We breathe in a world of distrust and conflict and we are more likely to expose our children to a future full of stress and negative feelings. As parents and teachers, we have responsibilities to play the perfect role models to our children and teach them how to relieve stress to enable them to be creative, accepting, healthy, and above all, resilient.

Build Self-Esteem

People with greater self-esteem enjoy life more than the others. Self-esteem is a realistic estimate of your own capabilities and worth. If you enjoy better self-esteem, that implies you are more likely to have a positive attitude, you are productive, responsive, imaginative, and attentive to other people’s needs. As parents, we need to encourage our children to develop their natural aptitudes and interests. Knowing their true self-worth will take time, but in the process they’ll learn to be more responsible.

Parents’ Attention and Acceptance

You need to communicate with your children better, and spend more time with them, with your regular, focused, and undivided attention. When your children know and feel your unconditional love around them, they are less likely to feel depressed and stressed.

Creative Thinking

We are shaped by our thoughts. If you give your children a positive environment, they will accept change in a positive way. They will learn that adversities are part and parcel of life and how to handle them; they’ll persist until they are successful, and will become more focused to other people’s needs. Productive thinking can cut down the risk of stress and they will encounter reality with more resilience.  Teach them how to replace negative thinking with creative thinking, and how to create room for self-esteem and coping skills.

Decision-making Strategies

People can make good decisions when they’re able to see alternative solutions to a problem, predict outcomes, view the problem from a neutral perspective and know how to implement alternatives to reach a solution. Children at a young age of four or five can usually generate alternatives and predict outcomes – however, they are still far from advance decision making skills. Give them examples from stories to show how protagonists make decisions.

Stress-busting Skills

You can teach your children breathing exercises, physical relaxation techniques, imagery, and muscle relaxation exercises. Help them identify their stress indicators and responses, and figure out what method will work for them. Let them laugh, read amusing stories, watch cartoons and comedies, and appreciate the humor in them.

Nourishment and Exercise

Sound mind rests in a sound body – take care your children get all the nutrition and exercise. Proper frame of mind and a healthy body triggers self-esteem and resilience. When you make aerobic exercise and recreation a family affair, your children are more likely to take them up and build a lifelong positive habit.

Sense of Commitment

Life becomes more meaningful when you’re committed. Commitment makes your children look for realistic goals. Educate them to be less rigid in how they achieve their goals, and help them learn the goodness of perseverance.

Building Social Skills

To save your children from the negative effects of stress, teach them how to grow in self-esteem and healthy relationships. Help them learn the skills of conflict management and help them grow self-awareness skills.

Persons with more self-control, resilience, positive outlooks towards life, will be able to find meaning in life and emerge true winners. Doesn’t that describe the personality you want your children to grow into?