Adventures in Parenting

The holiday season is approaching. It’s all good, yet, the busyness can get families rather stressed out.

My daughter has been having a lot of stress about school. There are worries about getting assignments and projects completed on time and peer pressure of being socially acceptable. She had an assignment last week to complete a 4-year plan for high school. As a freshman just getting adjusted, how would she know what she wants to take in her junior and senior year?

Telling our children not to worry has about the same effect as someone telling us not to worry when we are obviously worried. While I think that difficulties in life often can have a positive effect in teaching our children life lessons, there are some things we can do to help our children deal with stress in productive ways.

1. Get exercise. Go jogging or walking with your children. Do some jumping jacks. We like to do the hula hoop. It’s pretty strenuous! Exercise relieves tension and helps us to stay healthy.

2. Take multi-vitamins. We like the gummy bear vitamins 🙂

3. Eat well. No fast food. Eat meals at home with lots of fruits and vegetables.

4. Take a warm shower. When energy is running low, taking a nice warm shower will get the blood flowing.

5. Drink lots of water. We like to use a straw and tend to drink more that way.

6. Have a nice sit down dinner together. No matter how busy we get, we make sure we are all together for dinner. No phone calls, no TV, no reading at the table. Nothing is more important than family time.

What do you do to help your children cope with stress?