In the first part of this two-part article, we discussed, from my viewpoint as career educator of more than 30 years, the fact that preschools and families are increasing stress on preschool children. To clarify, we worked through a brief definition of preschool stress, and looked at the underlying reason for preschool stress.

Finally, we considered the basic requirement of preschool stress relief. We pick up at that point.

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Many years ago, children from birth to four or five years of age exercised natural preschool stress relief. Training in preschool stress relief was both unknown and unnecessary. Stay at home mothers never worried about trying to increase self-concept in their preschool children. They did not work to instill artificial coping skills and specialized anger management skills in pre-schoolers. Common sense dictated preschool stress relief efforts.

In the twenty-first century, however, many who themselves mismanage stress are seeking stress relief techniques for a preschool child or children. I have been appalled, both as teacher and principal, to see the negative, detrimental changes since I began my career. While we struggle to instill greater measures of preschool stress relief, we actually increase stress on young children.

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