Stress Management Education for Children

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Stress management (SM) education has been defined as a type of health education that enhances awareness to stressor, increases awareness to stress-related physiological responses, trains individuals to cope with stress on the cognitive level, and teaches individuals relaxation strategies. Special techniques, however, may need to be developed in order to use SM education with children. In this study, an overview of SM education, in general, was given after defining children's stress situations in their lives by the fundamental survey. Then, some kinds of SM education programs were developed and their evaluations were performed by the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children and children's subjective feelings. Results showed that children's anxiety scores decreased after SM education and that their feelings changed more positively.SM education is also applied to the cases of disasters. The benefits as a psychological intervention strategy for children who had suffered disasters in their communities are explored. A specific intervention performed with elementary school children living in a community that was disrupted by the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 is discussed and documented. The necessity of a standard manual for SM education and the importance of the introduction of age-appropriate SM education to schools' curricula (particularly among communities who have suffered disasters) are emphasized.