tips & suggestions
click here to read tips specially for healthcare workers to talk with their children
We want to start with a heartfelt thank you for the work that you are doing to protect, treat and save patients from this harrowing pandemic. You are in a difficult and unique position as both providers and parents, and we are here to offer whatever information and support we can to make you feel more confident in your planning and conversations with your loved ones.
talking to young children about covid-19
Assess. Gently explore whether your young child has any knowledge about Coronavirus. If not, examine how much information you would like to share without introducing unnecessary worry.
Be in the moment. Tell your child what the plan is for now – e.g. “We are staying In our house for a little while and I’m not sure when we will get to go outside. While we are here, we are going to have a different schedule and have fun together at home!”
Avoid talking too far in the future. Present information in an honest way, e.g. “I don’t know yet when school will reopen, but I am talking to your teacher and I’ll let you know as soon as I hear. She is home too and we are all on a little break while they get the school clean and everyone stays healthy.”
Use simple language. For example, “We all get viruses all the time, this is just a new one so we are all trying to figure out how it works and how we can keep people safe and take care of people who are sick. We can do our part by staying home and making sure we stay healthy.”
Reflect their emotions. You can say something like “Your face looks like you’re worried and I’m wondering if there is anything on your mind,” or “I understand why you might be sad about that.” Try to resist the urge to move young children away from difficult emotions, even though it is natural to want them to be happy. It helps children to know that we can sit with them through hard moments, and that it’s normal and OK to feel ALL feelings.
Involve your child. Ask your children for ways they think they can stay healthy. Washing hands, taking off their shoes, cleaning their toys, blowing their nose, etc. are all ideas that you can generate WITH your child and emphasize.
talking to older children about covid-19
Ask. Our children are exposed to information in MANY ways, some beyond our knowledge, and it is important to help address the information they've heard or read. Ask older children directly about what they know about Coronavirus and what they think is going on around them.
Don’t be afraid to listen to difficult feelings. Helping your children name hard feelings is especially important for older children. By expressing these feelings, and fighting against them with evidence and a plan (e.g. “It is scary to think that we could get sick without knowing it. But we are doing everything that we can do, and so far that has been working. If you have other ideas, I’m here to listen.”)
Use an outlet. When older children don’t want to have head-on conversations, encourage them to creatively express emotions through writing, music, dance, physical activity or drawing.
Share your experiences. Provided you have control over your OWN anxiety, it can be helpful to model for your children how you are coping with the same feelings of fear, uncertainty and loss of control. Modeling our own coping strategies and sharing our difficult emotions with our children makes our relationships stronger and helps them to feel heard and understood in profound ways.
managing a schedule
Communicate. Parenting does not happen in a vacuum. Though things may be organized in your head (fingers crossed), there is another important human who has no idea what you are thinking. Communicate plans clearly with your child. Young children can benefit from a written schedule or picture chart, but older children still need clear conversations around expectations and responsibilities before the day begins.
Set a routine, not a regimen. Let your feelings - and your child’s reactions - be a guide. While children love routines, enforcing them too strictly can cause anxiety and stress for both parents and children. Make the day appropriate for your household. Consider who is there, what other opportunities your children have for activity or interaction, what mental and physical space you have that day and how you and your child are feeling. Don’t be afraid to deviate when it’s appropriate (e.g. when grandma calls on FaceTime in the middle of a math lesson or when an important friend is texting). Show your child that you are responsive to how you BOTH are feeling and use structure to assist, not dictate, your day.
Embrace the new “normal.” Accept that there may not be a normal routine based on circumstance. Allow yourself to make a new normal with whatever you have. Children need to know what to expect, but they are able to accept new information and make it consistent through practice.
Avoid threats. Forcing or bribing your children into compliance causes more angst than reward. Try making a contract, even with very young children, where you both agree on what the day will hold. You can compromise around play, screen-time, meals and homework. By letting our children make choices and be involved in the plan it is more likely that children will comply. AND, by honoring their requests and desires, you model mutual respect and sensitivity.
Plan your time. Just because you are home, it does not mean that you’ll be available. Communicate with any other adults in the home AND with your children about when and how you can help them throughout the day. Using visual cues for younger children – such as a timer or sign on the door – can help them to understand how long you’ll be away and keep them focused. If you can’t physically leave but are distracted, try a funny hat or sunglasses as a way to signal when you are really “there” or need to be “away.”
Enlist their labor. Things are stressful in many households. Using schedules or routines in another place in which you can help to promote your child’s autonomy. While chores may not have been your thing before, this crisis is creating a perfect environment in which to ask more of our children. Use this as an opportunity to discuss family responsibilities and assign new tasks to children young and old. Have your child think of a few things they CAN and would LIKE to do. Every effort counts and will help promote the “all hands on deck” mentality that helps build communities and relationships.
day to day questions, feelings, and responses
Check in with feelings. Don’t become so distracted by symptom checking and hand-wash-reminding that you forget about the emotional toll this life disruption might be having on your child. Ask how she’s doing and then just listen.
Take cues from your child. Check in, but don’t belabor. Tune into her signals and be prepared to talk, but don’t prompt or badger.
Resist the urge to fix. If your child does let you know about big feelings she’s experiencing, instead of trying to whisk them away, just listen and connect. It may feel uncomfortable, because it’s only natural to want to make your child feel better, but instead of jumping in to quell her fears, let her unload them.
Use active listening responses. “That makes sense.” I can understand.” “That’s hard,” which show your child that her big emotions don’t freak you out and that you’re not going to get swept away by them either, which provides her a sense of safety.
Follow up with questions. Use question that invite feelings of capability and resourcefulness. “Would you like to brainstorm ways to handle this situation?” “Do you want to make a list of the things I can order to make this time easier?” “Would you like a hug?”
Be honest, in developmentally appropriate ways. If you don’t know an answer to your child’s question, don’t improvise. Instead, let her know that it’s a really good question and you’ll find out and let her know. You don’t have to have all the answers, but you will make your child feel safe when you take her concerns seriously, and search for answers to her questions.
End conversations on a positive. Make sure conversations with your child about Coronavirus end with encouragement and even gratitude. Let her know how happy you are that she let you know how she’s feeling and confident that she is doing all the things she needs to do to keep herself free of the virus.
Use this difficult time to connect. Reframe this time at home as an opportunity to have quality time with your family.
Accept that there may not be a “normal” routine based on circumstance. Allow yourself to make a new normal with whatever you have. Children need to know what to expect, but they are able to accept new information and make it consistent through practice.
Manage your own anxiety. Your child’s experience of Coronavirus begins with your response to the situation. Are you keeping your own anxiety in check? Oversharing dire information? Practice co-regulation instead and do what you can to be a calming influence. Being worn thin from worry, leaves you less emotionally available for your child.
Normalize your child’s fears. If it’s obvious she’s feeling stressed, talk to her about how anxiety alerts us to potential threats and motivates us to seek safety, which is exactly what you’re doing. Remind her then, that it makes sense she might be feeling anxious, and only means her body is having the right reaction to the emerging news.
Offer perspective. Keep worries from spiraling out of control by keeping things in perspective. Make sure your child isn’t overestimating the dangers or underestimating her ability to stay well. Remind her about how you’re following the recommended health guidelines to lower the risk even further.
Shift the focus. Make sure your child knows that in staying home from school and stopping classes and playdates, you are helping to reduce the chances that Coronavirus spreads into your own community and doing what you can to protect the vulnerable.
Encourage distraction. Make sure that everyone in your family has some emotional relief and isn’t constantly fixated on dire outcomes or constantly checking for any updates on the internet. Ensure that your child has lots of pleasurable distractions like a good movie, or a bike ride together.
Develop a routine. Kids thrive on routines. And if your child isn’t going to already be obligated to her school’s virtual one, then it’s important to create a daily schedule and keep it visible for everyone to see. Post what would have been a school vacation anyway, get back to your regular regular morning, bedtime and mealtime routines. Giving your child the ability to check her schedule, so she knows what’s next in the routine, and the sequence of their day, will make her feel more at ease and confident, thanks to not having to worry about when she’ll get to eat next or take a break.
Schedule play. Young children need opportunities to be silly and to move their bodies throughout the day. Just like a regular day at school, make sure your child gets time outside to play.
Don’t stress so much about screen time. Don’t waste time worrying or focused only on the amount of time your child may be spending on a screen. It’s not surprising that this might be the case, given you’re all stuck at home, without any help, and you’ve got things to do too. Think more about what your child’s watching or playing when he’s on his iPad or watching television. How is it affecting him? How does it challenge his existing capacities? What sort of challenge is it affording him? It’s a given that most kids are going to get more screen time than normal and that’s ok. But, use the opportunity to be intentional about your child’s options.
Take the time to bolster life skills. Since you’re all home anyway, and you’ve got nothing but time, try assigning everyone more responsibilities around the house, like doing the laundry, cooking a meal, emptying trash baskets, unloading the dishwasher and keeping things sanitized (as we know, there will be ample opportunities to practice that!).
Master a new skill. Encourage everyone in the family to use this time to choose a skill they’ve always been interested in learning and set a goal for themselves with regard to mastering it. New skills can be anything from whistling to cartwheels, knitting to sign language. All that matters is that everyone is allowed to pick it themselves, with no judgements, or influence by anyone else in the family.
Remind yourself, that while your child may be missing the academic rigor of her school lessons, she’s learning valuable life lessons everyday about how individual actions, taken together, can make a big difference, resilience and coping with life’s challenges.
self-care
Accept the anxiety. Feeling out of control in uncertain times can make us all anxious. In this unique time, it would benefit us all to accept that there is no way to read/talk/work yourself to certainty and that we must embrace the unknown and accept it. By resisting the urge to fight against it, you can find some peace with the current circumstances and avoid the spin cycle of anxiety.
Save your worry for what you can solve. Differentiate between Productive Worry: where you can do something to solve it (like getting groceries and supplies) and Unproductive Worry: where there is no immediate action to take and unanswerable questions are trapped in your head. Try not to get sidetracked with Unproductive Worry whenever possible.
Bring your anxiety out from your head. Anxious thoughts are your bodies attempt to control a primal reaction to fear and threat. Remember that if you can find other ways to release the underlying emotions, you can assist the thoughts in moving through. You cannot THINK your way out of persistent worry – no matter how hard you try.
A few ways to try:
Meditation. Take “counting breaths,” use meditation apps, or try a gratitude practice.
Make your anxiety a friend. Name it, assign it a color or number 1-10 and make it tangible so that you can address it externally. Welcome it, expect it, and make room for it. This will help you feel prepared to experience these feelings, instead of feeling surprised or attacked by them.
Act it out. Use exercise to release tension, built up fears or worry. Act out what it feels like to be inside your body (e.g. out of control, hyper, scared). Running, jumping, boxing, etc. can help to externalize thoughts and feelings more effectively.
Show compassion to yourself. Forgive hard moments, over reactions, outbursts and breakdowns. Accept them, value them and move on. This is a marathon and not a sprint. The stakes are different in crisis.
View challenge as a chance to grow and adapt. Remember that stress is also good for you and we can rise to occasions in a way that helps us further our resilience and grit. Look for ways in which you have risen to the occasion, whether as a teacher for your child or in playing a new role in your household. Change can be painful, but is necessary for growth. We have all adapted and deserve praise for our flexibility in the face of crisis.
Remember other hard times. Focus on other challenges you have had and how you have overcome them. Recall a difficult time in your life, how insurmountable the challenge or situation seemed, and the reality of how you survived it.
Don’t forget the basics. Sleep and eat regularly. Take a shower. Change out of pajamas. Going through the motions of normal life helps us all to regulate ourselves.
Set a goal for yourself each day. Help yourself to accomplish just one thing that you set out to do each day and offer yourself praise for achieving it.
activities to increase connection and emotion regulation during a stressful period
The emotions bowl. Being able to talk about emotions, requires awareness and also an understanding that it’s safe to express them. The emotions bowl activity is a great activity to inspire conversations regarding emotions. Write down eight core emotions (anger, nervousness, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust) on eight slips of paper and put them in a bowl (folded up). Encourage each family member to select one from the bowl and listen as each person describes the last time they experienced their selected emotion. No need to agree, fix, judge or comfort. Emotions come and go, and don’t always have to be acted on. The real objective of this activity is to encourage family members to become more mindful about their internal experiences and to get more practice expressing themselves.
Name it to tame it. Print an image of a human silhouette from the internet. Get your child to close her eyes and picture the last time she felt angry (sad, scared, jealous, etc.). Ask her to think about where in her body she felt the emotion (e.g., clenched teeth, tight fists), and as she speaks, circle the areas on the body silhouette, taking notes about how she describes the feeling. When your child becomes aware of the physical changes in her body, that signal big emotions, she’ll have a better chance of managing them, before her brains become hijacked by a flood of emotion.