According David Elkind (The Hurried Chid: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon), "Hurried children seem to make up a large portion of the troubled children seen by clinicians today; they constitute many of the young people experiencing school failure, those involved in delinquency and drugs, and those who are committing suicide. They also include many of the children who have chronic psychosomatic complaints such as headaches and stomach aches, who are chronically unhappy, hyperactive, or lethargic and unmotivated. These diseases and problems have long been recognized as stress-related in adults, and it is time we looked at children and stress in the same light."
Today's children are expected to make an extraordinary number of adaptations...in the home...in the classroom...in their peer groups...and sometimes in their school-age programs. Common childhood illnesses, the birth of a sibling, a divorce in the family, the loss of a family pet or too many activities are just some examples of changes which impact on children's lives. When a child experiences too many of these changes in too short a time, or the stressors are too intense, the child may become overloaded.
Because most children are not able to verbalize their feelings about changes and crises, they tend to express their worries, anxieties, fears and angry feelings through their behavior. Often, adults react to these behaviors as "misbehavior" and usually make matters worse. If they recognize that a child is under stress, adults can alter their own behavior so they can be helpful to the child.
The following is a list of behaviors that may indicate that the child is under stress. While all children may exhibit some of these behaviors at one time or another, the child who exhibits many of these behaviors, most of the time, may be suffering from stress overload.
When children are stressed they may...
Children need...