Friday, April 20, 2012
Jason
by Jason Caillier
A hot button issue in
politics today revolves around healthcare. Regardless of one’s political
persuasion or philosophy on how best to deal with the complexities of providing
and funding healthcare, there is one area that nearly every parent agrees: they
want their children to grow up and have healthy adult lives. Recent research
shows there may be something parents can do to impact healthcare costs of the
future (and it does not require voting!)
The authors of the
research show a link between childhood aggression and health concerns in
adulthood. It seems that children who exhibit aggression are more likely to
have health problems later in their life that require medical attention or
hospital care. Also, children who are liked by their peers have lower instances
of the need for healthcare in adulthood.
This information should
encourage parents to teach their children how to deal with stress and anger and
how to develop good social relationships. There is tons of advice available by
a simple internet search on helping children deal with stress. Techniques range
from helping children identify and verbalize the feelings they are experiencing
to teaching them practical breathing and counting techniques. These tools are
valuable and extremely helpful. I’ll add one idea to the plethora of offerings
available.
Model it! One
way to help children with stress, anger, and good social relationships is to be
a calm and connected parent. We all intuitively know a “do what I say and not
what I do” parenting technique is very limited in being effective. Instead, our
model of how to deal with stress and anger will go much further. That requires
being open with your child. It involves establishing a good social relationship
with them.
Sometimes the best thing
you can do to help children learn how to deal with anger and stress is to let
them into your own world. Share with them what is going on in your mind and how
you are dealing with stressful situations. We often want to remain “perfect”
and “strong” in the eyes of our children, but perhaps showing them how to
successfully deal with those issues will provide them with a model they can
follow.
So in honor of tax day
(this was written the day after I stayed up till midnight filing taxes-I’m
trying NOT to teach procrastination to my children), save the government some
future healthcare dollars by taking a few minutes to be real with your
children. Make a commitment to teach them 3 ways that you deal with stressful
situations. Find an opportunity this weekend to get them involved with their
friends and talk about good social relationships.
What have you done to show your child how to deal
with stress?
Temcheff, C. E., Serbin,
L. A., Martin-Storey, A., Stack, D. M., Hastings, P., Ledingham, J., &
Schwartzman, A. E. (2011). Childhood aggression, withdrawal and likeability,
and the use of health care later: A longitudinal study. Canadiam Medical Association Journal 183,(18), 2095-2101.
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