Why Kids Are Experiencing Toxic Stress

In our fast-paced and ever-connected world, it’s no wonder stress is on the rise. Add in the fact that many people are facing difficult personal challenges, ranging from rising housing costs to going through traumatic experiences, most experience an extreme form of stress at least once in their lives. Unfortunately, children are not immune to this type of stress. As many as 90% of children in the United States are at-risk for experiencing a mental health phenomenon know as toxic stress.

In this article, we’ll get into what toxic stress is and why kids are going through it at such an elevated level.

What Is Toxic Stress?

Most people are familiar with a normal level of stress. After all, stress is a regular response to life’s challenges, and it motivates us to push through the difficulty to achieve something or protect what’s truly important.

However, in too severe or prolonged of a dose, stress can turn toxic. In particular, toxic stress usually arises when someone is exposed to a long-term form of severe stress or trauma, such as being in a dangerous situation.

While toxic stress negatively impacts adults, children experience it more severely. Usually, the intensity of the way it influences kids boils down to their level of brain development.

The brain doesn’t finish developing until someone reaches 25, when the prefrontal cortex finally gains its full-functioning capacity. The prefrontal cortex regulates the amygdala, which responds to stressful situations by racketing up anxiety and producing a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response.

So, if a prolonged stressor or traumatic event happens in someone’s childhood, the amygdala will operate without as much regulation from the prefrontal cortex, making it harder for the child to navigate their emotional experience.

What Causes Toxic Stress in Children?

For the most part, toxic stress is caused by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). The term encompasses a broad range of potential occurrences that can traumatize children.

However, not all children who undergo a traumatic event experience the same emotional responses long-term. Proximity to the traumatic event or people impacted, past mental health history, and even genetics can play a role in how an event impacts someone emotionally.

So, if your child has gone through a traumatic event, do your best to maintain an open line of communication on how it’s impacting them. If they don’t want to talk to you, see if they’ll speak to a doctor, therapist, or other qualified professional.

Below, we’ll explore different ACEs that children may face. That way, we can help children avoid these situations.

If the situations are unavoidable in your particular circumstance, speak to your child often and consider hiring a therapist to help them work through and manage their emotions.

Physical or Sexual Abuse

Children who experience physical or sexual abuse may develop toxic stress, especially if they’re frequently around the person who mistreats them. While both types of abuse can happen at home, they also might occur at school, at camp, or at a relative or friend’s house.

In fact, children are most likely to be abused by people who know them. Often, the person will groom the child and even the parents into trusting them. So, whether you’re a parent, teacher, or caregiver, staying vigilant will help you protect your child.

Here are some ways to protect children against abuse:

• Only send your child to schools and programs that require extensive background checks.
• Research the programs your child attends to ensure the administration doesn’t have a history of hiring abusers.
• Know the signs of abuse (more on this below).
• Teach children about appropriate touch, and tell them no one should touch them with excessive force or in certain areas.
• Tell your children not to keep “secrets” from you when other adults tell them to.
• Call 911 or your local child protective services agency if you suspect ongoing abuse. 911 should be used in immediately dangerous situations.

Here are the signs of abuse:

• Unexplained or frequent marks, scratches, or bruises, especially (but not exclusively) in areas typically covered by clothing or covered up with makeup.
• An abnormal amount of knowledge about sexual functions for the child’s age.
• A sudden change in the child’s demeanor, such as a typically talkative child becoming withdrawn.
• An inability to control their bladder, such as wetting the bed or going in their pants, after they’ve already been potty trained.
• Depression.
• Trouble eating.
• Secretive phone or social media use. Parents or trusted caregivers should always monitor their child’s internet and phone usage.
• Noticeable fear of a specific person, including a parent or caregiver.
• Not wanting to go to a place that should be safe, such as not wanting to return home after school. Likewise, a child being abused at school or another frequently-attended place, they might not want to go to those events.
• Acting out specific behaviors done to them, such as hitting other children or making sexual gestures that most children their age don’t know about yet.
• Reporting abuse. Sometimes, children make allegations of abuse or allude to the fact that they’re being mistreated. Unfortunately, not everyone believes them. Regardless of whether you think the child is telling the truth or not, you should always report their allegations to your local child protective agency or the police. After all, it’s better to risk sounding a false alarm than to send a child back to a potentially dangerous situation.

Strife Between Parents

Occasional conflict between adults is normal, but toxic stress can develop children regularly hear their parents fighting. In fact, having divorced parents is healthier for children than having parents who stayed together in a contentious relationship. Further, if your children have heard or witnessed one of their parents being physically abused, they need to be moved to a safe, peaceful location, preferably with the non-abusive parent.

Bullying

For decades, bullying has been one of the most common contributors to poor mental health in children. When bullies target a child, they usually use verbal/physical abuse to single out the child. Bullies may target a child’s appearance, interests, or anything perceived as different about them.

Signs of bullying include many of the signs of abuse, such as depression, unexplained marks, and fear of people or places. In addition, the child might have few friends and experience social isolation, since many children don’t want to associate with a bullied child for fear of being bullied themselves.

Children may or may not report bullying to teachers or parents, so caregivers should always ask about it.

Social Media

Unfortunately, bullying has become more pernicious in the past decades as almost every child enters the virtual world. Instead of bullying being limited to school, children now get bullied in group chats, comment sections, and anywhere else they can receive messages. So, a child can be physically in a safe and loving home and read negative statements that destroy their self-esteem.

Often, the relative anonymity of the internet and the bully not having to face immediate consequences empowers people to be meaner online.

But bullies are far from the only contributor to toxic stress available online. Another insidious form of toxic stress stems from child predators, who often frequent online group chats, gaming centers, social media platforms, and other places children frequent.

They may pretend to be younger than they are, or they might not. Likewise, they might pay or otherwise recruit children in the child’s social circle to get children to send them inappropriate photos or messages, which may then be used as blackmail. These actions can cause a child to experience a prolonged period of stress, leading to toxic stress.

As such, teach children that taking and sending nude photos or otherwise compromising messages is always dangerous, even when they’re sending them to a trusted friend or partner since these people may circulate the photos.

Violence

Unfortunately, children are being increasingly exposed to violence. On social media, kids have access to a variety of violent content that they don’t know how to process, ranging from videos of animal cruelty to sometimes even murders or suicides. If you’re a parent, you should regulate your child’s access to the internet. Regularly review what they’re looking at and have conversations with them about it. When needed, restrict the access entirely and seek help from a therapist.

Many children also face the reality of in-person violence at a young age. For example, young people who live in areas with high amounts of crime might experience toxic stress if they’re exposed to hearing consistent gunfire or witnessing/hearing about gang violence.

Even if children live in safer areas, most schools run school shooting drills even for the youngest kids. While having a plan for protecting students from a school shooter is a necessity, recent research shows that school shooter drills may not be effective and are traumatizing children.

Financial Stress

In some families, financial stress trickles its way down to children. When parents continuously undergo economic difficulties, children may pick up on that stress and even try to take some of that burden on themselves. This may look like children getting jobs to provide for their families, starting GoFundMes, and more. Young teens may talk about finances more than usual and/or report feeling like a “burden” to their families.

Housing Instability

To thrive, children need a safe and consistent space to grow up. When families don’t have a consistent place to stay, children might start experiencing toxic stress.

Likewise, children who go through the foster care system might also go through housing instability. Being moved from house-to-house or shelter-to-shelter creates a level of stress and also comes with some other mental health issues, such as struggling to form an attachment to a caregiver.

How to Help Children Struggling with Toxic Stress

First, the best way to mitigate toxic stress involves preventing children from encountering it. So, as a parent or caregiver, you should do your best to shield children from the stressful situations listed above. Doing this takes many forms, ranging from educating children on the importance of reporting abuse, whether online or in-person, to advocating for less-traumatizing shooter drills. Likewise, parents should take an active role in shielding children from financial difficulties or inconsistent living situations, such as getting involved in charities that help out impoverished families or kids in state care.

If the child has already experienced toxic stress, consider hiring a therapist to help them process through their feelings. Counselors also teach coping techniques to help children get through stressful situations.

You can also contact a social worker to help children get access to resources, or you can call child protective services to get children removed from abusive situations.