From difficult schoolwork to challenging after-school activities, children can feel as much stress as adults do. Like adults, kids sometimes have a hard time finding outlets to help eliminate built-up tension. Exercise can help kids burn off steam and have fun at the same time. However, if your child has physical symptoms from stress, such as headaches or nausea, consult your pediatrician.
Squeeze It Out
The Your Family Clinic website recommends an exercise of imagination to relieve stress that tightens the muscles in your child's arms and hands. The site suggests you tell your child to pretend there is a lemon in each of his hands (one at a time) and to squeeze all the juice out of each lemon as hard as he can. After he has squeezed as hard as he can, tell him to "drop the lemon" and relax his hand. This will help alleviate tension in his arm and hand muscles.
Yoga
Yoga helps adults relax, and it can be a welcome form of stress relief for kids, too. RelaxationExpert.com claims that yoga and tai chi, another form of meditative exercise, help flexibility, concentration, inner calmness and emotional control. They also can help children sleep better at night. Yoga is best practiced in silence or with quiet music playing, and it can be done at home, outside or in a classroom setting. There are special yoga classes designed just for kids and teenagers. Yoga Lifetips recommends getting kids interested in yoga by starting with attention-getting poses that feature animal names, such as "downward dog" and "cobra."
Visualization
Relaxation Expert advises teaching kids how to visualize relaxing places, such as a beach or a playground, when they have stress. This form of mental escape helps people relax when they feel extraordinary tension. According to the site, there are recordings available to help children and adults learn how to master guided visualization.
Blow Bubbles
The Kids Relaxation website compares worries to bubbles kids feel in their brains and their tummies. Publishers on that site developed an activity that helps kids watch their worries float away. They suggest giving your child a bottle of bubbles and telling her to assign a worry to each sud. Blow the bubble, and watch it float away or pop. Blowing bubbles is relaxing, and watching them magically carry worries away is sure to lead to a relaxed state of mind and body.
