Talking To Children About Covid-19

When we started Upper Manhattan Forest Kids years ago I had hoped that our daughter would grow to understand that she had a deep relationship with the planet. That although we were living in a big city of concrete pavement and high-rise buildings, that underneath and woven discretely through all of that remained our planet of plants, animals and so much more. I hoped that she would grow up knowing that if she took care of the planet that the planet would take care of her. I had many hopes for her as all of us parents do. I know my husband also had his ideas for what he hoped she would get out of being in outdoor classes, probably related to the pleasant memories he held for his time in his Danish forest kindergarten classes.

Now we are suddenly dealing with a pandemic that has interrupted and upended so many aspects of our lives. Whether we have chosen to stay in the city or leave for more spacious communities. Whether we have the privilege of private outdoor areas in the city or not, we are all dealing with a stark change to what we have known and what we had hoped for our children. How do we talk to our children about these changes that are beyond our control?

While the following are not solutions by any means, here are some things that I have found helpful to keep in mind:

·      We’re parenting in a pandemic and there’s no right way to do this. Of course, there has never been a “right way” to parent and we simply choose from various options (personal family traditions, researched-based information, community observations, etc.) what we think is best for our family. However, we may be noticing that our parenting practices of the past may not be working as well as they had been or may not be appropriate for this moment, and so we’re having to develop new practices, rules, habits and traditions on the fly. As I’ve experimented and perhaps floundered with suddenly having to adjust and parent differently, in the back of my mind I have felt a need to do it right. Even as I know intellectually that there is no “right”. I’ve had to pause, give up the feeling of pressure, and accept that I’m human and doing the best I can. Which leads me to the second thing…

·      We must be gentle, with ourselves and our children. This may be obvious and perhaps also easier said than done when the pressure is on. However, now is the time to practice kindness if ever there was a time. We are all being challenged emotionally, parents and children. As parents, we’ve always had concerns to weigh with the responsibility of raising children and now there is a slew of new concerns to confront. Our children are also, of course, impacted not only by the disruptions to their norms and routines, but they’re also receiving our emotions of stress and worry. And we all express that differently. As the directives shared on airplanes, we should put our oxygen masks on first before helping our children put theirs on. That’s not selfish, it just logical. Let’s get good about recognizing our symptoms of stress before they erupt and figure out practices to manage that, again it’s not selfish to take care of yourself as a parent. Let’s also learn how to recognize the different ways our children may be expressing their stress so that we can respond effectively.

·      There’s simply a lot that’s unknown about the pandemic right now. Every day it seems like we are finding out new things about the virus and how to prevent it and what’s in store for us as a society. They may even contradict what we’ve heard or been told before. Staying flexible and willing to change with the changes will give us better results. We simply have to accept that even our top experts about infectious diseases are still learning right now as fast as they can. Don’t make yourself wrong for not knowing something or regretting decisions of the past. As always, you will make the best parenting choices that you can with the information you have.

· Finally, I’ve been thinking about simple steps to remind myself of. 

1. Start with where the children are. You can simply ask what they know or what they have heard about the coronavirus?

2. Speak in age-appropriate terms.

3. Don’t expect to handle the conversation perfectly.

4. Create a vision of what a powerful post-pandemic you - as a parent – will look like? How will your family come out stronger?

Poet/Artist Stacey Ann Chin has a series of videos on Youtube that she makes with her daughter called Living Room Protests, where they tackle challenging conversations together. t I’ve always enjoyed that the videos illustrate parenting choices that are not perfect and yet sweetly imperfect with an obvious commitment to keep her daughter empowered during this time. She has one about COVID-19 here.

For those who prefer more academic advice, I’ve found this website to help provide several resources and a video presentation by clinical and developmental psychologist, Dr. Barbara Stroud.

What are other things we’ve tried and found helpful? I’d love to hear from other families and then perhaps provide a part 2 to this topic with additional open-sourced tips and information.