Parenting Under Stress

By Dr. Maha Broum Ph.D.

This book is intended to raise parents awareness of stress they and their children go through as they face the pressures of modern life. When parents become aware of these pressures they can deal with them, model a positive attitude to their children, and help children express and manage their emotions in order to ensure a healthier development of children and a better relationship in the family.
The book is divided into four chapters: Chapter 1 explores sources of stress in modern life while Chapter 2 demonstrates how stress impacts parenting through the elements: academic pressure, extracurricular activities, and toys. Chapter 3 lays out the intellectual, emotional, physical and social symptoms suffered by children of stressed-out parents. Ways out of the rat race are portrayed in Chapter 4.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466958265

Dr. Maha Broum Ph.D.

About the Author Dr. Maha Broum is a parent of two children, and an educator for more than 30 years. She had her initial teacher training in Lebanon, pursued her Masters of Science in Educational Administration and Supervision from University of Tennessee, and her Ph.D. in Administrative and Policy Studies in Education from University of Pittsburgh. She is a learner for life and has enrolled in a number of continuing education courses in University of Toronto. Dr. Broum taught at elementary and secondary public schools in Lebanon before coming to the United States to continue her education. After earning her Ph. D. she held leadership positions in highly recognized academic institutions and taught at the university level in Lebanon. She is a member of a number of provincial, national and international professional organizations, has written articles that appeared in alternative magazines, and has presented papers in professional national and international conferences. Dr. Broum is now working part time as an occasional secondary school teacher in Ontario public school system and part time as an independent educational consultant. She volunteers with parent groups within and outside the school system.

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© Copyright 2012 Dr. Maha Broum, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-5825-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-5826-5 (e)

Trafford rev. 09/24/2012

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Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Stress

Chapter 2

Parents Under Stress

Chapter 3

Children of Stressed-out Parents

Chapter 4

Rethinking Our Parenting Style

Bibliography

About the Author

Dedication

To all parents

who want the best for their children,

and that is every parent

Introduction

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Ferris Bueller,

‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986)

FOR A MONTH and a half my husband complained of symptoms that doctors could not diagnose. He would have bouts of sweating and shaking, numbness of the limbs, heart palpitation, very painful stomachache, back and knee pain, diarrhea then constipation within few hours, and irregular urination on top of sleepless nights all along. His medical tests such as urine and blood tests, MRI, and ultrasound to the bladder, prostates, intestines, stomach and thyroid were all good. Eventually, one doctor was able to diagnose his case as anxiety attacks that had resulted from long-term stress, and treated him.

My husband was not the only member in the family who complained of stress-related symptoms. For two long years I had accompanied my daughter to specialists as she suffered of chest pain, arrhythmia, shortness of breath, shaking and sleepless nights. After countless ECGs, stress test, heart monitors, thyroid tests, and gastrointestinal tests, the doctors concluded she had panic attacks because of anxieties and worries about her life and her future.

My husband, like most people, was living a very stressful life but believed he was managing it, until it hit him. Neither he nor I had known how sudden, varied and severe stress-related illnesses are. Many friends and relatives opened up to us about being treated for similar stress-related syndromes, but most people prefer not to speak about their condition publicly. This attitude in specific urged me to write this book to raise awareness of mental health issues that are on the rise, so people would prevent them before any major problem develops.

Statistics on stress-related mental illness in industrialized countries, specifically in North America, is appalling. A World Health Organization report shows that mental illness accounts for more disability in developed countries than any other group of illnesses, including cancer and heart disease. Twenty five percent (25%) of adults in the U.S. reported having a mental illness in the previous year. That means in a family of four, one is likely to have a mental illness. Twenty percent (20%) of Canadians will personally experience a mental illness in their lifetime, and all Canadians will be affected indirectly at some time through a family member, friend or colleague. Moreover, statistics show that Canada’s youth suicide rate is the third highest in the industrialized world and is among the leading causes of death, second only to accidents.

The good news is that mental illness can be treated effectively. A combination of medication and psychosocial treatment usually results in significant reduction of symptoms. People suffering of such illness can develop strategies to manage these symptoms so it does not have big impact on their lives. However, only half of those who suffer symptoms of depression or anxiety go to see a doctor.

Parents underestimate their own stress. Even though parents work long hours, rush from one task to another, get home exhausted and fall asleep on the couch, they still believe they are successful at dealing with stress not knowing it will suddenly mess up their body, will negatively affect their relationships with husband, children and friends, and will greatly affect their performance. Parents also underestimate the impact of their stress on their children. Sixty nine percent (69%) of parents surveyed by The American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) reported that stress has only a slight or no impact on their children but only fourteen percent (14%) of children agree to that, presenting a big gap between parents and children experience of stress. More and more children are expressing symptoms of stress similar to those expressed by adults under stress, and they are expressing them at a younger age too. Modern life has left its toll on them. Children today have worries and anxieties that parents may not have experienced when they were their age. Children now live a rough life, are insecure, have very little social and emotional training, and get little or no support when they face a challenge or an obstacle.

Parents have a responsibility to prevent anxieties in their children’s lives and save their childhood making sure it remains innocent, playful and stress-free. It is not enough for parents to have good intentions for their children to have the best life and be up to the demands of modern life. Parents need to be aware of anxieties children have and be able to train their children on managing them. Parents should model ways to develop a healthy social support system critical to a healthy body, healthy relationship and healthy parenting approach.

When I started writing this book, I had few assumptions about stress and its impact on children based on my personal experience at home as a mother and at school as a teacher. Those assumptions were sustained by literature. An abundance of articles, blogs and books presents different outlooks on modern-life parenting. I read with great interest David Elkind’s ‘The Hurried Child’, and Carl Honorés ‘In Praise of Slowness’ and ‘Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children From the Culture of Hyper-Parenting’. Other interesting books on modern parenting are Tom Hodgkinson’s ‘The Idle Parent: Why Less Means More When Raising Kids’, Madeline Levine’s ‘The Price of Privilege’ and Lenore Skenazy’s ‘Free Range Kids.’

The purpose of writing this book is raising parents’ awareness of stress they and their children go through and ways to deal with it before it is too late. When parents become aware of the situation, they manage it through dealing with their own stress, modeling a positive attitude, and training their children on how to express and manage their mental conditions in general, stress in particular, to ensure a healthier development of the children and a better relationship in the family.

The book is divided into four chapters: Chapter 1 explores sources of stress in modern-time life, while Chapter 2 demonstrates how stress impacts parenting through the following elements: academic pressure, extracurricular activities and social interaction, and toys. Chapter 3 lays out the intellectual, emotional, physical and social symptoms suffered by children of stressed-out parents. The last chapter, Chapter 4, portrays ways out of the rat race. The book delivers two different approaches to managing stress: one approach offers tips to help parents deal with stress in small steps. The second approach is holistic and is associated with developing a complete new mindset and lifestyle, and adopting a new philosophy that rejects life in the rush and takes a slower pace. The book acquaints readers with the ‘slow movement’ that encompasses all aspects of life and includes ‘slow parenting’. It talks about the ‘slow movement’ as an alternative lifestyle to rushing, a movement that inspires a path to a saner and happier life.

Finally, this book does not blame children or their parents. Rather it aims at raising awareness of mental health issues within the family. Parents need not feel guilty, and children should not blame their parents for being stressed. Awareness of the threats posed by pressure is the first step towards dealing with it.

Chapter 1

Stress

‘Stress is Poison’

Agave Powers

Stress

YOU ARE A working parent and your job stretches beyond the eight-hour day because of a long daily commute. You come home exhausted to meet the demands of your family, and often fall asleep on the couch after dinner. Sometimes you go to bed before your children do in order to wake up early the following day. You are suffering of a number of aches and pains.

You have a decent job but it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. You come home and start fighting with your spouse and screaming at your children. You want to spend more time with them but there is no time. You do not feel you are building a healthy relationship with your spouse and children.

Your kids are in high school. They are good kids but they neglect chores and slam doors when you mention homework. You feel ready to snap.

You have a new supervisor at work, and a new set of rules for conducting business and dealing with customers. No matter what you do, you feel it is not enough to fulfill the new unreasonable demands. You feel you can not go on and wish you could quit but can not due to the economic downturn and fear of not finding another job. So you keep quiet and stay at your job even though you are not happy.

You get a new job in the city where you do not know anyone. Your neighbours may say ‘Hi’ to you but that is it. They are busy with their own lives. People at work do not have time for you either. They have to get back to their families after work. Loneliness gets to you.

Do you find yourself in one of these scenarios?

Most probably, yes!

Stress is a pandemic that is spreading all over North America, Europe, and the world. Modern life is full of hassles, deadlines, frustrations and demands that result in stress. We talk about it but are not clear on what it is and where it comes from so we can deal with it. Stress is an outcome of rapid change. It comes from good events in our lives as well as from bad ones. It is a situation where intellectual and emotional demands exceed the personal and social energy that we have. This situation impacts our performance and attention span. It is normal to feel some stress sometimes. Some stress can be good and needed to push us to act and be ready for challenges. Some stress makes us feel