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There are many types of stresses that an individual might go through on a day-to-day basis. These include toxic stress, tolerable stress and positive stress.
Toxic stress is harmful to the developing brain. Toxic stress can weaken synapses (or connections) in the brain and can have long term implications on your child’s physical and mental health throughout their life.
Some examples of toxic stress can include but are not limited to:
Witnessing violence
Experiencing abuse, violence, and or neglect
Family hardship (eg. financial instability, food insecurity, houselessness, etc.)
Caregiver’s mental health
Exposure to substance abuse
Tolerable Stress is a response to serious stressful events, such as a natural disaster or loss of a parent, that a child has the support of an adult through. These types of events are not positive, but because of the support of a loving and responsive caregiver they are able to make it through the stress and become more resilient.
Positive Stress is a short-lived stress that is essential to healthy and robust development. This may include your child being left in the care of someone new or the first day of school.
Stresses are an everyday part of life, but the one thing that a child needs for a stress to go from toxic to tolerable is a responsive and supportive caregiver to help them navigate the stress.
How can you support your child through trauma and big life events?
Parents can build resiliency skills by being responsive caregivers.
For caregivers we understand how stressful some of these life events can be; it’s important to know that these situations have more of an impact on children even if we don’t realize it. Children can sense stress in adults present in their lives, they are constantly observing their caregivers’ behaviours and actions because you are their first and most important teacher. So how can caregivers support children to cope with stress when they are also trying to navigate the situation?
First, it’s important to know that these negative life experiences don’t always result in long term impacts. In reality, children develop their problem solving and emotional coping skills which they will use later in life when they are supported by their caregivers through these stressful life events.
When parents and caregivers are there to support children through these negative life experiences, they are able to turn situations that would typically result in toxic stress into ones of tolerable stress which helps builds your child’s resiliency skills.
So, what does that actually look like in the home?
This looks like taking time to time to play with your child, supporting them to regulate their emotions when they are experiencing big feelings, and being responsive to their needs and invitations for connection.
Children have been shown to thrive in environments where caregivers provide a safe and predictable environment, as well as a consistent routine.
Caregivers can also promote the development of resiliency skills by encouraging children to engage in their social environments and in risky play. This will support the development of their social and problem-solving skills as well as help them learn their limitations and boundaries, so they know when they need to ask for help. Moreover, when children engage in their social environments, they not only develop their social skills but also their natural support system outside of the family home.
Building a community of support is valuable not only to children but also for caregivers. When caregivers have a network of natural supports they are able to relieve stress by relying on those around them, thus lessoning the stress children feel as a result of the family situation.
For more information, please check out our blog posts on brain development in children, Science and early childhood as well as our FREE Parent Education groups.
At Norwood Centre our team of qualified Early Childhood Development Subject Matter Experts work to provide tools that caregivers can use to support early childhood development. We hear you! If you have a question or concern, please ask us. We have a variety of Child Development Activities available on our website, find them at norwoodcentre.com/child-development-activities. For short-term one-on-one coaching, please call us at 780-471-3737.
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