Help Your Children Cope With Stress by Teaching Them That People Change
Adolescence is a difficult time. Teens are highly aware of relationships and social status, but they do not yet have the psychological and emotional toughness to let the social struggles roll off their backs. They also have no life experience to know that setbacks or setbacks are temporary and can be overcome.
But psychologist David S. Yeager of the University of Texas found that giving children information about how they and their peers continue to grow and change has a vaccine’s effect on stress levels.
Dr. Yeager asked a group of teenagers to read a research paper, written in a chatty tone, about how young people’s personalities are still evolving. He also asked them to read adolescent first-hand stories about how they deal with stressful social situations, realizing that social setbacks are temporary and how people (including themselves) can change. No information was provided to the control group. Both groups were then asked to complete a stressful community assignment: deliver a short speech to an audience of strangers. Unbeknownst to them, the audience was instructed to cross their arms and behave in a hostile manner towards the speaker.
The group, having received a preliminary lesson about personality and change, handled the stress of performing in front of a hostile audience pretty well. However, in the control group , the stress level was very high . The researchers continued their real-world study in the classroom, measuring cortisol levels in ninth graders who also reported negative social interactions throughout the day. Students who received lessons about personality and social compliance weathered social storms far better than those who did not.
As the New York Times notes, one of the key factors is that teens received first-person lessons from other teens . As Dr. Yeager said, “We ask children to convince other children. … It makes them respect and motivates. ” In other words, it would not be as effective if Dad lectured on how “this too will go away.” So if you can, get older kids like siblings and cousins to talk about the ups and downs of their friendship. Or start a conversation at your child’s school about the science of adolescent development and the evolution of social landscapes, and involve older children in mentoring younger children. The sooner they know that change is inevitable and that the high school cafeteria doesn’t last forever, the happier they’ll be.