Back To School: Mental Health & COVID-19

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.  

Our "Positive" COVID-19 Story

As we emerge from the depths of our COVID-19 quarantine, I am reflecting on the many overwhelming emotions that we experienced throughout those two weeks.  Despite appreciating the time that we had together as a family, much of the time was overshadowed by anxiety, guilt, anger and shame.  What a truly different perspective we have now, watching the news, or scrolling social media, all with the terrifying knowledge that the virus was residing in our home and even more so, in our bodies.  So much happened in the time that we were in quarantine and it felt as though the world was collapsing around us.  

Here is a bit more about our story.  

On May 22nd, my husband received the news that he tested positive for COVID-19.  It was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. The Monday prior, he was tested by the local health department.  I had seen a Facebook post advertising that free testing would be available locally, so I signed him up.   My husband works as a low voltage technician for a company out of Lincoln.  That company has a contract with a poultry producer that has two plants and two farms, and my husband is the tech that is assigned to that producer.  I’ve worried from the beginning that he was at a greater risk, working where he did, and that it wasn’t a matter of if he was going to get COVID-19, it was a matter of when.  

At that time, I was slated to return to work the week after Memorial Day, but only actually in the office on a part-time basis.  The kids have been out of daycare and we were going to continue to keep them out and hire a neighbor to babysit for the couple days of the week that I would be in the office. In my mind, we were protecting our children from possible exposure at daycare, but little did we know, we were actually protecting the children at daycare from being exposed by us. My rationale for signing my husband up for a test was for peace of mind, not only for ourselves, but for the fact that we were going to have a babysitter coming into our home.   

Let me be clear, he had NO symptoms at the time he was tested.  He was passing through a thermal body temperature scanner at work and was getting the “green light.”  The only symptom he had prior to getting the positive test on the following Friday morning (5 days after his test) was a slightly elevated temperature late Thursday night.  All in all, he ended up having about two days of fever, body aches and his sense of smell has yet to return.   

I’m ashamed to admit that my first concern was, “what are people going to think,” and not, “I hope that my husband is going to be okay.”  Maybe because to me, he seemed okay.  It was only a matter of time before the “worst case scenario” type thinking quickly set in.  

Immediately following the call from the health department confirming his positive test, my husband had to call his employer in order for them to start doing contact tracing. Even prior to this, I took the guidance of social distancing quite seriously, so for me, there were very few people I had to contact in the time frame for potential exposure.  However, no one can prepare you for the few, but still very uncomfortable conversations I did have to have.  It made me sick (figuratively) each time I’d contact someone. It was as though you have to emotionally prepare yourself for an angry response, even though, luckily for us, no one ever was.  Each actually helped to remind me that this was not my or my husband’s fault. (The only humor in any of this was when I was reminded of that episode of the Office where Michael Scott calls all of his ex-girlfriends to tell them that he had herpes when it was only a cold sore.) :) 

The fact is, I’m actually quite proud of my husband.  I know that he’ll never be lauded as the front line healthcare workers are and that’s okay.  He wouldn’t want the attention anyway.  But what he did do is, he continued to work everyday, knowing that his company and his family needed him, well aware of what the reality of contracting this virus meant. People need to eat and the machines that he works on need to be functioning properly.  I think that part of my intense emotional response to all of this was out of fear that someone might gossip about him or about our family.  

The first day of his positive test, I cried A LOT.  I am a crier anyway, but every time I was faced with a conversation about it, I would cry every.damn.time. 

Within a few days and throughout the next two weeks, I felt guilty.  I felt guilty that we weren’t more sick than what we were.  I felt guilty that other people were dying from this and we were merely inconvenienced.  I felt guilty that the world is in upheaval and we can’t do anything about it.  I felt guilty still feeling sorry for myself knowing that there is so much ACTUAL pain and suffering in the world and that our problems didn’t compare to the injustices that other people faced everyday.  

I felt angry.  (It was as though I was following the regular stages of grief.)  I felt angry that he wasn’t protected better.  I felt angry that he even had to go to a place with known cases.  At a higher level, I felt angry (and betrayed) at how our administration was downplaying it.  (I don’t really want to get political, it was just how I honestly felt at the time.)  I felt angry about all the people enjoying their Memorial Day weekend by spending time with family and friends, all while knowing they weren’t adequately protecting themselves from contracting the virus.  

I also felt weird around my husband.  I felt protective of him, but I also felt protective of our children.  I didn’t want him making or serving any food to them.  I didn’t want him emptying the dishwasher.  I didn’t want him playing with them.  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I couldn’t help but allow my fears to dictate my decision making.  As the days went on, I worried about my husband, yes, but man, did I worry about my children.  Ever heard of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome?  Well I hadn’t either until I started my research on how COVID-19 affects children and then I couldn’t stop researching it. I was incessantly checking fevers, asking them how they were feeling, thinking everything was unusual.  Do they usually breathe like that?  Oh my God, one of them coughed...one of them sneezed... I was truly allowing my fears to overwhelm my rational thinking and irrationally believing that each cough and sneeze was a death sentence.  

This is the closest thing for me to know what it is like to have had an intruder in my home.  But, instead of someone stealing my belongings, this intruder stole my peace of mind and left me feeling out of control and helpless.  Even as I sanitized appliances, countertops, door handles and light switches.  Even as I washed and re-washed blankets and bedding.  Even as we all washed our hands relentlessly, nothing really worked to bring us a sense of peace.   

Until you experience it, it is hard to explain the overwhelming sense of shame that I felt.  I made all of these unfair and untrue assumptions about what people would think about us.  I felt like we had become, “that family” with COVID-19 and how they brought that virus to our town or to our neighborhood.  

I cried as I drafted an email to those in our neighborhood.  There isn’t a specific checklist of “due diligence” in terms of COVID-19 reporting, but since we have a shared mailbox, I felt that they needed to be informed as well as know the precautions that we were taking.  I shared with them that I would wear a mask and gloves to check the mail and sanitize the box afterward.  I let them know that my children would stay on our property and would not be riding their bikes on the road or anywhere near anyone else’s property. I let them know that if they were uncomfortable in any way, that we would do our best to address their concerns.  The shame was weighing heavily on me.   

Within a few minutes, I received a response and my stomach turned, but it wasn’t what I expected.  It was an email from a couple down the road that have probably lived in my neighborhood for over a year and I hardly know them, offering to get us groceries if we needed.  And that was just the start of it.  Several of my neighbors that live close by also offered up getting groceries or “whatever we needed.”  And, they didn’t only check in once, several checked in multiple times throughout the week, just to be sure we were okay and making sure we didn’t need something. Some actually did get us groceries and others got us mulch, because I mean, if you are home for two weeks, you need to get at least one home project done.  Literally, nearly everyone in our little neighborhood reached out, offering to help in some capacity.   The tremendous shame that I felt early on turned to gratitude as we were met with so much generosity. 

Both of my sisters and father in law brought groceries and left them on our doorstep.  You may be thinking to yourself, “Wow, how many times did people need to get groceries for them?” But when you literally cannot leave and you have a family of five eating all three meals plus snacks, you go through groceries quickly and as my husband says, “It is absolute mutiny if there isn’t enough milk and Goldfish in the house.”  

My father in law also picked us up a kiddie pool and some chalk so the kids had something to do while in quarantine.  

My parents, aunt and friends were constantly checking in on us and kept us in good spirits.  My work family has been so incredible throughout our quarantine and even in the months prior.  My husband’s work also checked in on him regularly.  It's truly been incredible

What hasn't been so incredible is seeing how this virus has divided our country.  I don’t want to seem as though I have the answers. I don't want to fight about whether or not we open up the country, whether or not we wear a mask or whether or not we continue to socially distance. (Although personally, I still plan to make reasonable efforts to protect my family and any compromised individuals.) What I am hoping to take from my family’s experience with this virus is to eliminate the divisiveness. To acknowledge that when we needed help, help was there.  When we felt shame, we were met with support. People that I knew very well and people I hardly knew, were ready and willing to lend a hand.  

There is a lot going on in the world, and although that is a much bigger conversation, I also just want to acknowledge that for a brief moment in time, I felt as though we didn’t belong, I felt as though we would be judged, I felt isolated.  I felt out of control and unable to take care of my family…..and that was just for two weeks.  I wonder how I would feel if that is how I was made to feel for generations.  For me, it is an absolute testament to the value in acknowledging what someone is going through and lending a hand of support. Most certainly something that I should be thinking about and practicing regularly.

My husband and family are lucky to have fared as well as we did.  I thank God that my husband was able to return to work, that I am able to return to work, that our children have remained healthy and relatively happy (although they are ready to have some fun summer social interaction.) I am thankful that we were surrounded with kindness and I hope to share that same kindness with others.  

If I am to think "positive" I would say that our quarantine gave us some much needed perspective. To not take for granted your health. To not take for granted your time spent with loved ones. To not take for granted your ability to kiss your husband goodnight.

The following are a few photos that embody our time in quarantine.  Specifically, I’d like to share a five-page comic drawn by my daughter.  For reference, we asked the kids to draw a book or comic as an activity (and as a way for mom and dad to get a break.)  I know this is just a pink and rainbow-y comic drawn by a five year old girl, but the content seemed so interestingly spot on, considering the world we live in.  (She came up with the story and asked her brother to write the words.) My interpretation is that a member of her so called “Love Team” saw something happening and decided to intervene.  When the toothy, heart shape figure was shown kindness and asked to play, the scariness went away and the two of them were able  to have some fun together.  For me, it exemplifies how kindness could and should, shape our interactions with one another today and everyday.  

"The Adventures of the Love Team" by Aurora Hammer 

Our kiddie pool from Grandpa Roger.  It kept the kids cool on those 90+ degree days.  

Aunt Tara brought us groceries, but stayed to chat while staying socially distanced, of course. 

I saw this posted on my cousin Emily's Facebook page and I loved it and think it has such a great message. #loveyourneighbor #noexceptions