The Best Way to Reduce Stress: Start Young. Doctor's program helps kids learn life skills that will help them cope with and reduce stress now, and in their adult years.

A new program, developed by specialists in the fields of Sports Psychology and Education, Teaches kids how to effectively reduce stress and excel in their adult years.

(PRWEB) February 13, 2004 --Would we, as adults, be so reliant on drugs and anti-depressants to get us through the day if we had learned how to effectively cope with stress when we were kids? Dr. Nadeane McCaffrey, PhD believes that the dependence on anti-depressants exhibited by many adults has a lot to do with the lack of life skill training they received as children.

Most people never learned practical coping skills for reducing the anxiety caused by their daily stressors." says Dr. McCaffrey, As a result they turn to outside sources for relief. What they dont know is that with the right techniques, a person can look inward to simply, naturally, and effectively reduce and cope with stress on a daily basis."

Dr. McCaffrey, a Sports Psychologist for the past 15 years, has co-developed a program that aims to teach these natural coping skills to children. The idea, of course, is to show kids how to use their minds and bodies as natural stress fighters, and reinforce these skills so the children will carry them into their adult years. Aptly titled the Feeling Great Life Skills Program, any child or teen between the ages of 5 and 16 can benefit. The program lasts 90 days and uses both an Instruction and Activity book, plus two CDs filled with exercises and games to get the message across. A parent, teacher or healthcare worker acts as an instructor, guiding the child through the program. However, kids in their teenage years may opt to participate in the program by themselves.

The programs development goes back nearly 20 years. At that time, Dr. McCaffreys only daughter, Danielle, was undergoing treatment for Leukemia (ALL), and the daily stress her daughter endured as a result of the treatments was agonizing. Tragically, Danielle succumbed to her fight with Cancer, but Dr. McCaffrey did not forget about her daughters fight, and felt that other children would benefit if they learned techniques to help them cope with the inherent anxiety of treatment. Drawing on her experience as a Sports Psychologist, Dr. McCaffrey co-developed the Program, employing the techniques of the best of the best in sport, medicine, the arts, and aerospace. She felt that if children could develop a more positive mind-set and find a constructive way to cope with the necessary treatments, they would ultimately heal better and more quickly, and would ultimately suffer less from the treatments.

Over time, Dr. McCaffrey recognized that the techniques her program taught were inherently universal, and could be used by children from all walks of life, not just oncology patients. From there, the program was adjusted to incorporate exercises that emphasized goal setting and greater visualization skills geared towards achievement, while maintaining the original goal of helping children deal effectively with their daily stressors, thus decreasing the amount of anxiety they felt. The result was the current Feeling Great Life Skills Program.

The Feeling Great Life Skills Program was tested on over 3000 kids in the Ottawa (Canada) Elementary School system in the mid 1990s, and the results were fantastic. The students, as well as the teachers, found the program helped them relax. Moreover, the children had fun with the activities and exercises, and this encouraged them to practice the techniques the program demonstrated. Through their feedback, Dr. McCaffrey discovered that the program helped many of the children feel better and reduced their worries and overall stress levels. Best of all, the teachers found that the program had a wonderful 'settling effect on the children and improved their ability to focus on their school work and calm themselves when presented with a stressful situation, such as tests, presentations, performances, and competitions.

The Feeling Great Life Skills Program is currently available on the web at www.EmpowerKidsToExcel.com. The site provides plenty of information about the program as well as the years of study and research that went into it. It is Dr. McCaffreys hope that as many children as possible will get the chance to experience the program, so they may learn skills that will help them in their childhood and adult years for improving their Quality of Life.
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