Managing stress for special kids

In today’s environment where children have exam  as well as they have to keep up with school projects, extracurricular activities and competition with peer group, stress is inevitable. 

Living a balanced life and reducing stress in children is a challenge for most families. 

This challenge can become multifold if the child also has special needs.

The child with special needs can feel stressed even with a small change in the environment and may not have resources to communicate the same to anyone.

Often a child’s stress comes from external factors, but many a times it comes from within, often related to what we think we should be doing versus what we're actually able to do.

  

For a child having special needs like Learning difficulty, Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactive disorder (ADHD) or physical or cognitive deficits school can be an unrelenting source of frustration and feelings of failure can easily overcome them.

Often for children with special needs, going to school is not enough as they also have to visit other professionals who help them manage their behaviors and education. 

 

These therapies can be exhausting and time consuming and the child can feel stressed. 

 

 A child with Autism Spectrum Disorder may be suffering from Sensory Dysfunction which means that the child is not able to process and regulate incoming sensory stimuli in the way most people do. 

Think about the senses and what would happen if you were overly sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, touch, tastes and even motion.

Noises that may be harmless for us may be painful to the child with sensory integration disorder. 

Some children may cry or react to wearing clothing with tags or seams because they are overly sensitive to certain stimuli. 

 

Other children with sensory integration disorder may be under-sensitive to sensory input and may seek out loud noises, crave constant motion or even bump into people to get a sense of their body in space.

The main thing one needs to understand is that a child with this type of disorder is going to encounter much stress as they go about their day attempting to regulate all this incoming sensory stimuli.

When your child with special needs is acting up it may be good to analyze which stressors or anxiety is fueling this behaviour. 

How do you help the child deal with stressors in the environment and lessen anxiety.

n Make your child’s environment as predictable as you are able to. 

Things like picture schedules, clear consequences for both appropriate and inappropriate behaviour can help the child make sense of his or her world.

Anxiety is lessened because they know what to expect.

 

n At the same time, teach them how handle change and cope with disappointments and unexpected. Role playing can help with this as well as discussing “if/then” scenario. 

We want the child to learn how to go with the flow and adapt to change in his or her environment.

 

n Give the child choices in their day-to-day routines so that they feel that they have some control. 

The choices may be selective as in “Do you want to play with blocks before or after your bath?” 

Choice can lessen a child’s anxiety by giving them a feeling of power over their world.

 

When do we feel the most anxious? 

 

When we feel we have no control or say so over what happens to us.

 

This is especially true for children with special needs.

 

Make a list of calming techniques and strategies that have worked in the past with the child. 

Some children are calmer after swinging, swimming, listening to soothing music, or taking a bath. Keep these activities immediately after the stressful work.

This breaks the monotony and gives child a breather and energy to tackle the rest of the day peacefully.

 

Giving ‘My Time’ or ‘Alone Time’, all children need sometime time to themselves where they are allowed to do whatever they want and however they want. 

It is great stress buster as the child can use their own in built strategies to overcome their stress. 

The activity could be as simple as running around in circles or playing with a string or just sitting and staring out of the window. 

 

Many times the stress is caused by the over expectations of the parents and thus they sometimes transfer their stress of meeting the school teachers or managing the child in a social gathering on the child. 

Therefore parents and caregivers need to modify their expectations and be careful that they themselves do not become the cause of the stress.