The most effective coping strategies are ones that adapting to the stressors rather than trying to change the stressors.

It’s the chicken or the egg concept!Īnother study found that children who used problem solving or constructive communication were better able to manage stress and that those who used maladaptive strategies like suppressing, avoiding or denying their feelings, had higher levels of problems related to stress. Coping flexibility, or an individual’s ability to modify and change coping strategies depending on the context, can be impacted by executive functioning difficulties including flexible thinking, working memory, impulse control, emotional control, and self-monitoring.Īnd, having more coping strategies in one’s toolbox coping may be an important precursor to coping flexibility, especially because having flexibility in coping abilities can only be obtained if an individual is able to access and use different coping strategies. In fact, studies tell us that coping flexibility may be an important way to investigate coping. The wellness wheel can help with getting a big picture look at various components of overall well-being. Research on wellness tells us that child well being is dependent on various factors, including parental resources, parental mental health, parental relationship quality, parenting quality, father involvement, family types, and family stability. What’s more is that taking a look at the overall balance in a family and the child can provide understanding into things like stress, frustration, anxiety, and overwhelming feelings. It’s no surprise that some of these issues like sensory processing disorder and anxiety are linked. Children with sensory processing issues, anxiety, or social emotional struggles know the stress of frustration to situations.

Having a set of coping skills benefit children and adults! Every one of us has stress or worries in some manner or another. (Gage, 1992).Ĭoping skills in kids depends on many things: wellness, self-regulation, emotional development, sensory processing, and more. Likewise, feedback from precious coping efforts relates to the efficacy of a coping plan. Also, there is a lot to consider about the influence of factors that affect the person’s ability to cope with areas of difficulty. Coping strategies help a us deal with occupational unbalance, so that we can be flexible and persistent in addressing those needs.Ĭoping skills in children can be used based on the needs of the individual child. That makes sense, right? It’s all connected!Ĭoping skills are the tools that a person can use to deal with stressful situations. Other contributions to using coping strategies include a child’s self-regulation, executive functioning skills, self-esteem, emotional regulation, and frustration tolerance. The underlying issues like auditory processing issues or low frustration tolerance are all part of the extremely complex puzzle. Children struggle with issues and need an answer for their troubles for many different reasons. What helps one child cope may not help another child in the same class or grade. One thing to remember is that every child is vastly different. The thing about coping strategies is that one thing might help with issues one time, but not another. Try using some of these ideas in isolation and use others in combination with one or two others. Incorporating sensory strategies and sensory play into a coping toolbox can help kids with a multitude of difficulties. Emotional regulation, an unbalanced sense of being, stress, situational or environmental issues…the list of concerns that would benefit from sensory coping tools could go on and on. It’s not just anxiety or worries that causes a need for sensory-based coping strategies. These can be used for so many other underlying concerns as well. Here on The OT Toolbox, I’ve shared sensory coping strategies for anxiety or worries. Most of these problems can be a result of a multitude of problems! From emotional regulation concerns, to sensory processing issues, to executive functioning struggles, to anxiety, communication issues, or cognitive levels–ALL of the resulting behaviors can benefit from coping strategies. Most of the time, it can be hard to just figure out what is going on with the mood swings, frustration, behaviors, and lack of focus. We all need coping strategies! It can be difficult to cope with stress or worries as a child.

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