Being there for your kids - Stress, Good or Bad

Episode Date: November 25, 2018

Did you know that stress can be both good and bad? When something good happens, it can be just as stressful as when something bad happens. Allow for either kind of stress, especially when in transition. Transitional times, in and of themselves, are stressful for your kids. When you ask them to change their focus, give them a ten minute heads-up to adjust for the stress of change. Stress is a part of our lives, but they, too, can fuel teachable moments.

This is Teachable Moments with Dr. John Robinson. You know, we all have stuff. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but stuff is stressful. Good stuff can be just as stressful as bad stuff. Everybody knows about distress. That comes with bad things happening. The Greeks, however, have a prefix, EU, that means good. So you stress is stress that comes when good things happen.

Hans Selyer, a Canadian psychiatrist back in the day, developed a list of 50 most stressful things we encounter in life. Top of the list, death of a spouse. Second, Christmas. Third, divorce. Although not always alternating in the pattern, the point is that both eustress and distress are prominent on the list. Count on equal measure of eustress and distress when you or your child is going through a transition. Normal transitions for kids during a school day include a sleep to awake, home to school, between classes, lunch, recess, school to home, and awake to a sleep. During these and these and, and other transitions in life, we tend to find trouble. Much heartache and difficulty can be avoided by simply giving your child a heads up. Tell him five or ten minutes before the anticipated transition that he needs to wrap up what he's doing and get ready. If you get attitude for your effort, recognize it as evidence of your child having an emotional fever. Bring that fever down by active listening, that is, trying to play back to him what you think he's feeling at the moment.

After the fever is down, noticed by lower tension and calmer voice, go back. to giving him another heads-up. The transition will occur, but you can lower the stress levels associated with transition. This has been Dr. John Robinson, licensed clinical psychologist and Christian author, and this has been Teachable Moments. Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting, is available online at AmazonBooks.com and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at TMC-P-I-N-C.com.