Corona and Kids. What Are You Saying?

The response to the corona virus has impacted most of us in significant ways. In my conversations over the past week or so I heard a wide, wide variety of challenges that people are navigating.  Staying healthy, or securing supplies ~whether it is food for the afternoon, two weeks, toilet paper, masks or something else, learning technology at lightening speed, homeschooling ~or just being with your kids more than you ever thought you would is just naming a few.  Some are afraid for their lives because of the impending illness, some people have been asked to live without an income for an undetermined amount of time – without warning or time to prepare.  It can be a great deal to manage mentally and emotionally.  

Your children are also instantly navigating a new experience.  Depending upon their age they don’t have the capacity to understand what’s happening in the same ways you do.  For better and for worse.  They don’t have the brain development to make meaning of what they are seeing and hearing.  They exist more deeply on the feeling level.  Not only are they trying to make meaning of the change in their lives, they are deeply impacted by you, the parents, their caregivers.  In more ways that you might be thinking about.  They are tracking on your every move.

They know they have been taken out of school.  They know they can’t play with their friends, play sports or go outside very much.  They might be seeing people wearing masks in the past few weeks when they have never seen anything like that before.  They might be seeing lines at the market.  They might be hearing things on the news if you have it on, they may be listening to conversations you are having in the house or on the phone.  

Take a moment and imagine what might be going on in their heads???

Additionally, they are sensing everything you are feeling.  Yes.  Everything.  What you are feeling (emotionally) rings truer to them than what you say —especially if how you feel and what you say aren’t congruent. 

Here is a short list of helpful hints for navigating this with your children:

1.  Tell the truth. 
Kids feel safe when their insides (intuition) is matched by what is happening outside.  If you are scared and you tell them something different, you are communicating two things.  One is that they can’t trust their intuition and the other is that they can’t trust you.  I invite you to communicate clearly what you are experiencing.  Tell them what’s happening (as you understand it), how you feel about it, and what you are doing right now to address it.  [This is solid advice pandemic or not].

2.  Ask your children for their truth.
What are they thinking?  Ask them what they are hearing and seeing.  Are their friends talking about things?  Do they have questions?  Do they even know what a virus is?  (Do you?)  It is such a vague and unsee-able thing.  Ask them what kind of information they want from you.

3.  Let them have their own feelings.
Let your children express fully how they feel.  Meaning, don’t rush to ‘make them feel better’.  Ask them what their specific concerns are?  Are they afraid you will die?  Are they afraid they will die?  Do they know anyone who is sick right now?  Invite them to share their feelings with you —and take the time to just let them feel.  Of course they are scared.  Of course they are confused.  Why would you suggest they feel something else?  Let them know their feelings are welcome.  Let them be and know they can come to you to be held.

4.  Come up with a communication plan.
Remember your children might not know what to talk about.  (They might have picked up your habit of sweeping things under the rug ~which you may have learned from your parents).  They may not know how to ask for what they want right now.  Even if they are articulate and seem advanced for their age.

Please don’t leave them own their own.  Take charge.  This is your job.  Design a family check in plan.  Maybe a morning gratitude practice and an afternoon check in.  How was the day?  What did they enjoy?  What was hard?  Did they hear anything new that they want to talk about?  Do they (do you) want a hug?  What other kinds of comforting things would they like to ask for?

5.  Kids (in general) thrive in structure.
Mostly because they don’t have much in their own beings, they want to know that their safety is being ‘held’ by you.  This is why number 4 – a communication plan (while I suggest it to all parents regardless of the world situation) is exceptionally critical to building a sense of calm for your kids.  What other kinds of structure can you add while they are home? [I’m not talking about the home-schooling thing.]  Maybe there is a mid-day lunch making effort that you do together.  Or a video time that you do at 4pm.  Or you take a walk, rain or shine at 10am to get the blood flowing.  Don’t depend on them to say yes.  Again, this is your job as their guides to adulthood.

You want to give your kids things they can count on.  The daily life structures are beneficial.   

It is especially important for your children’s short and long-term emotional well-being and confidence in life to know they can depend on you to tell them what is true rather than an unbelievable story.  

Please don’t pretend you are feeling something when you aren’t, for example pretending you are happy and relaxed if you aren’t. That is an unbelievable story.  It is crazy-making for your kids.  Remember they are wired to know exactly how your feel.  

I am not suggesting that you fall apart and use your children as your support people to bring you out of your despair.  Absolutely not.  

I am suggesting you let them know who you are.  And that you let them know who they actually are is important to you as well.   And that your intention is to keep them safe.  They might like to hear that.