Coping with extreme stress will of course depend on an individuals access to positive resources, awareness and their innate abilities. Along with their individual nature, each person has their own strengths and personal challenges. Two people can have the same experience that result in very different reactions. With that thought, every person needs to be treated as an unique situation, because one approach for coping and recovering from stress while working for one person may not work for another. It is still useful to know about some kinds of approaches, considerations and general concerns.

Let’s look at the situation for a young adult still at home, and the parents do not have a positive relationship. The teen or early teen may want to try to help fix the situation, but of course are unable to, which can produce a whole range of negative feelings as well as extreme stress. In that situation, the teen needs to understand that he or she is not responsible for the behavior and choices of the parents. The best course of action for the teen is to be removed when the parents are fighting. When it starts, just leave and go somewhere that is a positive place and not stressful. A teen can go visit a friend or take a relaxing walk-anything that is positive in nature.

It is understood that people are varied in their ability to cope with extremely stressful events and it also depends on the type of event. Reasonable recovery and the time it takes to achieve it, is dependent on the intensity of the trauma and the nature of any kind of loss. The experience a person has with enduring stress can also play a vital role here. People who have already experienced highly stressful situations and were able to handle them well will take less time to cope and recover. That kind of person has already learned the knowledge needed to be able to handle the extreme or high stress.

Children and extreme stress or trauma situations are a serious situation that warrants professional intervention. Children are not capable of understanding what is happening within and may only display symptoms. Signs that a child might be in this situation could be aggressiveness, extreme withdrawal, physical symptoms of stress reactions and other symptoms. Depending on the situation, the parents may need to be involved so they can help their child deal with the stress.

Ways to effectively handle extreme stress is very different between adults, teens and young children. The best route for any age group, but especially for young children is professional treatment. It can be beneficial to offer ongoing long term support to adults and teens depending on the nature of the trauma. In either case, personal support systems consisting of good friends and family can play a major and positive role with recovery.

Richard Caring