As my children have returned to school, I’ve struggled with how to talk to them about the
mental health issues related to COVID-19. How much is too much information? How much is
not enough? I often wonder if my children are sick of hearing discussions about “feelings” or
more specifically, the mental health impact of COVID-19. Consequently though, limiting the
discussions, limiting the conversation and avoiding the obvious implications of this virus, is an
even worse method of “dealing with it.” I’m cautious not to minimize their experience, but yet, if I focus all of my attention on the negative...the anxieties, the challenges or the grief, I allow my children to stay in a place of negativity, which I fear, turns into a mindset of victimization. Why me? Why is my experience ruined? I can’t do that. I have to find another way.
An issue that I often struggle with as a parent is...what level of mental/emotional or even physical discomfort do I need to allow my children to work through for themselves in order for them to feel as though they are independently coping on their own. If I eliminate all discomfort, they become unable to tolerate it, but consequently, I don’t want to overwhelm them with discomfort. What is the right balance?
Most importantly, I want my children to know that I hear them. I know that it doesn’t make it better to say that we are all struggling, but there is a sense of communal comradery that can occur when everyone within that community can share in that same experience. Being able to identify with the struggles of others is advantageous to being a more empathetic person. I want my children to be empathized with, but also want them to be able to empathize with others.
So, how do we, as parents, “deal with” our emotional response to our children amidst the COVID-19 pandemic that has rapidly spiraled out of control?
1. We thoughtfully examine what control we DO have in our own lives. How can we (to the best of our ability) control the decisions that we make in our own life. What truths can we tell ourselves that will help us to manage the emotional response we have.
If I were to allow my control to be completely externalized; or outside of myself, to assume that I have no ability to control what happens to me, my anxiety would be wildly out of control. We need to realize that there are decisions that we can make on a daily basis that will make us feel more in control of our specific situation. For example, although we cannot control the community spread of the virus, we can control the measures that we take to manage and mitigate our own risk. We have choices that we can make that will put us at more or less of a risk.
What are you telling yourself that is a truth statement versus an assumption made? Is it a truth statement to say that you will not have a good year or is it an assumption that you’ve made that could possibly dictate your experience? Be cautious to stay in the mindset of speaking your truths versus believing and acting upon anxious assumptions.
2. We acknowledge that it will be different, it will be weird and we adjust our expectations accordingly. To assume it will be “business as usual,” is wrong, but to assume that “everything will be awful” is also wrong. With such uncertainty, we can’t go into the beginning of the school year with a “this or that” mindset. Expect that it will be different. It won’t be the same as it was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be awful. It will take some adjustment.
3. Balance is KEY!!! Like any situation, you need to have balance in your life in order to function and extremes in any direction limit a person’s ability to function appropriately. A swing of the pendulum too far in one direction is the child/parent who is so consumed by anxiety of the virus that they isolate to a point of extreme dysfunction. (Aside, of course, are those isolating out of medical necessity.) However, the pendulum can swing so far in the other direction to the child/parent who is so oblivious to the realities of the virus that they become a risk to themselves and others.
4. The power of peer/parent culture and observational learning. I’ve spent a lot of time with my children over the course of the last five months and one thing I’ve learned is the power in observational learning. If my 8 year old son jumps off the couch, pretending to be Spider-man, you can 100% bet that my 2 year old son is right behind him, trying to do the same thing.
If we, as parents, underscore the importance of making healthy decisions, so will our children. They are in a particularly vulnerable place and are looking for guidance whether they would admit that or not. They will look to you to see if you downplay the importance of wearing a mask or social distancing. Peer/parental culture will nearly always win and we, collectively, are depended upon to determine what that culture will be.
I’m sending my daughter off to Kindergarten this year. I grieved for her lost Kindergarten experiences and initially, only focused on what she wasn’t getting the opportunity to do. However, while wallowing in MY own grief, I realized that she wasn’t grieving as much as me. She didn’t necessarily know any different. She didn’t know she was going to miss out on eating in big groups in the cafeteria, she didn’t know she was missing out on big school assemblies and she most certainly didn’t know that in years prior, she could have sat with her friends on the bus and not JUST her older brother. I had to start listening to what she was excited about and not focus solely on my own narrow perspective that was making many inaccurate assumptions about what her experience was going to be. She was incredibly excited about her new dress, her new shoes, her new teacher, learning and spending time with friends.
I hope, for all of our sake, that our children get the opportunity to stay in school and to learn and thrive in their academics and extracurriculars. We will do the absolute best that we can to have an attitude that fosters hope, but yet, flexibility if need be. We are strong and resilient and so are our children.
