Stress is a normal part of children's lives. Children must learn how to cope with stress. When children are able to cope effectively with stress, healthy development occurs. Stress is toxic when it is unmanageable and a child is unable to cope effectively with it.

Why Is Toxic Stress a Concern?

When a threat occurs, children's bodies respond by increasing the heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones so that the child can respond to the threat. When this system is activated, it allows the child to respond to the threat and survive. When the stress system is repeatedly activated by adverse childhood experiences such as violence in the home or community or child abuse and neglect, and a supportive relationship with adults does not exist, the chemicals and reactions in the child's body can damage their physical and mental health long-term.

What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, child neglect, domestic violence, parental mental illness or substance abuse and parental separation/divorce.

Research shows that having a tough childhood can lead to more problems later in life. When kids go through a lot of bad experiences, they are more likely to have issues with their health, behavior and life as they get older.

• Health: People who have had a difficult childhood are more likely to have health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. They also have a higher chance of becoming overweight or having depression and suicide attempts.
• Behavior: They are also more likely to have problems with their behavior, such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol or using drugs.
• Life: On top of that, these bad childhood experiences can make it harder for them to finish school and get good grades. They might also miss more time from work as an adult.

The best way to help kids is to prevent bad childhood experiences from happening in the first place. Here's how we can do that:

• Reduce stress: We can try to lower the number of stressful things that happen to a child. This helps prevent something called "toxic stress," which can be very harmful over time.
• Support families: Programs that teach parents how to have a strong relationship with their kids can also help. These programs give parents the tools they need to support their children, which can reduce the long-term effects of a tough childhood.