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Stress-Free Once Again: 5 Ways to Keep Yourself And Your Kids Calm Despite Living In A Stressful Environment

Stress-Free Once Again: 5 Ways to Keep Yourself And Your Kids Calm Despite Living In A Stressful Environment

The world we live in is full of stressful triggers that can set off emotions and behaviors that make it difficult to keep a happy family dynamic. Sometimes those stresses are environmental, and your family has no choice but to deal with them every day.

As the parent, you may often be faced with the pressure of having to choose one bad option over another worse option just to get through the day. You are doing the best that you can, but sometimes hard choices have to be made.

If you live in a stressful environment, there are things that you can do to help keep yourself calm, and project that calm on to your children as well.

Five Ways to Keep Yourself, and Your Children, Calm Under Stress

In a stressful environment, your children are going to feel the tension, no matter how good you think you are at hiding it. Instead of trying to ignore the situation, try these methods to help you and your kids stay calm under pressure.

1. Focus on one thing at a time.

You may have a laundry list of stresses – your job, your bills, putting food on the table, your child who is in your face yelling at you. Instead of piling all of those stressors together and feeling overwhelmed, concentrate on the most urgent one at the time, and put the rest on the back burner. You are not ignoring them, you are dealing with them later when you have the energy and mental clarity to handle them responsibly.

2. Be flexible, and show your kids how to do this as well.

Most of the time, things don’t go the way we had planned. We can choose two options when this happen – throw a fit, cry, and scream, and lament why things never go our way, or have the flexibility to bend and say, “Well, this didn’t work out how I had planned, but what can we do now to move forward?” Your children will learn from your example.

3. Choose your battles wisely.

Your ultimate war is survival – your children must survive, and you must survive. But to win a war, you do not have to fight every battle, just the important ones. Choose your battles carefully. Some may look like a sure win, but in the end, you, or both of you, lost – respect, time, self-respect, and more.

4. Try to avoid a “woe-is-me” attitude.

Whether or not you believe that your attitude attracts what you get in life, the truth is that having a pity party for yourself helps absolutely no one, and is actually detrimental to your health and your family. A positive attitude, even in the face of defeat, makes you all a winner and teaches your children the same thing.

5. When all else fails, seek help.

You may feel like a failure as a parent, but if your teenager is demonstrating severe rebellion and it is affecting your home environment and your other children, there are programs out there to help you and them. An adolescent partial hospitalization program, for example, may be just what you all need to separate, focus, and redirect your stresses just enough to learn how to move forward in a healthy way for all of you.

No Matter What, Stay Calm

Easier said than done, right? Find some calming techniques, walk away from the situation, and remember that not every battle must be fought and not every win makes you a winner.

Ask for help when things are out of control, and focus on your health and your family as your end goal, and you will get through the trying years of raising your children – they are worth it!

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Twenteen Mom

Dhadha Garcia is a lifestyle and mommy blogger from Bacolod, PH. She is a mompreneur, a full-time blogger and a content creator. She started blogging in 2007 and became one of the pioneers of the Negrense Blogging Society, Inc. (NBSI) in 2009, where she has received several awards and nominations for her blogs. She also writes at www.theblueink.com and www.classysweets.com.

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