Parenting Pointers: How can parents help their children cope with the life changes from COVID-19?

Helping children to understand and cope with COVID-19 is not only a big challenge to address, it is particularly challenging when we as adults are trying to understand the virus.  We know that the virus has upended almost every aspect of our lives.  When I address the changes in our lives from COVID-19, I look at how to break it down into age-appropriate concepts.

 

Understanding “The Bad Cold”

One of the biggest challenges of parenting young children during COVID-19 is helping them to understand that there is a dangerous virus without scaring them. In our home, we explain that the virus is a particularly “bad cold.” Our children certainly hear people talking about COVID or “the virus” but they understand what a cold is, and that this cold is not one that they want to catch or share with others. We elaborate on this based on the questions and ages of our children. This concept is digestible and has given them the foundation to understand other changes in our lives: wearing masks, hand washing, keeping a distance from others, online learning, etc.

 

Finding New Ways to Play the Same

Sure, we all miss the splash pads or water parks this summer, and we might not have been able to exactly replicate that experience. But, as much as possible, we try to emulate the experience or feeling with COVID safe activities. In my illustrated children’s book, The Day the Hugs Went Away, I write about the ways that we find to stay connected even when we can no longer hug.  If nothing else, COVID-19 has certainly fostered creative substitutions and maybe even inspired some new family favorites.

Going to the movies is now movie night.

Summer camps become a weekend hike or afterwork bike rides.

Meals at a restaurant turn into experimenting with the kids in the kitchen.

 

Routine. Routine. Sanity.

Has the concept that kids thrive on routine ever resonated more? I think that this might be truer for caregivers than kids these days. Our family routine has always had some flexibility built in, and meals and naps still consume a lot of the time, but every day we strive to get outside rain or shine, do something educational (read books, cook together, try a new playdough creature creation), and give the kids time for free play.

 

In our home coping looks a lot like a combination of child-size empathy and reinvention.

This post was written by Gwyn Drake, author of the book The Day the Hugs Went Away. 10% of all profits from the book go to UNICEF.