3.4 Parenting: resources for Parental Stress

3.4 Parenting: resources for Parental Stress

3 websites that offer advice on coping with parental stress.

1. 8 tips for coping with parental stress

• Sponsor: Pacficia
• https://www.thinkpacifica.com/blog/8-tips-for-coping-with-parenting-stress/
• This page has 8 helpful tips on how to cope with parental stress. The 8 tips include: "Attend to your self care", "It takes a village", "Progress, not perfection", "Practicing mindfulness or relaxation exercises", "Let yourself be a kid again", "Pick your battles", "Making your relationship a priority", and "Done read ever parenting article out there". Each tip had a short paragraph to explain what the writer intended by the tip. 

2. 9 Steps To Stress-Free Parenting

• Writer: Susan Stiffelman
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nine-steps-to-stress-free-parenting_n_1403209
• This page is a set up in the form of a reader asking a questions about stress from being a parent and then someone from the website writes them back with advice. The writer of the article suggest that there are 9 things a parent can do to help manage their stress, they are to "Get enough sleep', "Don't take things personally". "Exercise", Do not aim for perfection, "Breathe in, breathe out", "Play", "Get support", and "Do one thing a time".

3. Stressed Out? Try These Helpful Ways To Ease Parenting Stress

• Sponsor: Child Development Institute
• https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/how-to-be-a-parent/angry_child/stress/#.XQJy1vlKjIU
• This article starts by acknowledging that parenting is stressful and how parents can get so stressed, this allows parents to relate to the article quickly. The article then goes in, briefly, on how to perform "Progressive Relaxation" on oneself, how to "Breathe Deeply" and "How To Take a Mental Vacation". Finally, the article gives 50 other ways to relax with proven stress reducers in short bullet points. 

Questions:

Some of the most common tips to stress free parenting or coping with stress in these 3 articles were to practice meditative breathing, playing, and try not to make everything perfect. The tip that I found to be the most interesting, that was found in all of these articles, was to play like a child. Playing with Legos or finger painting has been found to be a great way to help relieve stress for people of all ages. Another common message that all of the articles focused on was taking time for yourself and practicing proper breathing. Self-care seems to be very important for everyone, especially parents. Simple things like take a few moments for yourself and getting enough sleep can really help parents cope with stress and not have breakdowns. Some realistic strategies that I saw were some that we talked about in class. For example, taking a few minutes for yourself when coming home from work so that you can be ready to interact with your family and not bring the work stress home. Again, playing seems to be like a great coping strategy, you could even do this with your child to get in some extra bonding time and keep them occupied as well. I think most of these strategies seem realistic and easily doable for parents as most of them only take a short time and can be used as soon as the stress becomes to much, or better yet, be used as a preventative for excess stress.