing coping strategies: A theoretically based approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Published online 1989:267-283. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.56.2.267

Leave a Comment