Stress-less Today: Three Coping Skills for Parents and Children

Tight chest, shaky breathing, racing thoughts?! Stress can take hold of any of us, and when stressed it can be even harder to remember our coping skills for how to calm down and become more clear headed. Coping skills are tools that can help you manage your stress, but in the stressed moment you might not remember them. 

When you aren’t able to remember your coping skills it could increase your worry into anxiety, causing more stress. There are several different calming strategies that you can use; to remember them all might make your head spin! It can feel impossible to be aware of your surroundings and yourself when stressed. 

Enriching Kidz has an easy three-step awareness check that is good for both adults and kids! These coping skills will move from external awareness to bodily awareness to internal awareness which can help someone become aware of their surroundings and internal experiences when in times of stress or anxiety. 

1. 5-Senses Countdown

The 5-Senses Countdown helps you concentrate on the environment around you by being able to list things you can interact with using your senses. Starting with five things you can see. Then four things you can touch/feel. Followed by three things you can hear. Then two things you can smell. And finally one thing you can (or could potentially) taste. These numbers can be adjusted to the comfort of the person using the skill and the scenario, or even dropping a category if it’s not applicable. This coping skill brings you out of your mind and to a check in with what is happening around you. 

2. 1-Minute of Active Breathing 

Take a minute (or more) of active breathing, feeling the air come into and out of your nose/mouth and lungs. Feeling your breath can help recenter your body and may calm any panicked breathing you may have. There are plenty of different techniques used for active breathing such as box breathing, “straw” breathing, alternate nostril breathing, 4–7–8 breathing and more! Find a pattern of breathing that works for you and do it for at least a minute. This coping skill brings attention to your body and actively engages you with it. 

3. 3-Thoughts Down a River 

For 3-Thoughts Down a River this coping skill is more internal and can use visualization or actions. When nervous or stressed our thoughts can be racing or sometimes elusive. Chasing down these thoughts can be hard and potentially induce more stress. The suggested coping skill here is that when you ‘catch’ a thought by either visualizing it in your hand or literally grabbing the thought out of midair. Next acknowledge the thought, think it as clearly as you can, example: “XYZ makes me upset.” Then, let that thought go by releasing your hands and imagining the thought floating away from you down a river. Other visualizations work too, such as seeing the thoughts floating up into the sky or slipping through your hand like sand. Do this three times with three different thoughts. This coping skill brings attention to your thoughts and thought patterns. 

This three-step awareness for stress is a good way to calm down, release stress, and remember three different specific coping skills that target different aspects of your experience. 

If you are from Mason, Ohio it might be memorable to call this group of coping skills the “513” which employs these three different coping skills together under one name. The reason to call it the “513” is because Enriching Kidz is based in Mason, Ohio and the phone area code is… you guessed it, 513! 

Calming yourself can be difficult in times of stress but I hope these techniques and coping skills help you settle into the moment and be more clear headed when you need it.   

If this article was helpful consider signing up yourself or your children for a class in our Stress-LESS series, with separate sessions for parents and kids. The classes are written and taught by a Certified Recreational Therapist who applies their knowledge to the materials in the class. Click the links to find out more about our Stress-LESS Kidz and Stress-LESS Parents classes and register for an online LIVE class offering.