Stress-free kids: Simple activities to help your child relax and thrive

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Dr. Wendy Gray, Pediatric Psychology

Dr. Gray is a board-certified psychologist at Rady Children’s Health of Orange County (Rady Children’s). She earned her PhD in clinical child and pediatric psychology from the University of Florida and completed her residency and post-doctoral fellowship in pediatric psychology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She specializes in the treatment of anxiety and depression in teens and young adults with chronic health conditions, particularly those with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Dr. Gray provides outpatient therapy at Orange County’s Co-Occurring Clinic and leads all research for the Adolescent to Adult Bridge (A2B) Program, a hospital-wide program to improve the transition from pediatric to adult care.

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Transcription

Melanie Cole (Host): Welcome to Long Live Childhood, a pediatric health and wellness podcast presented by Children’s Health of Orange County. I’m Melanie Cole and today we’re discussing some activities to help your child relax and thrive because you know we all could find some things to help us relax in these unprecedented times.

Joining me is Dr. Wendy Gray. She’s a Board Certified Pediatric Psychologist with [Rady Children’s Health Orange County]. Dr. Gray, it’s a pleasure to have you join us today. We’re going to talk about these activities because we all could do some. Have you seen an increase in anxiety and anxiety-related disorders in our kiddos over the course of the last few years?

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: Absolutely, and a lot of it really points back to the pandemic. A lot of children struggled adjusting to the at home schooling, and then they got used to it. And then returning back to the real world was also a very difficult time. In the patients that I see, knowing what grade they were in when the pandemic started tells me a lot about what part of normal development might have been disrupted.

Host: Okay, so when we think of the stress that our children are under, and it’s certainly different. I’m way older than you, but I don’t remember having stress. I don’t think we knew what was going on in the world. We didn’t care. We were in our own little bubble and we were kids, but today’s kids have it different.

They’re worldly. They know what’s going on. There’s drama, there’s social media, there’s all this stuff. What stressors are we addressing, and which activities can help children relax without relying on social media?

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: So there’s two different types of stress. There’s one part of stress that is very helpful. It’s what helps motivate you to rise to a challenge or to pursue in the face of adversity. And, it also builds resilience. And for athletes, certain levels of stress can enhance their performance by increasing their alertness and energy levels.

So we’re not going to be talking about that form of stress. With most of the things that we’ll be talking about today, it’s all about moderation. A little bit of stress is good, but when it starts to become chronic, it starts to become problematic. That’s when we start to have issues.

Host: So Dr. Gray, let’s start with some simple activities that we can use to help our children relax when they think of relaxing. And I’ve got a 22 and a 25-year-old right away, it’s laying on their side on the phone. You know, staring at TikTok or Instagram or whatever, but that doesn’t always reduce stress, does it?

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: No, it doesn’t. I think that it’s the normal go-to for a lot of adolescents and young adults, and to a certain extent, it can lower stress, but there are some important caveats. So first, video games and social media do provide a temporary escape and a way to connect with friends, which can be beneficial.

But at the same time, we do know from the research that extended social media use can result in depression, that feeling of missing out or FOMO that a lot of young people talk about. When you see social media, you’re essentially looking at everybody’s highlight reel, all the things that are going well.

So it’s a very filtered version of reality, and you’re comparing that to your internal blooper reel. So a lot of times when people go on social media, their mood actually ends up being lower than they would had they engaged in another activity.

Host: So what are we talking about as far as activities? What can we suggest? Because not every kid likes to read, they’re not maybe bookworms, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. What are we talking about here?

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: Well, I am a bookworm, so I definitely would, would’ve used that as a coping strategy because it does transport you to another world and gives you that mental break from stress.

Host: Oh, it’s so wonderful, isn’t it? Remarkably Bright Creatures is a wonderful book for kids.

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: Oh yes, I read that, that one was amazing. So at the most basic level, we’re thinking about activities that have a direct impact on our nervous system.

So the easiest activity and [Rady Children’s] actually has a few videos on our YouTube channel that guide families in learning these skills. But the most basic one is deep breathing. Deep breathing techniques can help children calm their minds and calm their bodies. And it’s a definitely a very different respiration pattern than we normally breathe in.

And it’s definitely a much slower rate than kids who are anxious tend to breathe. So that’s one activity.

Host: Well, that’s fantastic. So certainly as you and I both said, we can try and get them to read because boy, I just love that and I’m working on that right now with my daughter and breathing, mindfulness. Right? Meditation. Mindfulness.

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: Yeah, so mindfulness exercises can certainly help kids stay present in the current moment. And when we think about stress, a lot of it is future focused, what might happen, how we might fail. So with mindfulness and meditation, you are completely focused in the here and now, which is the only time you truly have control over, and that helps to reduce anxiety. So for the kids that I see in my private practice, I often recommend the Smiling Mind app. It’s completely free. It was created by some researchers down in Australia, and it has age specific meditation programs that you can follow along with all the way from young school aged children to adults.

Host: Cool. That’s fantastic. You want to mention that again?

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: The Smiling Mind app. And some other activities might involve arts and crafts, so that provides a creative outlet for our emotions, which can be very soothing. I personally am a big fan of physical activity. Just getting out there, getting your body moving. So playing outside, riding a bike, even going for a short walk can help to reduce stress, and that impacts our stress levels by releasing endorphins, which are natural mood lifters in our brain. So those are additional activities that I would recommend for managing stress in kids.

Host: Oh, I just love the arts and crafts recommendation because that really is a great idea. And sometimes when kids are feeling that stress, you can just put down something in front of them and let them sit there and, and it really does take all their concentration. Now, when we think of our home environment.

We don’t want the kids to hear us arguing about money with our spouses, that we don’t want them to feel that tingle of stress that you feel in an environment at home. I like music and I keep music on, and I cook, and I try and keep the lights low. Give us some tips for really creating that environment at home where the kids feel like they can breathe, like they are more relaxed than they are when they’re out in the world.

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: So you are 100% spot on Melanie, in terms of creating a calm space, perhaps even having a quiet area in the home where children can go to relax, that’s perhaps screen free or having specific predictable routines. That can provide a sense of security and stability in kids. So those are two options. Another thing is that our kids learn by watching us.

So modeling our own stress management techniques, even verbalizing it. I’m noticing some tension in my shoulders. I think my stress is building up. I think I’m going to go for a walk right now. Would you all like to come with me? So explaining that out loud to help kids recognize their own signs of stress in their body and how they can respond to them in a healthy way.

And then the last is really limiting exposure to stressors. So you mentioned not arguing in front of your kids, keeping discussions about the news, stressful topics that might affect children to a minimum; that also helps create that lower stress environment.

Host: Well, I agree with you there, and they don’t need to know all that stuff right now anyway, you know, especially for our littler kiddos, it can be quite scary to hear some of this stuff, so that’s really great ideas. But now we want to teach our children. So we have done that. We’ve done all the things you just said with arts and crafts and reading and exercise and mindfulness and breathing, and all the things you’ve brought up here today, Dr.Gray. How can we teach the children to develop their own stress management techniques as they grow older? And you mentioned the word resilience earlier, that’s part of that, right?

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: Yes, absolutely. Because when you have experience facing stress and overcoming it, that builds your resilience. And when we think about all the challenges that kids will face throughout their lives, we want them to persist in the face of difficulty and not give up because it’s really through that persistence that we achieve success.

So, i n terms of how we can teach our kids these stress management techniques, I would go back to, lead by example, show how you manage stress in a healthy way and have the tools available for kids to engage in. So having that calming corner, having the art supplies at home, having access to, let’s say the Smiling Mind app, and then when you notice that your kid is showing signs of stress, just comment on that and say, you seem a little stressed right now. What do you think would be helpful to you in this moment? And if they say, I don’t know, you can provide some suggestions such as, well, why don’t we go on a walk together and, you know, we can talk about it or not talk about it, but just moving our bodies can really be helpful.

And then finally we just want to promote healthy habits overall. So regular physical activity, eating healthy food, and getting enough sleep because sleep really helps our immune system recharge. And we all know when we are low on sleep, we’re a little bit crankier and our ability to deal with stressors is much lower.

So sleep is very, very important for kids and many kids don’t get enough sleep.

Host: Oh boy. You just brought up such a great point. Sleep is so important at their ages because it really does help to reset and recharge. So I’d like you to summarize this for us, Dr. Gray, with your best advice. Kind of wrap it all up for us because parents really want to help our children and we don’t want them to be so stressed out that by the time they get to college they can barely function.

Give us your best advice for what we can do now, while they’re teenagers and even younger, to help with stress. We can’t keep all stress away from them, but we can give them helpful activities and tools. These supports can help them cope when stressful moments do happen.

Wendy N. Gray, PhD, ABPP: I would say that it’s important to make stress management strategies a daily practice, so you don’t wait until you’re in the high stress situation to try these techniques for the very first time. It’s a lot like going to the gym where you are curling weights. You don’t pick up the 100 pound dumbbell if you’ve never curled the five pound dumbbell. So when you practice these techniques, you’re building almost like your stress management muscle. So just making it a part of every day is key to developing those skills and creating that program within our brain to automatically go to those healthy strategies when we need them.

Host: That’s such great advice. Dr. Gray, what a great guest you are, as always. Thank you so much for joining us today, and for more mental health tips and information, please visit choc.org/programservices/mentalhealth. Thank you so much for listening to Long Live Childhood, a pediatric health and wellness podcast presented by [Rady Children’s].

Together we can keep our kids happy and healthy. Please always remember to subscribe, rate, and review Long Live Childhood on Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeart, and Pandora, and please, remember to share these shows on your social channels as we are all learning from the experts at CHOC together. I’m Melanie Cole.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

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