Tips for Dealing with Overwhelmed Kids

Some adults seem to think that children don’t have a care in the world, so they struggle to understand or even recognize the symptoms when their children are feeling too much pressure. With that in mind, it is important for you to realize that your child is a unique individual who feels and processes life in their own way. On top of that, life in many ways is both simpler and more complicated than it was when you were a child.

Recognizing the signs being overwhelmed in your child

You know your child whether they tend to be a bookworm, eagerly dives into projects, avoids homework until the last possible moment, or just wants to play video games.

The key to recognizing whether your child is feeling overwhelmed isn’t necessarily that they’re doing – or not doing -- any one specific thing. Feeling overwhelmed will often just look “different.”

At first that may not sound helpful, but there’s truthfully no one-size-fits-all answer for this parenting situation.

It may not always easy to look at your child from an objective vantage point. You’re human, too. Since you know your child, you might sometimes see what you expect to see. Your child may be trying to hide their feelings or you may not be seeing the entire picture. Your child might not want to admit or can’t articulate that they’re feeling overwhelmed, so you might have to be a bit of a parental sleuth to help get to the bottom of the issue.

Take a step back and look at your child’s attitude and behavior. Is your energetic one suddenly lethargic? Maybe they’re just goofing off or aren’t feeling well. And it could also be that they’re just emotionally overwhelmed.

What causes this feeling?

Before you can make lasting solutions, it’s a good idea to discover the cause of your child’s sense of being overwhelmed. Until you do that, you might be barking up the wrong tree and not bringing your child the relief you intended.

A child can become overwhelmed because of the amount of homework they’re being assigned. It could be because of the type of work or the level of the studies, rather than the volume. Changes in teachers, classes, schools, and friendships can also affect a child’s feeling capable of performing.

Activities outside of school can also impact a child and contribute to their feelings. Sports, clubs, and scouting are all valuable in a child’s life, but sometimes they can add up to being too much. Just as with schoolwork, it may be that your child has too many different activities that they’re trying to juggle or that they’ve been pushed to a level that they feel is too advanced for their skills.

Issues at home, whether with siblings, you, family pets, or extended family members can also create a sense of there being too much to handle. Have any changes happened at home that might be at the root of this situation?

Also, remember that children are very sensitive to the vibration their parents put out. Check in with your Internal Guidance System (IGS) to be sure you aren’t feeling some overwhelming feelings yourself; your child may be feeling and mirroring what’s happening in your life.

Steps Towards Taking Action

Knowing the cause (or at least the probable cause) of your child’s overwhelmed state is important in order to determine the right action to take.

If your child is feeling a pressure to perform at a level that’s out of their comfort zone, then you have several different paths to possibly take. The actions you take will be look quite different if your child is buried by the amount of work and activities they have on their plate.

The child who’s being pushed outside of their comfort zone may need reassurance or added self-confidence. They may need to step back a little bit and understand why you, their teacher, or coach are sure that they can handle this new role. If they buy into the decision, that may be the end of their being overwhelmed.

Sometimes the solution may be in how the message is delivered. Help your child understand that being able to work outside of their comfort zone is the only way to grow and keep learning. If they gets comfortable at being uncomfortable, they’ll have learned a great lesson that will serve them in the future.

Perhaps your child just needs a short break to do something they enjoy and already know how to do well. Everyone likes to feel as if they’re good at something, so let them. Reassure them that this is a strength rather than a weakness. You want them to know that they’re a capable and this is an opportunity for them to gain some confidence before tackling a more difficult task.

The child who has too much going on and can’t keep up may need some help prioritizing, scheduling, or managing their time.

It just might be that they have to temporarily drop one activity or another. Some children don’t need to drop anything -- they just need a bit more help until they get over a stumbling block. Let your child know it’s okay to ask for help if they need it, but also honestly assess whether or not they’ve taken on too much.

Both you and your child can participate in this decision. Letting them help choose which activity is dropped or if the plate stays full will help empower them rather than put them into the position of a victim.

Talk with your child about why having some fun (organized activities or otherwise) is important so that life isn’t just about work. Reassure them that there will be time to try other things. Trying different things to learn what they like and what they don’t is what growing up is all about.

For more, please visit www.SharonBallantine.com.

Settling in For a Long Winter's Nap

Clement Clark Moore’s famous poem, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, was a tale of how the speaker and his wife had just settled in for a long winter’s nap before he was startled out of his bed by Santa Claus. Even though Christmas and the Winter Solstice have both passed and nights are therefore getting shorter, your body is still hunkering in for the winter. For teenagers, this can be doubly as difficult.

Parents typically have the same schedule with the exception of a few weeks’ vacation every year. During the work/school week, the entire family likely shares this schedule -- you get up, get ready, help your kids get ready, and then everyone goes about their day.

Weekends are a different story. Parents still tend to get up -- they have things to attend to that didn’t get done during the week and still have a family to take care of. Kids on the other hand, especially teenagers, tend to view the weekend as prime time for a long winter’s nap. That’s true whether it is January or June.

This can be quite frustrating for parents who want the family to do things together. It’s equally bothersome when weekend chores aren’t being done, homework is left waiting, and everyone else’s schedule is pushed aside for the hibernating bear.

Not a bad analogy, is it? Try waking a teenager on a Saturday morning if they aren’t ready. Once awake, the bear is famished as if their sleep could’ve been counted in days rather than hours.

As a parent, this can put you in a difficult position. If you force you teen awake before the hibernation period is over, you’re likely to have a Grizzly on your hands rather than a cute Panda or Koala. On the other hand, should you let the bear sleep as long as they want? You’ve probably been told that children should stick to a consistent schedule. You might also have been told that your children are short on sleep. So what do you do?

According to scientists and health practitioners, teenagers are indeed short on sleep.

“Adolescents are notorious for not getting enough sleep. The average amount of sleep that teenagers get is between 7 and 7 ¼ hours. However, they need between 9 and 9 ½ hours (studies show that most teenagers need exactly 9 ¼ hours of sleep).”

~ Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Hopefully this information will allay the fear you might have over your teen sleeping their lives away. If your teen is sluggish every morning, then it’s possible they aren’t getting enough sleep. The weekends may be a critical time for their growing body to get much-needed rest.

On the other hand, it might be that your teen isn’t scheduling their time well enough to get the appropriate amount of sleep. You might want to look into what’s causing this lack of sleep.

Is your teen up late doing homework? Do they have a part-time job that’s impacting their schedule? Or do they participate in sports or other extra-curricular activities that keep them out late? If this is a temporary scheduling issue, it might not be a major concern, but it might be healthy to consider whether or not your teen is trying to take on too much.

There may be another culprit at play here.  Most teens today spend a significant part of their time with their electronics. They use their phones, tablets, and computers for homework, as a way to connect socially, and for distraction. Rather than be forced to have phone conversations tethered to a wall phone, today kids take their phones everywhere with them. That means they’re staring at those little screens and the light they project for hours at a time.

The human body is designed to respond to light. Originally, this was the light of the sun. A rhythm based on when the sun rises and sets was developed. The advent of artificial lights allowed humanity to extend daytime activities later into the evening. The result was that people began to get less sleep, but those lights could be turned off easily. Now your teen isn’t just using electronic devices in the evening, but is using them for extended periods of time right before going to bed.

“… Careful studies have shown that even our small electronic devices emit sufficient light to miscue the brain and promote wakefulness. As adults, we are subject to these influences and our children are particularly susceptible. “

~ National Sleep Foundation

This means that even if your teen is reading before bed, the electronic device they might be reading it on isn’t preparing them for sleep. Just as your parents used to admonish you to turn the lights out, you may need to remind your teen to turn off their electronic devices in order to get a good night’s rest.

The bottom line is that there’s no need to panic if your teenager takes an occasional long winter’s nap, but if sleeping long hours on the weekends is a constant occurrence or is impacting the family schedule, it might be time to check into the cause of their hibernation.

For more, please visit www.SharonBallantine.com.

What Do You Tell Your Kids When Serious Illness Strikes?

One of the hardest things a family has to face is the serious illness of a loved one. It can be hard to decide when it comes to telling your kids-- in terms of how much you tell them and how much information you omit. Are you protecting them by not telling them the whole story? Will your kids be angry if you don’t tell them and the situation gets worse? How can you deal with your own fears and emotions along with those of your children?

There is no single right way to handle these situations. So much depends on the specifics, especially with your children being unique individuals. What you tell one child may be different from what you tell another. .

So how do you know how much information to share?

One of the best tools you have is your Internal Guidance System (IGS). By tapping into your IGS, you can have a better understanding regarding the impact on each individual involved.

In some cases, you may decide that not telling your children is the right answer. And it might be. Try tapping into your IGS and ask yourself a few questions before making this decision.

·         How would you feel if you were a child and the information was kept from you?

·         How would you feel when you learned about it later?

·         What if you never got to see someone again because they died as a result of the undisclosed illness?

·         If everything worked out and they fully recovered, would knowing the situation have made it easier or more difficult?

If you decide to tell your children what’s happening to their family member, you still have many questions to ask yourself. Check with your IGS and get support whenever possible as you decide just how much information to share.

Of course, you may want to consult with doctors, who can also help guide you in what to say in age-appropriate language. Depending on the situation and your family, you may call upon friends, extended family, clergy, or support groups to help during a difficult time.

Think about how your children process information and their emotions. If possible, have some tools available that’ll help them process what they’re hearing and be able to take comfort in. This may be a favorite toy, crayons, a journal to write in, or even a means to talk to experts or other people who’ve been through the situation already.

Some kids will have lots of questions and sometimes questions will flow right away. Other kids may take the news in silently. They may need time to process the information. After that, the questions may come later in trickles or like a flash flood.

Since you want to protect your children, there’s often a tendency to dismiss the gravity of a situation. You want to tell your kids that everything will be okay.

For this reason, it’s good to remember that your kids are sensitive to your words, but they can read your body language, too, and they feel your vibration, as well. Even if your words tell them there’s nothing to worry about, they might pick up on YOUR worry and copy the emotion as a result. If your words and vibration don’t match up, they’ll know something is wrong and this may cause them to feel confused. This can create even more fear than knowing the truth.

Possibly even worse than your children feeling like you’re withholding information from them, what happens if your loved one dies? How will your children feel if you tell them everything will be okay and then suddenly their world is turned upside down?

Hopefully, your family is safe and healthy, but as hard as it is, illness and death are a part of every family. Scary as this may be, the best decision may be to admit that you don’t know how things will turn out. You can be supportive and reassuring without lying to your kids.

For more, please visit www.SharonBallantine.com.