Understanding Stress in Children

Severe stress, research shows, can be harmful to a child's well-being. Normal stress is considered a natural part of healthy development and is even needed to learn how to cope with adversity and build resiliency. The experience of common, short-lived stress among caring, nurturing adults fosters growth and supports experiences and skills in children. Extreme or chronic stress, on the other hand, not only endangers children but can weaken facets of brain development and overall health.

Three types of stress

By recognizing stress types, as well as the varying outcomes, we can better understand the impact of stress. We also can build practices to reduce stress and effectively treat stress-related problems. Researchers distinguish among three types of stress in children:

Positive stress

This type of stress occurs when dealing with short-lived frustration, such as getting a shot at the doctor's office, meeting a new person, and other frustrating experiences, and is experienced in the context of a positive, caring relationship with an adult. These are normal stressful experiences and important for healthy child development and resiliency.

Tolerable stress

This type of stress occurs when dealing with more serious difficulties such as a serious illness, death in the family, or a natural disaster and which happen in time-limited periods. And this is supported by caring adults who help children adapt; therefore, helping the stress response return to healthy levels over time.

Toxic stress

This type of stress refers to severe, repeated, or prolonged adverse experiences, such as prolonged neglect or severe poverty, that activate the body's stress-response systems without the support of a protective, stable adult relationship to help children adapt. Toxic stress is linked with persistent effects on the nervous system that weaken developing brain architecture and generate a variety of physiological problems. Toxic stress is considered the most threatening type of stress for children. The key element of toxic stress is the absence of a supportive adult relationship to help children manage.

The Science of Stress: Troubling trends

Increasing numbers

As the number of adverse early childhood experiences (ACEs) increases for a child, so does the risk of developmental delays. Those children facing four or more adverse childhood experiences in the first 3 years of life have a 50-100% chance of a developmental delay.

Risks

Toxic stress disrupts brain architecture, affects organ systems, and leads to lower thresholds for responsiveness in stress-management systems, thereby increasing the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment, well into adult years.

Statistics of children

"Between 75 and 130 of every 1,000 U.S. children under age 5 live in homes where at least one of three common precipitants of toxic stress could negatively affect their development" as stated by the Center for the Developing Child, Harvard University.

Science of stress: Effective practices

Stable relationships

It is critical that parents and caregivers provide a safe and nurturing relationship to their children from infancy and throughout their childhood to prevent or reverse the damaging effects of stress.

"The relationships children have with their caregivers play critical roles in regulating stress hormone production during the early years." – Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Brain, Center on the Developing Child

What works?

The key to healthy childhood development is early intervention as soon as there are any indications of problems due to trauma or ACEs.

Community resources

When community resources match the needs of the children and families that they are set up to serve, they can be very effective. When these services are asked to address needs that are beyond their capacity to meet, they are likely to have little impact. Child advocacy organizations are available in or near most communities with a list of resources available for families.

So, where does this unprecedented situation, COVID-19, fall in this discussion? We are uncertain how long families will be faced with concerns resulting from the pandemic, but understanding stress not only broadens safe practices, it helps in creating the right conditions in which children prosper. Despite the ongoing crisis for Americans, research continues to remind us that children thrive best in safe environments, which includes stable, nurturing relationships with adults.

References

• Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University (2007). Early Childhood Program Effectiveness (InBrief).
• Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University (2007). The Impact of Early Adversity on Child Development (InBrief).
• Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University (2014). Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain, Working Paper 3.
• Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University. Stress and Resilience: How Toxic Stress Affects Us, and What We Can Do About It.
• National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2007). The Science of Early Childhood Development: Closing the Gap Between What We Know and What We Do. 

Adapted from Penn State Extension Better Kid Care Tip Sheet (2016). Understanding Stress. Tip sheet #1306. Revision by: Jacqueline Amor-Zitzelberger