Monday, December 8, 2008

Children are Stressed Out Too


“CHILDREN ARE STRESSED OUT TOO” (CRITICAL REVIEW)

Vijay P Sharma, Ph.D in his article “Children are Stressed out too” says that there are many things that worried by children and make them stress, but the parents do not know because adult’s perception of children’s emotional life and a child’s actual experience of it are different. Psychologist Georgia Witkins surveyed 700 children and their parents to find out what they say about children stress. Children report the most stress appears when parents fight, get angry or lose control. Very little parents are aware of their children’s stress caused by their behavior at home. They think that being home alone, the dark, a frightening movie are things that make children scare and worry up till now, but in the poll kids tell their parent’s behavior is scary.

In survey, the parents denied the report. They say that the conflicts between them are not giving bad impact to their children because they don’t fight in front of them except a time or two or they fight when children are sleeping in bad, busy watching TV or playing. The fact is children know what’s going on and they are not just tense, they are scared. And more in witkins survey, about 7% of children have nightmares but only 37% of parents know about them. About one third of the children reported that they worried a lot a number of things. However, children don’t often tell what is bothering them and nobody asks them.

Children do not only worry and scare about parent’s behavior but also worry about such mundane matters as housing, money, job or other so called realities of the adult world. And Children also worry about the health of their parents and other family members, the family’s financial situation and they worry too if the relationship between parents is strained. Most of parents do not think this, they tend to view childhood as a time for eating and playing and having fun. In addition, parents tend to think that peer pressure is the number one stressor for children, but is completely wrong. In Witkins survey, peer pressure come next to school and family worries.

Today, many adults trend to lose their emotional capacity to respond to the ills of the world because they tend to feel it is futile to worry about these matters. Different with children, they still have a relativity intact capacity to emotionally respond to the plight of others. Therefore, adults should realize that a majority of children experience considerable stress. Adults should listen and ask them questions and allow them to expound on their views and concern.

Children worry about a lot of things, including the future, their environment and about how to save the planet Earth. Most of us can not believe it. We, adult often pay a lip of service to kid. We do not know what children think actually. This article shows us how children are serious about such matters, and tell us that a majority of children experience considerable stress. We see this issue is very interesting and has moral message. This information is definitely useful for parents and kids too build up a good relationship. And the most important thing is we can get knowledge about children stress and how to overcome their worry.

Another interesting aspect of this article is the solution that writes gives. Vijay Sharma tells us the effective way to solve children worry or stress is communication. We, adults should create a good communication atmosphere with children. Try to see what children think in many outside and also things the changes of them. In other words, we have to try to involve into their world. Then try to listen and ask them specific questions to find out. In this article Vijay emphasis that parents should be able to lead their children to see the positive side of their worry by giving sharp and clear explanation. In the same way he encourage the parents to control the temper and mood and try to seek help, if they have trouble doing that. As adult and or a candidate parents, we find the subject of this article completely useful and give us lesson and helpful to someone that we care about. In short, this article has stimulated us to read more resources about children and parents. (MV)