Little People, Big Stresses

“Children’s griefs are little, certainly, but so is the child.” ​—Percy Bysshe Shelley.

LOOK at the drawing below of a top hat. At first glance the hat seems taller than the brim is wide. In reality, however, both height and width are equal. Dimensions can easily be misjudged.

It is just as easy for adults to misjudge the dimensions of a child’s stress. ‘Children’s problems are so trivial,’ some reason. But this thinking is illusory. “Adults should not judge troubles by their size,” cautions the book Childstress!, “but by the size of the pain they produce.”

In many cases the proportions of a child’s pain are greater than adults realize. This was confirmed by a study in which parents were asked to rate their children’s emotional state. Almost all replied that their children were “very happy.” Yet, when questioned separate from their parents, most of the children described themselves as “unhappy” and even “miserable.” Children face fears that parents greatly minimize.

In another study, conducted by Dr. Kaoru Yamamoto, a group of children were asked to rate 20 life events on a seven-point stress scale. Then a group of adults rated those same events according to how they felt a child would rate them. The adults misjudged on 16 of the 20 items! “We all think we know our children,” concludes Dr. Yamamoto, “but all too often we don’t really see or hear, nor understand, what is really troubling them.”

Parents must learn to view life’s experiences from a new perspective: through the eyes of a child. (See box.) This is especially vital today. The Bible foretold that “in the last days there will set in perilous times of great stress . . . hard to deal with and hard to bear.” (2 Timothy 3:1, The Amplified Bible) Children are not immune to such stress; often, they are its prime victims. While some of children’s stresses are simply “incidental to youth,” others are quite unusual and deserve special attention.​—2 Timothy 2:22.

[Box on page 5]

Through the Eyes of a Child

Parental Death = Guilt. Recalling momentary angry thoughts toward a parent, a child may harbor concealed feelings of responsibility.

Divorce = Abandonment. A child’s logic says that if parents can stop loving each other, they may also stop loving him.

Alcoholism = Tension. Claudia Black writes: “The daily environment of fear, abandonment, denial, inconsistency, and real or potential violence fostered in the alcoholic home is hardly a functional, healthy environment.”

Parental Fighting = Fear. A study of 24 students revealed parental fights to be so stressful that bouts of vomiting, nervous facial tics, loss of hair, weight loss or gain, and even an ulcer were the consequences.

Overachievement = Frustration. “Wherever children turn,” writes Mary Susan Miller, “they seem to be running for their lives in races lined up for them by adults.” Pressured to be the best at school, at home, and even at play, the child never wins, and the race never ends.

Newborn = Loss. Now having to share parental attention and affection, a child may feel that he has lost a parent rather than gained a sibling.

School = Separation Anxiety. For Amy, leaving her mother and going to school was like suffering a little death each day.

Mistakes = Humiliation. With their shaky self-image, children “tend to blow some things up out of all proportion,” says Dr. Ann Epstein. Humiliation, she found, was one of the most common triggers of child suicide.

Disabilities = Frustration. Besides the ridicule of uncompassionate peers, the physically or mentally disabled child may have to bear the impatience of teachers and family members who express disappointment over what is simply beyond his ability.

[Picture on page 4]

Old-fashioned top hat