Stress and Anxiety for Your 2-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

Young children and adults alike experience stress. Stress is typically caused by an external trigger like a loud noise or a new situation. Feelings of stress are naturally built-in mechanisms for human survival and thriving. These feelings are the body’s way of warning you when there is danger and calling your attention to problems that need resolving. As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you can help your two-year-old learn to identify and manage their stress—an essential skill they will use throughout their lives.

Children at age two are in the earliest stages of learning about their strong feelings. When stress is present, they need a parent or someone in a parenting role who will regularly soothe their upset so that they can learn how to self-soothe. Symptoms of stress in two-year-olds could involve excessive crying, anger, fear of being left alone or other fears, loss of appetite, and nightmares. Two-year-olds still need to develop the skills to cope constructively with their stress.

Every child needs to learn to cope with stress. The following steps will prepare you to help your child through the kinds of stressors many commonly face. The steps include specific, practical strategies and effective conversation starters to guide you in helping your child manage stress in ways that develop their resilience and skills for self-management.

Why Stress?

Whether your two-year-old is crying, clinging, and not allowing you to leave the house when you need to, or your child shows a fear of strangers or strange situations, stress and how to deal with it can become a daily challenge if you don’t create plans and strategies for managing it.

Today, in the short term, teaching skills to manage stress can create

• a sense of confidence that you can help your child regain calm and focus
• greater opportunities for connection and enjoyment as you work together to care for each other
• trust in each other that you have the competence to manage your big feelings
• added daily peace of mind

Tomorrow, in the long term, your child

• grows skills in self-awareness
• grows skills in self-control and managing feelings
• develops independence and self-sufficiency

Five Steps for Managing Stress

This five-step process helps you and your child manage stress and grows essential skills in your child. The same process can also address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).

In order to ask helpful questions of your child and learn about their stress, parents and those in a parenting role can benefit from understanding how stress is processed in the body and brain. Understanding how the brain — for both adults and children — operates when feeling stressed is critical in shaping your responses and offering support for your child.

Anytime you are emotionally shaken from stress, fear, anxiety, anger, or hurt, you are functioning from the part of your brain that developed first — the primal brain — or amygdala. The amygdala responds to stress by fighting, fleeing, or freezing and serves to help us survive dangerous situations. While we rarely face tigers and bears in the wild, several everyday interactions can activate your and your child’s flight or freeze response system. During these intense feelings, some chemicals wash over the rest of the brain, cutting off access to the part of our brain that allows for reasoning and problem-solving.

What does this mean as a parent?

You may notice that once your child is upset, it is difficult to get through to them, or nothing may help the situation. Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, refers to this as your child’s brain being “hijacked.”¹ When the brain is hijacked and in a stress response, your attempts at resolving the situation with problem-solving, reasoning, bribes, or threats will do little to solve the current conflict or change your child’s behavior. Effective problem-solving requires logic, language, and creativity, though none can be well utilized when greatly upset. While in a stress response state, your child cannot access the part of their brain, the prefrontal cortex, that engages in reasoning. Furthermore, at two years old, your child’s prefrontal cortex is still in the early stages of development. The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until about age 25!

Two-year-olds are highly active, exploring their environment and everything in it. They add new words to their vocabulary regularly but do not yet know how to name their big feelings.

In addition to your child’s new ability to use words, continue to pay close attention to their facial expressions, movements, and sounds to work on understanding what they are trying to communicate. Your effort to learn from your child will create empathetic interactions that let them know you are interested in what they are thinking. This will make a big difference as you work to manage intense feelings together.

In becoming sensitive to your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you are

• responding to their needs
• growing their trust in you, sense of safety, and sense of healthy relationships
• growing motivation for you and your child to work together
• deepening your ability to communicate with one another
• modeling empathy and problem-solving skills

Actions

Before you can get input from your child to understand (and help them understand) what they are feeling, you both need to be calm. Your child will not learn from the situation if you or they are upset.

• Ask yourself if your child is hungry or tired. You could offer a snack or transition to a nap.
• Check on how you are feeling. If you are angry, frustrated, or overwhelmed, take a “parenting time out” and take several deep breaths (it really does help) or sit quietly for a few minutes.
• If your child’s basic needs, such as hunger or tiredness, are not an issue, take additional steps to help them calm down. This might involve offering a hug, helping them take deep breaths, or holding a blanket or stuffed animal.

Two-year-olds are just beginning to understand their feelings, so they need your support in figuring them out. When both you and your child are calm, reflect on your child’s feelings so you can be prepared to help. Ask yourself:

• “Does my child have an unmet need?” They might need someone to listen or give them attention, some alone time, or some help so they can be successful at something they are trying to do.
• You can also begin to ask them about how they are feeling.
  • “I noticed your eyes got wide, and you came running over. Are you feeling stressed?” 
  • “I noticed that you stayed right beside me instead of going to play with your friends at the new park. I wonder if you are feeling overwhelmed by the new place to play?”
  • “I know it is almost snack time. I wonder if you are feeling hungry?”

When reflecting on your child’s feelings, you can think about unpacking a suitcase. Frequently, layers of feelings need to be examined and understood, not just one. Anger might just be the top layer. After discovering why your child was angry, you might ask about other layers. Was there hurt or a sense of rejection involved? Perhaps your child feels embarrassed? Fully unpacking the suitcase of feelings will help your child feel better understood by you as they become more self-aware.

Remember, you must look past the behavior to uncover the underlying feelings. Taking the time to help your child learn about these feelings is growing their self-awareness skills, which is essential to helping them control their behavior.

There are no “bad” feelings. Every feeling a child has is a vital message that quickly interprets what’s happening around them. As a parent or someone in a parenting role, the challenge is to avoid interpreting the behavior before trying to understand what is motivating the behavior. The feelings behind the behavior may be from an unmet need.

• If your child has recently experienced a stressor, use that example to reflect on their feelings when you are both calm. You might ask, “How did you feel when we went to the new playground this morning?” Reflecting on recent experiences can help raise your child’s self-awareness.
• Use your best listening skills! Remember, what makes a parent or someone in a parenting role stressed can differ significantly from what stresses or upsets a child. Listen closely to your child’s concerns without projecting your thoughts, concerns, and feelings.

Because stress is such an integral experience in people’s daily lives, you may not realize how it can influence every aspect of your day. Learning new skills and behaviors requires modeling, practice, support, and recognition.

Learning to understand your feelings and behaviors when your child is stressed is a great way to start. It will help you understand what they are just learning to do. You might ask yourself:

• “Do I get stressed when they act a certain way?”
• “How do I respond to my stress?”
• “How do I want my child to respond when they feel stress?”

Children learn first through modeling. If you respond to stress by yelling, they will learn to respond to stress by yelling. Consider your reactions to stress and other intense feelings. Formulate your new reaction around what you want your child to mimic when stressed.

Learning about developmental milestones can help you better understand what your child is working hard to learn.

• Two-year-olds are becoming increasingly aware of their separateness from others. This new awareness can create fears, including separation anxiety, and it can also lead to defiance as they attempt to assert themselves and test how they can exert control.
• Two-year-olds are also interested in demonstrating independence, though they still learn everyday skills like putting on shoes or fastening a coat. This can lead to frustrations as they cannot act independently.
• Two-year-olds are at the earliest stages of developing a feelings vocabulary and do not yet understand their big feelings or how to manage them.
• Two-year-olds may be scared or resistant to trying new experiences as their awareness of dangers grows.
• Two-year-olds may find it difficult to assert their needs or communicate when upset.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.

Actions

• Model skills yourself, and your children will notice and learn.
  • Get exercise and fresh air. Being active, whether taking a walk or gardening, can help relieve stress.
  • Remember to breathe. Make a daily routine of taking 5-10 deep breaths to help you begin the morning calm and focused. If you run into stressful situations during the day, remember to breathe deeply amid the chaos to help yourself better cope with it.
  • Articulate feelings regularly. Use feeling words to describe how you are doing even, and most importantly, when your emotions are challenging, like fear, worry, or upset.
  • Create quiet time. Busy schedules with children are inevitable. However, everyone needs quiet, unscheduled time to refuel. Say “No” to social commitments when it’s too much. In addition to guarding your children’s quiet time, be sure to carve out your own.
  • Set a goal for daily connection. Touch can deepen intimacy in any relationship, creating safety, trust, and a sense of well-being. It offers health benefits as well. A study found that those who hugged more were more resistant to colds and other stress-induced illnesses.²
  • Notice, name, and accept your feelings. As leaders of the household, parents can get in the habit of reassuring family members or friends, “I’m fine,” even when you are not. Yet, you need to be models of emotional intelligence if your children are to learn to manage their feelings. Notice what you are honestly feeling and name it. “I’m tired and cranky this afternoon.” Accepting those feelings instead of fighting them can be a relief and allow you to take action toward change.
• Brainstorm coping strategies. You and your child can use numerous coping strategies depending on what feels right. But when you are feeling stress, it can be challenging to recall what will make you feel better. That’s why brainstorming a list, writing it down, and keeping it ready can be useful when your child needs it. Here are some ideas from Janine Halloran, the author of Coping Skills for Kids:⁴ Imagine your favorite place, take a walk, get a drink of water, take deep breaths, count to 50, draw, color, or build something.
• Work on your child’s feelings vocabulary. Yes, parents and those in a parenting role sometimes have to become a feelings detectives. If your child shuts down and refuses to tell you what’s happening, you must dig for clues. Though your two-year-old may speak in complete, short sentences, developing their feelings and vocabulary will take longer. That’s because they hear feelings expressed in daily conversations much less frequently than thoughts or other expressions. Being able to identify feelings is the first step to being able to manage them successfully.
• Create a calm-down space. During playtime, design a “safe base” or place your child would like to go when upset to feel better. Maybe their calm-down space is a beanbag chair in their room, a blanket, or a special carpet in the family room. Play act getting upset and going to your comfort spot. What items could be there to make your child feel better? A stuffed bunny, crayons, and a drawing pad? Try out those items and see if you both can feel better together.
• Play the “feel better” game. At a calm time, ask, “What helps you feel calmer when you’re stressed, sad, or mad?” Share ideas like taking deep breaths, getting a drink of water, taking a walk, or asking for a hug. Be sure to practice those soothing actions together during play.
• Create a family gratitude ritual. People get many negative messages daily through the news, performance reviews at school or work, and challenges with family and friends. It can seem easier to complain than to appreciate. Balance out your daily ratio of negative to positive messages by looking for the good in your life and articulating it. Model it and involve your children. This is the best antidote to a sense of entitlement or taking your good life for granted while wanting more and more stuff. Psychologists have researched gratefulness and found that it increases people’s health, sense of well-being, and ability to get more and better sleep at night.³

Practice can be pretend play, cooperatively completing a task together, or trying out a task with you as a coach and ready support. Children must learn new skills and make vital brain connections that strengthen each time they perform a new action.

Actions

• Use “Show me…” statements with a positive tone and body language to express excitement and curiosity.  When a child learns a new ability, they are eager to show it off! Give them that chance. Say, “Show me how you hug your pillow in your safe base to calm your body.” This can be used when you observe their stress mounting.
• Recognize effort by using “I notice…” statements like, “I notice how you took some deep breaths when you got frustrated. That’s excellent!”
• Accept feelings. If you are going to help your child manage their biggest feelings, it is essential to acknowledge and accept their feelings — even ones you don’t like. When your child is stressed, consider your response. Instead of focusing on their actions or the problem, focus on their feelings FIRST. You could say, “Are you feeling stressed? Would your doll help you feel better?” Then, focus on teaching and practicing positive behavior.
• Practice deep breathing. Because deep breathing is such a simple way to assist your child anytime, anywhere, it’s important to get plenty of practice to make it easy to use when needed. Here are some enjoyable ways to practice together!
  • Blowing Out Birthday Candles Breathing. You can pretend you are blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Just the image in your head of a birthday cake brings about happy thoughts. And to blow out several small flames, you must take deep breaths.
  • Teddy Bear Belly Breathing. Balance a teddy bear on your child’s tummy and give it a ride with the rising and falling of their breath. This would be ideal to practice during your bedtime routine when you lie and want to calm down for the evening.
• Labeling your feelings throughout the day can help expand your child’s emotional vocabulary. Remember to label both positive and negative feelings.
• Reflect on feelings you see your child experiencing. “You put on your coat by yourself; I wonder if you are feeling proud.” or “You wanted that toy, but your sibling was not done with it; it seems like that made you angry.” As your child develops a vocabulary for their emotional experience, they can communicate their needs and feelings to those around them more. Furthermore, when a child can apply accurate words to their emotional experience, soothing chemicals wash over the brain’s emotional centers to support regulation. This technique is called “name it to tame it.”
• Include reflections on the day in your bedtime routine. You might ask, “What did you like about today?” or “What were you most proud of?” or “What are you looking forward to tomorrow?” You should answer the questions as well. Children may not have the chance to reflect on what’s good and abundant in their lives throughout the day. Grateful thoughts are a central contributor to happiness and well-being.

At this point, you’ve taught your child some new strategies for managing stress so that they understand how to take action. You’ve practiced together. Now, you can offer support when needed by reteaching, monitoring, and coaching. Parents and those in a parenting role naturally provide support when they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different.

Actions

• Ask key questions to support their skills. For example, “You seem stressed. Are you feeling worried? What can we do to help you feel better?”
• Learn about development. Each new age will present differing challenges and, along with them, stress. So, regularly becoming informed about what developmental milestones your child is working toward will offer you empathy and patience.
• Reflect on outcomes. “That playdate with our friends was fun and not scary after all. What did you think?” 
• Stay engaged. Working together on ideas for trying out new and different coping strategies can offer additional support and motivation for your child when challenging issues arise.

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also encourages safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.

There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “You told Daddy that you were feeling stressed—I love seeing that!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a smile or hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you behave in the store, you will get a treat on the drive home.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything is moving along smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice. For example, when children complete their homework on time, a short, specific call out is all that’s needed: “I noticed when you got frustrated, you took a break. That’s showing what a big kid you are, dealing with your big feelings.”
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after getting through your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed. Or, in the morning, once ready for school, take a few minutes to listen to music together.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.

Additional Resources for More Intense Forms of Stress — Adverse Child Experiences, Anxiety, and Depression

If there are high emotions in your household most days, most of the time, then it may be time to consider outside intervention. Physical patterns (like depression) can set in that require the help of a trained professional. Seeking psychological help is the same as going to your doctor for a physical ailment. It is very wise to seek outside help. The following are some U.S.-based resources to check out.

• American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)
  • Has definitions, answers to frequently asked questions, resources, expert videos, and an online search tool to find a local psychiatrist. http://www.aacap.org
• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Healthy Children
  • Provides information for parents and those in a parenting role about emotional wellness, including helping children handle stress, psychiatric medications, grief, and more. http://www.healthychildren.org
• American Psychological Association (APA)
  • Offers information on managing stress, communicating with kids, making stepfamilies work, controlling anger, finding a psychologist, and more. http://www.apa.org
• Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT)
  • Provides free online information so that children and adolescents benefit from the most up-to-date information about mental health treatment and can learn about important differences in mental health supports. Parents and those in a parenting role can search online for local psychologists and psychiatrists for free. http://www.abct.org