Bringing up children is certainly one of the most rewarding experiences, but also one of the most exhausting full-time jobs imaginable if you are coping with their incessant demands 24 hours a day. Children develop amazingly quickly, and keeping up with-let alone adjusting to – their changing needs, can be a highly stressful business.
Caring for children can also lead to a special kind of isolation in which stress very easily builds up, particularly if you live in an area where facilities for children are not readily accessible, and if you have to rely on public transport or take a baby and toddler along with you to the supermarket. Anyone who has experienced the difficulties of getting pushchairs and children simultaneously on and off buses, or pushed a shopping trolley to control young children at the same time, knows just how stressful it is, and how tempting it can be to stay at home with the children- but that ca be just when things get harmfully stressful. Coping with childhood illnesses, too, and difficulties at school, about which there’s more, can be every bit as stressful for parents as for children.