Exploring Perceptions of Children’s Learning Stress for Stress Management

Elementary school students in China are facing learning stress and are at the stage of developing cognitive strategies for constructive stress management between the ages of 6–12. Cognitive flexibility is essential to cope stress and anxiety in daily life, making stress management necessary. Self-awareness of stress in children can aid in stress management, and visualizing stress can effectively enhance children's self-awareness of their stress levels. In this paper, four different types of stress indicators were designed to characterize children's learning stress. The study aims to explore the perceptions of children and their parents regarding learning stress. The results indicate that children's perceptions of scent during the learning process was better than the other three methods, while parents prefer light-based alerts. Furthermore, children's perceptions of their own stress and parents’ perceptions of children's stress have a positive impact on helping children adjust and reduce learning stress and have the potential to contribute to children's stress management.