Change is a stressor that most humans need support to navigate. Your grandchild, niece, or cousin likely needs more than the average level of support. After all, they have experienced trauma, loss, and chaos at a young age before they’ve developed healthy coping skills for life’s regular rhythm of change. What can you do to help your loved one handle the stress of these changes they are experiencing?
Your Presence is the Foundation
When you chose to welcome this child into your home and offer them this safe space after leaving their parent’s home, you gave them the message that you are with them for this journey. Your presence with this child for the transition – physically, mentally, emotionally – lays a strong foundation for safety and consistency.
When a child is facing significant change, they crave familiarity and predictability. Your relationship with this child provides those things for them. From this foundation, you can continue to build messages of trust and a safe space to grow and learn new coping skills.
Other Tools to Help Kids Learn to Handle Stress
There are many tools you can build into your home to help this child learn how to handle the stress of change they will encounter in life.
1. Create Routine.
Establishing a predictable, consistent schedule in your home is a significant tool you can model for this child. A routine that your grandchild can count on will help their brain and body relax and be ready to learn. They can let go of the guardedness or self-protection that likely kept them on edge or hypervigilant.
Hypervigilance, when the brain is constantly alert to the risk of perceived threat, creates imbalanced hormones and unhealthy wiring in their developing brains. Many attachment and brain development specialists say, “A safe brain is a learning brain.” Feeling the safety of a predictable routine reduces stress hormones. It allows the re-wiring to occur needed to learn new skills at home and at school.
Younger children will benefit from a written or picture schedule posted where they can see it and learn to follow it. Your older grandchild (tween or teen) might prefer an app on their phone or school device. Figure out what works best to keep this child aware of the daily flow of your home and how they fit into it. Please include them in everyday tasks (age and skill-appropriately) and praise them for their contributions. Meaningful contribution and participation in your home’s routine build confidence and safety.
2. Get Active.
All kids need movement to burn off excess energy and regulate their bodies. Exercise is regularly recommended by medical professionals as a stress management tool. However, a child who has experienced chaos and loss might need help figuring out what activity works best for their body and brain. They may also need more movement than other kids. Take some time to observe this child’s interests and patterns. Ask yourself a few questions to help you find what they need:
- Are they restless before school? Before bedtime?
- Do they have far too much energy after school?
- How are they expressing their extra energy? Big emotions? Disinterest or disconnect?
- What do they do with their body when they are stressed or anxious?
Find an activity or two that fits this child’s needs and interests. It might take some trial and error over the activity, the time of day, and the length of time that works. But hang in there and keep trying. Seek movement that leaves them pleasantly tired but not exhausted. For some kids, this will be 20 minutes on a trampoline or a karate class. For others, a short bike ride or a brisk walk will do the trick.
3. Join the Fun.
Consider what activity you can do with your grandchild. Walk together every day after school. Practice yoga, stretching, or Pilates together. Attend a traditional dance class.
Boost the benefits of activity by narrating for younger kids about strong bodies, building strong minds, feeling the pleasure of moving one’s body, and so on. When you join this child in the activities they enjoy, you tell them you value them. If you have fun with them, tell them! It’s great for their confidence to hear that they are treasured.
4. Talk about the Changes.
Again, real life means experiencing change. Normalize that message for this child. However, reassure them that while their world may change, your presence in their life will not. You will be with them, and you desire an ongoing relationship with them. Assure them that they don’t have to face these transitions alone. The face of the changes might, well, change. But the connection you are building with them will not.
Give this child time to discuss the changes that stress them. Try to avoid picking at the language they use to talk about it. Instead, give them room to process what they are feeling. If they are struggling to put it into words, try talking when you are doing a “side-by-side” activity, like walking or biking or washing and drying dishes.
Another tip to help them talk is to give them rating scales. For example,
“On a scale of one to 10, ten being the most anxious you’ve ever felt, how stressed do you feel right now?”
Then, ask a few direct questions that will help them find the origin of their stress. Let them carry the conversation from there if they can.
If you are raising an older grandchild, ask if they’d like help brainstorming solutions or just a listening ear. As they grow and develop tools for managing their stress, the balance should shift toward more listening. Gentle reminders of tools they’ve learned might help, but try not to tell them how to handle their stress.
5. Fuel the Child Well!
One final tip to help you support healthy stress management for this child is to eat and hydrate well. You can wrap this tip into the other four tips to help normalize healthy, nutritional fueling as part of your family’s values.
For example:
- Include healthy messages about food in the posted family schedule: “Family dinner is at 5:30 pm.” And “have a bedtime snack.”
- Add “drink water” or “don’t forget your water bottle!” into the notes about daily activity.
- Use conversation starters about handling stress and change at family dinners to spur discussions and check in on them.
Most kids are very food-focused, especially if their bodies are in a season of rapid growth. Normalize that fueling their body is excellent stress management because they are giving themselves what they need to function well.
However, avoid “good food” and “bad food” messages as much as possible. Instead, provide a good mix of healthy snacks and the child’s favorites, even if you feel their candy bars are not the most nutritious options. Remember that the goal is to communicate that you are on their side, and sometimes, their favorite treat says that when they most need it.
Keep Building on The Foundation
When you are raising a child impacted by loss, chaos, and significant life changes, they are looking to you to help them navigate the stress they feel. Keeping the lines of communication open, offering them a safe space to process, and holding them to a predictable routine are all tools they can observe in your home. As you build the foundation of your presence with those tools, they will eventually learn how to use them and find the benefits of handling their stress healthily.