Comparison of Stress Rates Among Children and Adults

The article that’s going to be analyzed is from the Kidshealth organization. This organization is a regional-known organization that focuses on all sorts of health related issues that might concern developing kids. The article talks about childhood stress and all the sources and signs that it might exhibit. The main idea that is going to be analyzed in this paper is the whole idea if children do experience as much stress as adults do in the concept of stress levels.

In most situations, adults are able to acknowledge if they’re feeling stressed or under pressure by the anxiety that they experience. Children, on the other hand, lack knowledge on what terminology they could use for their feelings. Steven Dowshen MD, the author of this article, discusses how stress is expressed in all stages of human development. Dawshen explains that kids’ stress could be intensified by all factors that could vary from a simple issue to a major issue such as divorce (2015). That signifies that human behavior that links to stress is always persistent since birth but advances into more complex feelings as the child grows up.

Children tend to pursue activities that they seem to enjoy, but is that an activity pursued as a method of stress relief? In this article, Dowshen MD talks about all the symptoms and signs that a child might go through due to the stress that they’re under; “Mood swings, acting out, changes in sleep patterns, or bedwetting – can be indications” (Dowshen 2015). Under psychological context, that previous statement does ally with the basic human behavior whenever humans are under stress. Due to the children’s lack of ability to express themselves, it is an expected behavior to have them go through if they were exposed to any kind of inconvenient stress.

Taking a bath, resting or just watching television is how most adults reduce their stress levels. With a child, that it’s more complicated than just that. Developing children need help of an adult to reduce and release their stress. Dowshen MD elaborates on the child’s behalf on how to pursue that and calm the child’s stress levels by trying to communicate with the child in a manner that would let them address what’s stressing them and by doing so it would make the child feel more secure and calmer from the state that they were in (2015). This method is also one of the methods that adults take whenever they feel stressed, talking to a friend that could relate to their situation is one of the biggest stress reliever an adult could experience.

Adults have a difficulty on admitting their feelings, they tend to be stubborn and avoid confrontation whenever it comes to feelings. Children are no different, except that they might be more vulnerable due to the fact that they’re still developing into this world and adapting to it. Steven Dowshen MD talks about how to cope with that stubbornness that a child might exhibit. He exclaims on the importance of communication in this scenario too, he uses the method of relatability to make the child feel more understood and be able to speak their mind to whatever stressful situations they might be going through. He also explained that in other cases, a child therapist might be a good idea to pursue (2015).

Adults and children are not that different at all. The only difference that Steven Dawshen MD sees is that adults have more of an experience and capability of expressing emotions than a child. Dawshen’s article lacked a lot of support and statistics to make his article seem reliable but having his article published in the KidsHealth organization is enough reliability and is a good guideline for good parenthood.