Staying in the Growth Zone: Stress is a Good Thing!
Identifying positive vs. overwhelming stress to set kids up for success
Our society naturally associates the term “stress” as being negative. The truth is that life is filled with stressors and stress isn’t inherently a bad thing. In fact, at Curvd Learning we believe it’s necessary to propel students forward in life and to develop character. The last thing we want to do is send kids off into the world without having successfully navigated the feelings of stress. The idea is to keep kids within the growth zone - with too little stress no learning happens, with too much stress they shut down.
There are two ways to think about the value of stress:
Stress as activation: One role of stress is to push the learner to be engaged in a way where growth happens. In this space, kids are on the edge between what they’re not able to do and what they would be able to do if they pushed themselves. This stress is acute and transient. It is momentary, it goes into someone’s experience, then there is a resolution and recovery and you take a break and do it again.
Stress as character development: We are always subconsciously assessing the threat or risk is to our physical selves, our sense of belonging, connection or self efficacy of whatever we’re doing AND whether we have the resources to address those threats. When we’re able to overcome challenges, we attribute our success to internal or external resources. We don’t feel the need to turn away from new threats because we have resources to handle them and simultaneously our willingness to persevere grows.
Too much stress in the learning environment has detrimental effects:
Too much stress has negative impacts on young learners. When under too much stress, they don’t experience success because they don’t persevere in the activity; and if they do, they don’t attribute it to themselves, so they don’t get the character gain. In the short-term they show signs of disengagement, they lose interest in their education program and don’t build the skills necessary for future learning and challenges. Long-term, they experience health issues like heightened blood pressure, a weakened immune system, weight issues like obesity or anorexia, anxiety and depression and a sense of isolation and withdrawal.
Introducing academic stressors in the time of COVID-19
There is a big difference between:
A momentary, transient push through a stressful situation in the context of feeling safe overall,
and...
The challenge of accepting a long form of uncertainty and adversity that we do not fully understand and can’t control.
In other words, we can control our own behaviors toward a stressful assignment or project but we can’t control or predict the pandemic.
“The main difference between these two versions of stress is the time component. The idea behind the healthy stress experience is that kids are able to leverage some control, so the perceived threat is reduced. COVID is every day, which causes stress fatigue,” said Tara Hofkens, assistant professor at the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development.
Kids are experiencing a tremendous level of stress the likes of which we haven’t seen since World War II - even the stress that came with 9/11 was different than the current pandemic and human rights crises. If you didn’t live in New York it didn’t affect your daily existence in the way that the COVID pandemic and the response to stressors of police shootings of people on the rise in instances of racism, racist rhetoric and white supremacy currently do.
“The entire stress level of our child population is up. We need to communicate with kids how much trust we have in them to navigate stress. That we can’t run from stress in life because pretending it isn’t happening is counterproductive for us and for them,” said Courtenay Wallpe, development director at Tahoe Expedition Academy. Rather than a child therapist or stress management researcher, Wallpe is a parent coach who uses her doctorate in community psychology to help parents make decisions about what they want their kids to experience in school and growing up.
Pro Tip: Try introducing small stressors that fall within the child’s wheelhouse. For example, if they like to play music, challenge them to host a Zoom concert for friends and family. Their passion for the subject will drive their willingness to succeed and performing their craft for others rather than by themselves will push them out of their comfort zone and into their growth zone.
“Life is not stress-free. It is inevitably full of relationship challenges, work, pandemic and wildfire challenges, all kinds of things that are stressful or considered stressors. What we want is for kids to practice and develop these skills they will need later on.”
In order to be successful, students need to feel that they have resources. If they sense threats and have no resources, that puts them in a place where they cannot productively engage. Putting students in stressful situations means providing growth opportunities in the context of sufficient external resources like a trusting environment, the ability to reach out to teachers and peers and to feel safety. When students overcome challenges they attribute it to themselves and their sense of self grows.
What Does Healthy Stress Look Like?
The way we process a situation that puts us outside of our comfort zone isn’t the same way we process the average situation. As Hofkens explained, when we think of what “student engagement” looks like in the average classroom, it’s teachers directing all of the information. If they ask a question, they expect the entire class to be paying attention, raise their hand and to be on-task because we are structuring those behaviors. So, all students need to do is demonstrate those behaviors and that’s what “engagement” means.
“But if we shift the nature of the activity to more open-ended problems that students have to solve, then raising your hand, being happy and offering a tidbit of information is not enough to meet that scenario. So, students might be stumped, confused or stuck,” she said.
In a teacher-centered environment, if you ask a student a question and the kid doesn’t answer that is not considered engagement.
“What we aren’t considering is that kids may be challenged so much that they aren't’ able to answer the question because they can’t weed through their thoughts. In this place they are out of their comfort zone but they’re still being productive,” Hofkens added.
In times of healthy stress you can productively engage during the period of time in which you’re out of your comfort zone. You haven’t shut down, walked away and given up.
“A kid might throw a pencil against the wall in frustration but we know that feelings like frustration and anger are actually positively associated with improved self-competence later on. It means they care enough to want to be able to do the task well; it’s a sign of their engagement,” Hofkens said.
What Does Unhealthy Stress Look Like?
In the worst case stress scenario the student doesn’t care. They aren’t stressed because they don’t even care. It doesn’t matter to them. Signs of frustration and anger on the other hand shows the child’s desire and willingness to participate in the activity and do well.
“Parents and teachers, when you see that the child is flooding and need to backtrack the biggest mistake you can make is trying to talk through the situation when the child is flooded,” Wallpe said. “We don’t function well when we’re flooded, our prefrontal cortex shuts down and it’s not the time to talk about what they’re going through. Walk away metaphorically or physically and let them regulate. Do something that makes the child feel confident and capable to come back to the challenge.”
Parents and teachers do need to be on the lookout for indicators of negative stress. Keep in mind that in small doses all of these things can occur, especially with teenagers as the behaviors they exhibit naturally. Parents and teachers should watch for chronic mood swings.
Little kids might display a headache, stomachache, insomnia, frequent nightmares, tantrums, or reversal to prior behaviors like sucking their thumb or being more clingy.
It is very natural to see teens with psychological symptoms of stress like moodiness, anger and hopelessness. Seeing these behaviors more habitually over a longer period of time or with more amplitude is something parents and teachers should take notice of.
“Whenever you see those consistent stress signifying behaviors, apathy, excessive crying, the child is signifying that they are not managing stress well and it’s totally time to shift it up, claim a mental health day or something special like pancakes for dinner. Acknowledge that we all sometimes need to take a break from whatever is causing our stress,” Wallpe said.
Stress Management, It’s Not Just For The Kids!
Adults need to not only check in on their own stress but make sure they’re modeling self-care and how to mitigate stress in their own lives. If we fail at work-life balance, the kids see.
“Don’t shield or protect our kids from stress because that unconsciously gives them the message that we don’t think they can handle it. We need to convey the concept that we have faith in them overcoming challenges and we believe in their abilities,” Wallpe said.
Remember, there is no such thing as “too much comfort zone.” The quality of students’ engagement in their growth zone is shaped by their comfort zone. So, in order for kids to withstand stress the adult mentors in their lives must first nurture their comfort zone.
Tips for Parents and Teachers to Introduce Healthy Stress
Know the child: There is no uniform flooding level for kids under stress, every child is unique. Be aware of the student’s situation. Try to learn a bit about what their families are going through, perhaps how much politics is discussed in the home, how worried they feel. Gather data not to eliminate stress but to become aware of their individual situations and understand how they are impacted.
Build a trusting relationship: One thing that kids use to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy stress is the support they feel in their lives from adults. They feel more capable of handling stressful experiences when a trusting adult has their back.
Know what their danger zone looks like: You have to know what it looks like when the student is hitting their danger zone and be able to back off just enough to get them back in learning mode, so they don’t shut down.
Be open about your own stress: Make sure that you’re talking to kids about when you feel stressed and how you handle that. Model healthy behaviors when tackling stressful situations and bring them in on the conversation to learn those skills.
Set them up for success: Be sure kids are getting enough sleep at night and are getting opportunities for exercise. Make sure that they are having fun because life was meant to be fun, they need time to do things they enjoy. Get kids outside into nature, it’s hugely calming to the nervous system. Writing, journaling and mindfulness are wonderful practices to offset being overwhelmed with stress.
“The biggest single mistake parents make across the board is not asking enough questions,” Wallpe said. “We like to talk. But we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. As parents, we really have to work hard to try and shift that balance between how much we’re telling our kids things and how much we’re listening to them. Getting them talking about what they feel and why and how they see their world is critical.”
Let the Kids Speak for Themselves!
Summer Jane LaFleur is in 9th grade and has attended Tahoe Expedition Academy for nine years. Under the circumstances of stress and hybrid learning she said she feels pretty good.
“I really like hybrid schooling because I’m really bad at communicating over Zoom and without meeting in person I wouldn’t have made friends with this many people. It’s super fun to be able to socialize and skateboard. Social distancing is a little tricky because if you’re too far away you feel disconnected but if you’re too close you feel uncomfortable; although it is nice to have to talk to each other and maintain closeness through words instead of touch - I feel it makes us better conversationalists,” LaFleur said.
One tip she has for her peers: “Just keep reminding yourself that it will be okay and that it will get better. Everything happens for a reason and what you are doing and working at will pay off in the future. Everyone around you is here for you and you aren’t alone in this, keep going and take care of yourself!”
One tip she has for teachers: “I’ve found that it’s hard to keep feeling like yourself right now. This can come through as appearance issues and low self esteem. If you just keep encouraging and building the kids up they will have a much easier time. And don’t take it personally if we don’t have our cameras on, it’s nothing against you, I think we just all get kind of insecure.”