How to reboot your life
Every phase of your life has its unique stresses. Here’s how to recognise them – plus clever tactics to set yourself back on track
WHATEVER YOUR life stage, it brings its own pressures – from worrying about school and exams and figuring out who you really are, to juggling the needs of a growing family, taking care of ageing parents and adjusting to retirement. Here’s a guide to the best coping tactics for the stressors unique to every phase of your life.
0-16 YEARS OLD
TRIGGERS Children are a good gauge of the state of human society. “They’re the individuals within our cultures who are the most sensitive to the difficulties – and stresses – that societies experience,” says Tom Boyce, professor of paediatrics and psychiatry at the University of California in the USA.
Major sources of stress in this age group include conflict in the parents’ marriage, violence in the home, violence in the community, problems with parental mental health – a mom or dad who’s depressed, for example – maltreatment and disciplinary issues.
On top of this, school is a source of huge anxiety, with academic pressure felt even in primary school.
“Children are naturally wary of letting people down,” says British GP Dominique Thompson, who specialises in student health.
Friendships, social media and a growing variety of social situations are additional triggers, while teens especially struggle with identity.
“The whole point of adolescence is to separate from their parents,” she says. “They’re creating their new image – who they want to be, what they want to be known for. That in itself is a stressful process.”
HOW TO REBOOT For children who want to talk repeatedly about worries, set aside 15 minutes’ daily “worry time”, Boyce suggests. Constant worrying isn’t a good thing. Say that worries may be discussed in worry time but not outside of it, and if they raise an issue just say, “Let’s talk about that in worry time.”
Deciding when to push a child and when to allow them leeway is difficult, and can only be “based on intuition and your own knowledge of your child”, Boyce says. Creativity helps. He mentions a mom of a young child who refused to get ready for school. She stuck fuzzy felt-type labels for brushing teeth, putting on shoes, eating breakfast and so on on a board, and let her son choose which order to arrange them in each day.
Boyce’s key recommendations for kids? Stick to routines and rituals. Engage in play. Communicate that your love is unconditional. Honour the differences between kids. All this takes time, and Boyce believes there’s no such thing as “quality time”. Just provide enough time together. Closeness and frank conversations can emerge at unplanned moments, such as during a car trip to a soccer match.
For kids who avoid doing things due to anxiety, Thompson suggests an approach influenced by cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). “Don’t ridicule. Don’t catastrophise. Say, ‘What are you worried might happen? And what would happen then?’ Okay, we can deal with that. We’ve got plasters, a first aid kit, whatever.” When stress and anxiety interfere with normal life, that’s the time to see a doctor, she says.