SALT LAKE CITY — Ask any parent with young children how they’re handling their 24/7, pandemic-created family time, and they’ll likely mention how stressful it is.
Whether families are dealing with sickness and death, loss of jobs, or just the craziness of trying to navigate school at home, there’s plenty to be worried about.
Experts know stress can have lasting impacts on kids’ developing brains, but they also know there are different types of stress.
Positive stress is what happens in normal and developmentally healthy moments of concern — feeling nervous on the first day of school or the body’s response to a vaccine shot.
On the opposite end is toxic stress, or what happens when a child faces an intense and often chronic challenge — including things like abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, caregiver mental illness or intense poverty.
Their brain becomes overtaxed and struggles to meet developmental milestones, which can cause immediate delays, plus set the stage for major problems later in life, says Dr. Kerry Ressler, chief scientific officer at McLean Hospital and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Then, there’s tolerable stress, which is somewhere in the middle.
While the stressors may be intense, like a major injury or a pandemic, or even the same as toxic stress producers, this time the child has loving parents or caregivers who provide structure and help “buffer” the stress by teaching the child healthy ways to cope. Tolerable stress becomes a chance to build resilience and can even become a stepping stone for future successes.
This doesn’t mean stress is painless, but rather that it’s nuanced and its effects individualized — and not just something to always be avoided at all costs, says Ressler. Consider all the youth who lived through WWII, he says.
“That was a huge amount of trauma,” he says, “but it provided a strong work ethic and moral backbone for the country for decades to follow. How do we help our kids to be strong and resilient is really our task as parents.”
Understanding our brains
One of the major brain systems involved in stress regulation is the amygdala — the primitive part of our brains and the source of our fight, flight or freeze feelings, explains Margaret Semrud-Clikeman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
That system is fully functional in both young children and adults, which means that no matter our age we can feel scared, nervous, upset or stressed.
When adults get stressed, we turn to another system — our fully-formed prefrontal cortexes to talk ourselves down from our stress ledges and make our emotions more logical, says Semrud-Clikeman.
But kids can’t. That part of their brain won’t be done cooking until they’re at least 25.
Which means that until then, it’s a parent or caregiver’s job to contextualize stressful life events for children.
Adult assistance is crucial because a child’s brain needs to be working on other things, says Judy Cameron, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and director of Working for Kids.
While kids’ brains are always developing, there are certain times when individual brain systems are most in focus — like motor skills, which are heavily developed for the first five years of life, or communication skills, which are emphasized in the brain for the first seven, says Cameron. The more often kids use those brain pathways during the specific developmental window, the stronger those skills become.
The reason stress can be so negative for children is that they “do different things when they’re stressed than when they’re not stressed,” Cameron says.
Consider two children who experience a tornado and its aftermath.
One 6-year-old may be so worried about what’s happening around them that they blow off reading — meaning they’re not creating or strengthening those reading pathways in their brain during a critical time.
As a result, their reading abilities may suffer. They can always work on those later, but outside of the major development window, progress is slower, Cameron says.
The other 6-year-old may respond to the same tornado by reading nonstop — their way of trying to cope. This child’s reading circuitry will be quite strong, Cameron says, although perhaps their social circuitry may be a bit weaker.
“How the child responds to stress is really what determines the impact of stress on the brain,” Cameron says, “not the stress exposure per se.”
This lays out the tough job for parents — to build a support system around our children, so their responses stay healthy and the stress stays tolerable — not toxic.
Here’s five ideas from experts on how to build your own family buffers.
Establish a schedule
Maybe you started one, but it fell apart after the third day. Go ahead and try again. Although it may be difficult, the “more consistent of a routine you can keep, the better the child will deal with” the stressful situation, says Cameron.
Knowing what to expect each day reduces one source of daily worry for kids (and parents) and lets them know that mom and dad have got this figured out.
Yet, within that schedule, be flexible. Maybe that means lowering expectations or adjusting discipline. Forgive yourself and your children for less-than-stellar days or attitudes. If rules need to change, that’s OK, says Cameron, but adds that adjusting a few rules is “very different than removing all structure.”
Say it out loud
Parents may feel like they’re conveying strength, but they also need to vocalize that. Frequently tell your kids something like: “Things might feel scary, and it’s OK to be a bit nervous, but mom and dad, (or grandma and grandpa or whoever the caregiver is) have got things figured out. You’re gonna be OK.”
The goal is to provide enough support and structure so a child’s imagination doesn’t take over and dream up scenarios that are much more vivid and dangerous than actual reality, Cameron says.
With older kids, this can be more of a conversation than a statement, says Semrud-Clikeman, but it’s crucial that kids still hear verbal reassurance. This doesn’t mean you ignore the facts of life or never talk about the news, but remind kids that you’ll do the worrying so their brains can focus on all the other developmental tasks at hand.
Take care of yourself
Children — even babies — are acutely aware of their parent’s mood and react accordingly. If a parent is tense and terrified, not only will it be harder for them to help their children, says Cameron, but they may see their emotions mirrored by their children, whose brains may also revert to fight-flight or freeze mode. This means parental self-care is nonnegotiable — think of it like taking a vital daily medication.
While it may sound impossible, parents should try their best to get enough sleep, drink enough water, eat a healthy diet (extra comfort foods are OK, but keep it reasonable) and reach out for support. Exercise — in whatever form is possible now — is hugely important for mind and body.
There’s also something restorative about getting out in nature, says Semrud-Clikeman, who often recommends that her young anxious patients get outdoors and just be.
For parents who feel like their anxiety, or that of their children is reaching unmanageable levels, talk to a doctor or counselor, says Semrud-Clikeman. There’s no shame in needing extra support now, or ever,
The power of mindfulness
A survey of nearly 35,000 leaders and interviews with hundreds of CEOs revealed the top three qualities of a leader were mindfulness, selflessness and compassion.
Although parents are running families — not companies — mindfulness remains a surefire way for anyone to increase their resilience in stressful times, said Libby Weathers, a senior facilitator and consultant with Potential Project, USA, a global leadership training firm that specializes in resilience training.
“The modern brain is highly distracted,” she says. “It was highly distracted before this even started. It can be pretty uncomfortable to face the level of distraction and how wandering our minds are ... but if you’re not able to be present with anyone ... there are pretty sweeping negative implications.”
Being present, and focusing on the immediate here and now stops the mind from stewing over the past or worrying about the future; and remember, a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.
If you aren’t already using an app or a program for mindfulness, give it a try, there are plenty of free ones available. Even a few minutes each day can help. Invite your kids to do it with you.
Help where you can
Following a crisis, researchers know one of the most critical factors for stress becoming toxic is “does it feel out of one’s control or not?” says Ressler, the Harvard psychiatrist.
While this pandemic definitely seems to fall in the “out of control” category, there are things we can do — keep our distance, stay home, wash our hands, donate food, money or blood, plus connect virtually with neighbors, friends and loved ones.
These actions can feel empowering and help kids buffer the stress — instead of just sitting at home, watching too much news and letting worry spiral out of control, says Ressler.
In fact, teaching and using healthy active coping skills — and doing what we can — allows children to come out of stressful situations “relatively unscathed,” says Ressler.
“It’s not to say that we would wish this on any of us,” he says, “but we have the opportunity as a society and as parents to help our children have this as a positive coping opportunity.”