2 Types of Strategies For Coping With Stressful Situations

Self- regulation skills are critical in effectively dealing with stressors after they've occurred. There are two types of strategies for coping with stressful situations. They are emotion focused coping and problem focused coping. Emotion focused coping is a strategy that involves regulation or management of negative emotions such as fear or anger. For example, when my child was eight we moved from one state to another which meant she'd be going to a different school and wouldn't know anyone. So I helped her work on emotion focused coping by listening to the reasons she was fearful and then gave her suggestions of how to deal with the fear. I told her it was normal she felt the way she did so I didn't minimize or belittle the way she felt and then I told her to ask questions of people who sat beside her such as whether they liked the teacher or a particular subject. These questions were ice breaker questions she felt comfortable asking because they didn't ask any personal questions they were just general questions and it helped her find friends in her class.

Problem solving coping is strategies that involve setting goals that include behavioral and attention regulation strategies that resolve a stressful situation. An example of problem solving coping is when a child may feel stressed because of the amount of homework they have. When my child was feeling this I helped her deal with it by helping her prioritize. I asked her what assignments were due first, which ones required research before being able to do them and I helped her make a list and put the things due first at the top and on down so that she prioritized the assignments and had a list of everything she needed to due so she wouldn't forget anything and could cross them off as she did them which helped her feel less overwhelmed because she was trying to keep it all straight in her head. Once it was out of her head and on paper it helped her feel less stress. The example of the homework is a strategy that involves a goal, the effort to achieve the goal and resolved a stressful situation. The next time the child is in this situation they can do the same thing on their own without help or they may just need to talk it out out loud with the parent to make sure it all makes sense.

Both situations help build a child's self-regulation as they learn to deal with their emotions in a healthy way and learn to problem solve and be able to do both on their own.