- Manage your own stress
- Identify stress indicators in your child’s body language and behaviour
- Identify the causes of stress
- Encourage the youngster to remember past successes in the face of stressful situations
- Foster self-esteem by emphasizing their strengths and valuing their ideas, initiatives and the projects they undertake
- Help your child defuse stressful situations through humour
- Help your child stop their negative inner monologue by becoming aware of it
- Suggest strategies to your child to overcome problems or resolve conflicts
- Encourage your child to ask for help when needed
- Make your child aware that they have personal power over their learning
- Focus their school activities on the learning process (not marks!)
- Place more importance on the pleasure of learning rather than on performance
- Encourage your child to be physically active
- Help your child to do relaxation exercises
- Encourage their fundamental self-expression, that is, help them to express what they feel
- Express your unconditional love for them
- Have realistic expectations based on their abilities
- Respect their pace both in academics and in sports and recreational activities
- Have fun with them, spend happy moments together
References:
- Taken from a conference called Attention, enfant sous tension (Warning, Child under Tension) by Germain Duclos, psycho-educator and speech therapist
- Gouvernement du Québec
- Duclos, Germain, 2000. L’estime de soi: un passeport pour la vie (Self-esteem, a Passport for Life), Hôpital Sainte-Justine, p.115
