Becoming a parent is probably one of the most beautiful and intense feelings one can experience in life. The fatigue of the early days can be highly stressful, on the other hand, but it is faced thanks to the energy that the birth has sparked. Things start to get complicated in the years to come: the anxiety of letting your child go to school alone, the difficulty of making them understand the importance of studying, reaching a compromise regarding the use of video games. No one knows the dramas and doubts of parenthood until they find themselves in the storm. One day you are thinking about drinks with friends and the next about which nappies to buy. Unfortunately, our own parents' advice on how to behave has its limits, as the world changes constantly and with it the trials that people must face during their growth.
However, it must also be said that there are various types of stress, which depend partly on the event itself and partly on how one reacts. Positive stress excites and motivates, for example during a competition. Tolerable stress can be the death of a relative, a circumscribed event over which one has little control, which can hurt a lot but can also make one resilient and contribute to the growth process. Toxic stress, on the other hand, is a chronic, prolonged type of stress, which can be, for example, the result of a poorly managed divorce, or excessive pressure for academic success. When tools are provided to better face stressful events, it will be easier for the child to get the most out of the experience without falling into a demotivating vortex. This happens because in childhood there are no immutable characters, defined at birth, but only chemical reactions in a developing brain. The prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and the hippocampus determine the sense of well-being or the sense of danger through the release of substances. Under stress, they trigger mechanisms that in the long run can become harmful, and this is why chronic stress causes potentially irreparable damage.
The authors provide some suggestions for parents and their way of helping the child manage stress. Firstly, offering alternatives and the possibility of choice works better than imposing one's will. They also advise learning not to reassure excessively. Minimising does not help. Better to let them understand that you have faith in their ability to react. Protecting at all costs, in short, diminishes the child's ability to react autonomously to difficulties in life, a fundamental capability later in years.
