Children these days are beset with the same pressures of time as their parents. The reason, say experts, is that full-speed-ahead lifestyle of the parents is now being visited on the children. Parents are so ambitious for their kids that they overbook them with appointments, classes, activities. As a consequence, kids leave the ways of childhood too early.

Children are also being raised in an atmosphere of stress, hurry and anxiety - which is exacting a tremendous toll on their physical and emotional well-being. Suicide rates among young children are increasing at an alarming rate, more children are experiencing physical problems, such as ulcers or migraine headaches, and more are becoming psychiatric casualties.And, many more children are acquiring "Type A" patterns at a very young age. These patterns, which make them prone as adults to heart disease, include intense striving, extreme competitiveness, deadline urgency, chronic impatience and excessive organization.

Finally, children are being raised in this fast-forward age by parents who are pressed by their own schedules and, as a result, very preoccupied and irritable.

So how do you - as a parent - reduce some of the insidious stresses of time on a child? Consider these possibilities:

- Examine the insidious stresses of time on you and the stresses you may be modeling. The best role models for kids are parents who are happy, stress free and feeling good about themselves.

- Leave children some time for themselves. "Think back to your own childhood and remember how you were fascinated by a caterpiller, how you could spend hours lost in play beside a lake or watching frogs or lily pads. Remember how you rode your two-wheeler for the first time and felt the freedom of moving on it," says Wayne Dyer, author of "What Do You Really Want for Your Children?"

Children need time for the kind of experiences Dyer describes - experiences that allow them to explore their world at their own leisure and to experience a sense of inner peace or tranquillity.

- Give your child undivided attention. Says Carolyn Jabs, author of the article "Relax: Seven Ways to Be a Happy Stress-free Parent," "If you make a habit of doing or thinking about something else whenever you're with your child, his requests begin to feel like interruptions and his very presence may seem like an intrusion."

Pretty soon, continues Jabs, kids begin to react: "Kids who sense that their parents' thoughts are elsewhere often do whatever it takes - whining, arguing, breaking rules - to get their attention. Children are also likely to draw unspoken conclusions about why a parent does everything else before getting around to them. . . . After a while, the child thinks, `What's the matter with me? Why doesn't Mommy enjoy my company?' "

It's important to put kids' on your priority list - to pay full attention part of the time you spend together. It will, of course, take discipline, stresses Jabs, "to concentrate on a game of Candy Land when you're worried about the fourth-quarter sales-figures."

- Connect with your child. Sherod Miller calls it connecting - those special times when you and your child join momentarily and link like meshed gears. When you click, good feelings flow - and you experience love and warmth that simply don't surface at other times.

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How do you connect with kids? Well, first, by entering your children's world and looking at life momentarily through their eyes. Say Miller and other authors of "Straight Talk": "Share your children's anger over a lost intramural game, their delight with a compliment from a teacher, their conflict over whether to wear the green slacks or jeans to a school dance, their hysteria because their nose has a pimple or their current love hasn't called, their desire to be left alone, their doubts about whether God hears their prayers."

Increase your chances of connecting by joining your children wherever they happen to be and savoring the moment with them. "If your pre-schooler is building a tower of red and blue blocks, squat down on the floor and join her. If your preteen is dressing a Barbie doll or snapping together Lego pieces to make an airport, join in. If your teenager is stretched out on the bed listening to music, take your needlepoint to his room and listen with him," observe Miller and colleagues.

Continuing, they say, Abandoning yourself to follow the flow of your kids is tough. Just try it, they say: "Invite yourself to a tea party or to a game of cops and robbers, and see how long you can play without having to leave to make a phone call, offer a suggestion, change the rules, or exert your influence."

When you allow yourself to join children in their space, your behavior and actions say, "I, as an adult, take you seriously. What you are doing or saying matters to me. I like you and I want to be with you." Kids blossom in the glow of such messages, which have a high likelihood of increasing self-esteem and self-respect.

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