Anxious or Stressed Child – Try Incorporating This..
Do you have a stressed our anxious child? If you answered yes to this question, you are going to want to read this blog about the simplest although often overlooked way of reducing stress and anxiety in your child’s life. It will also reduced your level of stress after you initial time investment.
Humans have many fears. One of the top fears is the fear of the unknown. Why? It creates uncertainty in one’s life. The fear of the unknown can be as simple as trying a new food or as challenging as the lost of love one with many variations along this spectrum.
One of the best ways to help your child have less stress and fear of the unknown is to develop consistent routines. A consistent morning routine, after-school routine, dinner time routine, and bedtime routine. Kids don’t just strive in a structured environment, they thrive!
Structure and routines teach kids how to constructively manage themselves and their environments. Structure reduces chaos and brings order and order reduces stress. When your child is in an environment with reduced stress, it creates a feeling of safety and certainty for them. It is every parent’s dream to reduce the fighting and resistance to those daily times throughout the day.
I suggest you start with developing one routine at a time and would highly recommend you start with a morning routine. A well thought out and planned morning routine can set the pace for an amazing day even for adults.
Develop a routine your child will follow every morning upon waking, even on the weekends. Yes, if you want to avoid the Monday morning blues, be consistent over the weekends. Consistency is the key.
A child’s morning routine, will help them take control of the day from the start. Things you may want to include in your child’s morning routine include making the bed, getting dressed, eating a healthy breakfast, brushing teeth and hair, making lunch (if old enough), quiet time activity such as reading, and something fun (a reward at the end).
Some families like to create a reward and recognition system. When you make discipline, structure, and routines fun, your child will buy in more quickly and be more likely to participate. Allow your child to be part of the process. Seek improvement not perfection. You might want to challenge your child by setting a timer or having a contest on who makes the neatest bed. Make it fun and you will have an engaged happy child. It is a great time to connect with your child.
Once you consistently have a strong morning routine, chose another area of your child’s life to add more structure. You will thank yourself later for the time investment of today.
Please leave a comment below with your child’s morning routine. You never know when you might inspire a fellow parent. It takes a village to raise a strong confident child and the more brains we have working on solutions to every parent, the stronger our communities and the world becomes.