Some Stress Is Good for Kids

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Staying stress-free is not necessarily the best thing for your child's health.

Although chronic stress can put a damper on your child's immune-system function, research suggests that her immune system gets a boost from short-term stress. It also keeps her body and mind alert and can even boost her performance levels. Encourage her to take on stressful yet manageable tasks that are a natural part of an engaging life, such as occasional physical challenges or learning new skills.

It's helpful to think of your child's stress level as a number on a continuum: At one end is a relatively stress-free existence and on the other is a life filled with compounding and persistent stressors, some which may have an effect on a child for an entire lifetime. Your goal should be to help keep your child's stress levels on the lower end of the spectrum as much as possible, but not all the time.

Balancing stress is a key component of a healthy lifestyle. Since different kids find stress in different places, this balance can be found in a different place for each child. The top five things kids say they worry about are grades, school, and homework; family; friends; brothers and sisters; and unkind people.