Native wisdom used to tell us that children don’t have stress. After all childhood is a carefree time free of responsibilities and worries; what reason does a child have to be stressed, it was believed! However as experts have delved deep into the psyche of children and studied children’s behavior, it has been found that children experience stress due to illness, pain, parental conflict, major life changes and many other reasons. Here are some of the symptoms that help you indentify if your child is suffering from stress:
Emotional and behavioral symptoms
Look out for the following behavioral symptoms in your child:
- If your child is behaving differently; displaying quieter, more clingy, less independent and more regressive behavior this may be because of stress. In fact regressing to an earlier stage of life is a classic symptom of stress and a call for attention
- If you child seems more angry, more anxious about things, or more whiny than usual, consider whether there are possible stressors that could be responsible for this
- Withdrawal from family or school activities could also be a symptom of stress
- If a child seems unable to relax or seems wound up all the time could be stressed too
- A child who displays consistently stubborn behavior could be stressed and may be seeking attention at a conscious or unconscious level
- A child may speak deprecatingly of himself or herself, may display poor self esteem and appear less confident as a result of stress. He or she may spend less time with friends and grades at school may slip too
- Fears and phobias also sometimes manifest themselves as a result of stress – a child may suddenly become afraid of the dark and may want a parent around at all times, and so on
- Stress can also cause a child to act out aggressively
Physical symptoms
Your kid may also show the following physical symptoms of stress:
- If your child complains about “feeling sick”, he or she may not be feigning at all. This could be the literal truth because stress can cause physical symptoms that a child may only be able to express by saying that they feel sick or unwell
- A child may lose weight because of a loss of appetite or may seem to want to eat more
- Sleep disturbances, headaches, indigestion and other physical symptoms can also manifest as a result stress
- Stress can cause a child wet their bed – this is another regressive symptom of stress