How Our Own Back-to-School Stress Harms Our Children
By Jan Bruce
If you’re starting to show the signs of back-to-school stress — giving in to the pressures that come with changing routines and schedules, last-minute shopping, childcare arrangements — perhaps you should take a break and think about how this is affecting your child. Whipping yourself and your family into a back-to-school frenzy may actually be harmful to your kids.
A 2010 study from the American Psychological Association called “Stress in America,” showed that when parents get stressed, nearly half of tweens and one-third of teens say they feel sad; more than one third of them say they feel worried; and one-quarter of tweens and 38 percent of teens say they feel frustrated.
Similar studies now show that children as young as 8 years old are experiencing some of the physical and emotional health consequences often associated with stress. These kids