This is Jennifer, the author of our first entry on chapter 6. This childhood picture of her seems fitting, as she looks happy that I've FINALLY posted her entry (she turned it in at the end of March)! Actually, you'll see that this picture compliments her response to Galinsky's ideas about stress in childhood. Enjoy.
For my blog entry I chose to write on skill six. This skill is called “Taking on challenges.” I really enjoyed reading this chapter and learning about how stress can start in infancy. Galinsky studies in depth what stress can do to people when they are children and surprisingly it is good!
The first thing that happens to our bodies when we are put into highly stressful situations is we create a hormone called Cortisol. What this hormone does is creates extra adrenaline in our body so we can handle what is about to happen. We only think of adults getting stressed out, but from what I have learned by reading about this skill, children get stressed just as much as adults do, however they do not have the skills to voice it. The example Galinsky used was putting a mechanical toy in front of a child. For anyone else, exposure to the toy would be easy, but Galinsky states that this would create stress for the child because they have never come into contact with the toy before. They do not know what to do with the toy and do not have control of the situation.
I completely agree with this example. When I was a child, if I would have got something I had never seen before, or even if I had seen it but never messed with it, it would have stressed me out. Although I would not have known what was going on with my body at a young age, it is really neat to read about it now and go back to times when stuff happened to me and it made me feel this way. For instance, I remember being at school and being really scared to climb up the ladder to go down the slide. It would scare me so much that I would almost feel like crying, but I remember one day finally getting up the courage to get up the ladder and go down the slide. Once I had completed the task it was really fun and I had to do it again. So I incorporated a picture of me going down a slide and having fun doing it. Although it is not the same slide I had at school, I thought it captured my spirit.
Another point Galinsky made was in the section “Factors That Matter- Parenting Styles.” It was really interesting to read about the different parenting styles, including alarmist parents, the parents who see danger everywhere, and also the intrusive parents, the parents who are overprotective and do not let their children explore their environment. I read this part and was thinking that I am so happy my parents were not like either of these types of parents. They did protect my sister and me, but never to the extent where they did not let us be our own persons. This section reminds me of growing up and playing sports and riding dirt bikes. My parents knew we could get hurt, but they knew we had to take some risks to become more well-rounded people. I know it sounds weird, but in my opinion, if a parent wants their child to be more of an individual and be independent, I think the child needs to get dirty, play around, and get hurt. Galinsky stated that “a childhood that had no stress in it would not prepare you for adulthood” (p. 253). This is one of the best quotes that I have heard in a long time in the child development field. People in today’s society are so afraid that they are going to hurt their child if they do not follow a set guideline, when parents today need to let their children be themselves. Let them go outside and ride their bikes, fall down and get dirty. This creates stress in their life, and stress, even at a young age, will make your child a better person when they are older.
I agree that Galinsky has made some really important points about stress in this chapter - the quote you include at the end of your entry really does say it all. Stress in and of itself is not bad...it's our response to it that is important. Stress is inevitable, and if we've been protected from it throughout our childhood, we will not be able to handle it effectively as children OR adults. In my own life, I've found that making time to have balance between work and my personal life enables me to handle the normal stress that comes with each. Right now, as most Californians know, employees of the CSU system are undergoing great amounts of stress, as are all other state employees, due to serious budget shortfalls. But as difficult as things are, I still love going to work every day. It's incredibly empowering to be able to deal with stress in positive ways, and we owe it to our children to facilitate their ability to do just that.
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