Family

Family Stress Management - Easy Strategies For Busy Families

by: Genevieve M. Lowry

Family stress management is a crucial part of managing your overall well-being. Whether stress comes from balancing jobs, family, and home life, no matter how hard we try it looms there, working its way into family life. Children today are experiencing more stress related to school, peer pressure, and media events than ever before. Parents may be feeling the squeeze from loss of jobs, increase costs of livings and worrying about their financial future. How can families manage their stress without letting it get the best of them and wearing them down keeping families from enjoying one another?

Choose a Family Theme Song or Mantra

Belt out "All you need is Love" or "We Go Together" when stress starts mounting or times get overwhelming. By busting into song or reciting the family mantra helps to remind each other of who they can rely on. Make a big poster of your family mantra and post it on the fridge to stay connected when times get tough. Sometimes parents and children forget they are not alone and that each one of you has each other to turn to for help, advice, or a singing partner.

Take a Walk Together or Kick the Ball Around the Yard

Going outside even for a few minutes; the cool air, open space, and natural setting will automatically transform any negative feelings ridding the body of tension. The benefits of physical exercise, increasing the heart rate even for a few minutes expels energy, increases blood flow, relaxes muscles, and helps the body to oxygenate blood more efficiently, all are key parts of family stress management. Children are also much more likely to open up and talk with their parents when engaged in activity creating stronger bonds and strengthening the family.

Laugh out loud

When stress starts to build because the kids are fighting, dinners burning, and no one is paying attention to your repeated requests to set the table, laughter is the number one stress reliever. Studies have shown that even fake laughing causes endorphins the "feel good hormone" to release. Laughter often brings a sense of levity to any situation; once you see the funny it's hard to be upset. Start laughing as a family or pass the laugh around the table encouraging everyone to participate in your families mini stress buster.

Whether Families are struggling to make ends meet, or it's another hectic day full of activities. family stress management is an important part of keeping everyone as happy as possible. Family stress can be a drain on the fabric of everyday life and begin to erode the bonds between family members. With just a few simple strategies your family can be empowered to take on the challenges of a busy daily life learn to refocus and refuel in order to work together as a family.

See Also:

One of the best resources to learn more about stress management is Holisticonline.com Stress Management Infocenter.

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Genevieve M. Lowry has been helping children and families for twenty years. As a certified child life specialist at The Children's Hospital of NY, she worked on a general medical floor providing therapeutic activities for children facing chronic or life threatening illness. She also helped children and families cope with the rigors of a cancer diagnosis in an outpatient oncology clinic. For more details: http://guidedimageryforchildren.com/