Is stress making your child sick?

As adults we recognise that there is a link to stress and illness but does this link apply to children as well?  Is the school your child attends making them sick?

Being a parent involves making a host of choices everyday for your children.  This year my husband and I decided to change the school our 6 year old daughter attended.  

Little did we know that this would result in a whole host of issues causing her stress and leading to ongoing illness.  In the new school she was seen as just one of many little bodies to be educated in the class.  Individuality was shunned in favour of conformity and “obedience” (that came directly from the school newsletter).  

Our child is a master of giving teachers all they expect and nothing more and this led to her slow decline in growth educationally over the course of 3 terms at this school. Not only was she unable to be an individual but it appeared one of the school’s goals was to have every student become a mirror of every other student within the class or classrooms. Now I am not saying that she failed to learn but I am saying that her capacity to learn far exceeds what was allowed and expected of her.

Now back to my main point, which is, my daughter was sick nearly the entire 3 terms she was in attendance at that school.  She was unhappy there and worried about going to class each and every day.  She often had tummy aches in the morning and had sore this or sore that on a constant basis.

To the teachers she was a model student.  Conforming perfectly.  But the child I got home off the bus was often in tears, upset and angry yet unable to explain why.

Finally an incident led us to remove her from that school and go back to the school she had been in the previous year.  Just as suddenly she feels well, she doesn’t have headaches, tummy aches or other ailments of a somatic nature and she is happy at home.  She doesn’t have that long ongoing runny nose and she feels well.  The most important discovery in the whole situation is that we saw the influence this stressful situation was having on her as when she is so young wellness, confidence, creativity and passion are keys to her future.  We are very very pleased that we didn’t feel powerless to alter the course of her schooling as sometimes...the school does not know best!

If your child has been sick more than a “normal” amount, have look at the situations in their lives that may be causing stress and see if you can make any changes for a better outcome.

Contact me now to help alleviate stress for your child.

Lisa Wheeler

www.scopehypnosis.com