Parenting Your Children Through The CoronaVirus Pandemic
As the world is beginning to experience global pandemic, many parents are wondering what they should or should not be doing around the physical, psychological and emotional care of their children. The big question on many parents’ minds is:
How Do You Parent Your Child During a Pandemic?
I recently found myself struggling with being immersed by the fear that is all over the news and social media. I noticed not only how drained I felt when I was thinking fearful thoughts, but my kids started noticing and questioning me about it too. I decided I needed to get grounded and remind myself of the many proactive things I can do to keep myself and my family mentally and physically healthy and safe during this time of panic and gloom.
Here are 13 tips for parents who are looking for ways to support children through the Coronavirus.
1. Notice What You Role Model To Your Children
It is important to be aware of what we are doing or saying in front of our children. This is true no matter what is happening in our lives. However, during difficult times our children tend to cope as well as or as poorly as we do. We set the bar on how to manage through a crisis. If you child is anxious, worried, or sad, chances are, you are role modelling that. Even if we are not outwardly speaking words of worry, our children can read us very well. We have likely all had our share of experiencing times when we yell with an abrupt voice something like, “I am just fine! Everything is going to be fine! Now go play and leave me alone.” They are very aware of the incongruence between our words and body language.
Are you role modelling panic and fear or calm and conscious coping strategies?
2. Be honest about what you know about the Coronavirus
Share your fears and then verbalize what strategies you are using to manage the fearful hamster wheel of thoughts spinning in your head. You may be exhausting yourself trying to manage your fearful thoughts and hiding your fears in order to not worry your children. Withholding information from children is often thought of as a way to protect them. Unfortunately, this is NOT the case. Children (and adults for that matter) will create a more painful and scary story in their heads when information is withheld or questions are not truthfully answered.
Share your internal dialogue out loud. For example, you might say something like, “Here are the thoughts I am dealing with right now. I am trying to not let those thoughts take over and here is what I am doing to manage my thinking in order to allow myself to not be overcome with fear…”
3. Nurture Everyone’s Immune System
Our immune system is in place to keep us healthy and protect us from an illness like a virus. It is our best line of defence yet very few are talking about this (aside from hand washing). One of the most important lessons for all of us could be to stop and notice if we, in our daily routines, are consciously making choices to support and strengthen our immune system or are we making choices and behaving in ways that compromises our immune system? We all get 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, no more, no less. Are we making choices within that given time to keep our immune system at its optimal level? Are we making time for exercise? Are we over scheduling ourselves and therefore there is no time to plan and prepare healthy meals? Is our busy mind (that many of us were never taught how to train) interfering with us getting enough sleep?
I remember a marketing slogan that said, “You are what you eat.” This is very true and it is at times like these we need to remind our children if we want to be healthy we have to eat healthy. This is a time to be more aware of how much we are drinking sugary drinks, and foods filled with preservatives and refined sugars. This is an opportunity to wake us up to the importance of becoming more conscious over what we eat and how much we eat. Are we eating out of hunger? Or are we often eating out of habit? (ie always eat while watching TV), or to comfort ourselves?
Invite your children to discover ways to ensure they have a strong immune system. How can we improve what we eat? Given everyone’s schedules and circumstances, brainstorm ways the family can improve their eating habits. What we eat and how we eat (on the run or sitting at a table) greatly impacts not only our health but the health of our children.
Consider supporting your immune system and your family member’s immune system through things like vitamins, herbs and essential oils. You may want to consider (when your circumstances feel permissible to do so) making health-promoting treatments like massage therapy, acupuncture or reiki a more regular part of your healthy regime.
Encourage everyone to get enough exercise, sunlight and fresh air. Going for walks is a great way to keep your immune system strong. Walking in nature is not only good for your physical health but your mental health as well.
When I was a child, I would ride my bike alongside my mom as she went on her brisk walks to stay healthy. Riding my bike was the only way I could keep up with her fast pace. Not only did she role model the importance of exercise, in the process we had many great talks. It supported not only my immune system, but my emotional and mental health as well.
During time at home, Youtube has a lot of exercise workouts, yoga routines, inspiring talks and guided meditations. What a great time to make them part of your daily routine.
This is a time to notice if our beliefs and behaviours are hindering or strengthening our immune system. Our bodies do an excellent job at mirroring back our beliefs and behaviours.
4. Choose Self Empowering Strategies, Not Blame
This is such an important life skill to role model and teach to your children. When challenges arise in your life, do you see yourself as a victim? Do you see your children as victims? Do you feel sorry for them and try to solve their problems? Do you tell them what they have to do to solve their problems? Do you tell others what they have to do or not do so your child will no longer suffer?
OR… do you coach them through challenges by inviting them to learn from and seek opportunities in whatever challenge they are facing?
Trying to control all the external factors around us in order to keep our children healthy is exhausting. Focusing just on outside factors tends to lead to blaming, such as blaming sick people, blaming poor hygiene, blaming government officials, or blaming other ethnic groups. This will not help to empower you or your children.
When we blame others, we surrender our power. Assist your children in shifting any thoughts of blame to seeking ways to feel self empowered. Invite them to ask, “What can I think and do to feel empowered and healthy while being surrounded by fearful thinking?”
5. Make a choice: Is This A Crisis or An Adventure?
I remember hearing a story about a mother who decided she needed to leave her husband. She packed up her young children and left. Instead of offering her children a fearful story of “This is terrible, I am not sure how we will survive…”, she told them they were going on an adventure. She kept her own uncertainty in check by working through her fearful thoughts, took lots of deep breaths and assured herself and her kids that they were not only going to be fine, that they were going to have fun on this new adventure of uncertainty ahead. Clearly this required a huge level of trust and faith.
What a gift to give children, in times of uncertainty, to offer them a story of adventure, trust, and faith rather than a crisis.
This is, in no way, to minimize or dismiss what is happening to many people around the world. This, however, is an inspiring example of how the perception we choose to take will greatly impact our children’s, and our own experience at this time. Is it possible to approach these next few weeks more as an adventure, rather than a crisis?
6. How Will You Spend This Unexpected Time At Home?
With many countries closing down schools, countless children will now unexpectedly be at home for a few weeks. For various reasons, many parents may find themselves at home as well.
If you are going to be at home for a while, can this unexpected time be a gift of time? How many times have we wished for some “down time”? How many times have we wished for things to slow down? How many times have we wanted some extra time at home? Be open to ideas on how you and your children can best use this time. Encourage them to brainstorm ideas about what they will do with this gift of time.
Parents who homeschool already know the importance of creating some sort of schedule and structure. Consider making a schedule for kids involving things like outside time, reading, online academic activities, games, food preparation and chores. Look for posts by parents who have already created some helpful ideas around schedules. Structure and routine is also a great way to avoid boredom and irritation.
7. You Don’t Have To Have All the Answers On What Your Children Can Do With Their Time
While you invite your children to brainstorm things they want to do while home from school, don’t already have all the answers for them. Often parents think they have to have it all planned and decided for them. Parents can sometimes feel guilty if they hear their children claim they are bored.
When your children ask, what should we do or complain that they are bored, invite them to use their boredom as a motivator to tap into their creativity. Remind them that boredom is a choice.
Warning: Creativity often involves messes. Be open to messes. You can use it as an opportunity to teach and guide them in “self-directed clean up.”
Perhaps this extra time at home could result in
Less screen time for your children
Less screen time for you (remember role modelling is key)
More conversations that involve listening (with minimal interruptions) to their thoughts and concerns around things like friends, social media influences, healthy ways to self regulate screen times, puberty challenges, school concerns, career aspirations, social skills. Note: the older they get the more as parents we need to listen more and talk less if we want to keep a positive relationship with our children.
Making more meals together
Eating more meals together, perhaps at the table
Doing some long awaited home projects together (that you never seem to have time for.)
If you are unsure how to tackle a project or even attempt something like cooking a certain food, thanks to youtube, family members can search and be coached through many tasks. You could encourage your children to search up various “self sustaining skills” on youtube. Perhaps in turn, your children will teach you some new skills. I love when my children teach me new things!
If you are looking for more specific ideas on creating schedules and starting homeschooling for the non-homeschoolers, be sure to check out this blog.
8. Be Open to New Opportunities For Yourself
In the meantime, if your job or business has been greatly impacted by the pandemic, your mind may be very occupied with financial worries. This is very understandable for so many.
During this potentially challenging financial time, I recently thought of the book I read by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich. Hill was motivated to write the book in 1937 when he noticed that several men, like Andrew Carnagie and Henry Ford, became very wealthy in the middle of an economic depression. He studied and questioned the minds of these men to discover how it was possible that when so many became so poor, they became rich.
Be open to using this time to think differently. Perhaps this is time to revamp your business. Does this mean learning how to host online meetings? Is this the time you finally learn how to use Zoom or Google Docs? Is this the time you sit down to make a financial plan or change for the future? Or perhaps is this the time you rewrite your resume and start seeking out the job you really want that you have never had time to apply for, until now.
As you are seeking new opportunities, encourage your children to do the same. Perhaps this is a time for older children to start a project of their own? Is this a time to declutter and/or redecorate their space? Is it about finding ways to make money? It is about having the time to foster their entrepreneurial spirit? Is it time to stop and look for ways to assist others who may need support at this time?
9. Help Your Children Find Ways to Serve Others
One of the best ways to get out of sadness, anxiety or self-centredness is to be of service to others. So much of the “race mentality” has been about panicking to get one’s own needs met. How can we instead focus more on coming together in community to support one another?
Since close contact with others is being discouraged it will take some creativity to think of ways we can support one another, particularly the elderly, at this time. Being open to not having the answers and allowing your children to freely offer ideas may surprise you in what they come up with. Whatever you and your family choose to do, help them recognize embrace the feelings they experience. Help them realize that in giving to others, we receive.
10. Recognize That Fear is Our Greatest “Dis-ease”
So much of the pandemic behaviours have been fuelled by fear. When struggling with fear, look to people who have demonstrated growth during times of challenges. Notice what these people have in common. How did they not allow fear to take over their minds? How did they not join the “herd mentality?”
I once had a wise man tell me, “When everyone is running that way, head the opposite way.” My experience is people who do well during challenging times train their minds to focus on the good that can come out of challenges. They focus their minds on opportunities, not lack. They train their mind to focus on what they want, not what they don’t want. They consciously select to spending most of their time with people who are positive and calm rather than negative and fearful.
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is for us to learn how to train our minds to focus on the good and what we want (for example, good health, imagining positive changes for our society and the environment…) so we can, in turn, teach that to our children.
11. Try the Serenity Prayer
You don’t need to identify with a religion or believe in a god or higher power to pray. No matter what your beliefs, surrendering your fears and being open to answers coming to you while in a state of trust, is such a peaceful feeling. I love the Serenity Prayer. You can use the word God or replace it with a word that works for you, or leave it out, whichever feels best.
“God, grant me the
SERENITY
to accept the things I cannot change,
the COURAGE
to change the things I can,
and WISDOM
to know the difference.”
If this prayer gives you a feeling of peace, then share it with your children. What a great thing to discuss at your dinner table as you all sort out the things you can’t change (the virus) and the things you can change (your thinking about the virus) and how to know the difference (intuition? higher guidance?)
12. Remember, “This Too Shall Pass”
I remember going through a challenging time many years ago. After I ranted to a friend, there was a long pause and then she said to me, “This too shall pass.” At first, I thought she was minimizing the severity of my situation. Then, the more I said those words over and over in my head, the more I realized the truth of them. All our historical global crises have come and gone and someday, hopefully, sooner than later, this too shall pass. Offering this mantra to your children will assist them in knowing this challenging time is only temporary, just like everything else in our world, temporary.
13. Take on An Attitude of Gratitude
No matter what the challenge, the number one way to get out of fear and sadness is by focusing on all that we have in our lives to be grateful for. Many people will try to comfort themselves by noticing that others have it far worse. I find this a painful, guilt-ridden way to feel better.
Instead, I invite you to simply state, and better yet, write down, things that you are grateful for in YOUR life regardless of what is happening in other people’s lives. Invite your children to do the same on a regular basis. This could become a part of your dinner time or bedtime routine.
I do this many times with children at school and it is alarming how many struggle to think of one thing. This is mind training.
The more we focus on what we are grateful for, the more we see things to be grateful for.
During times of fear, such as a pandemic, it may seem more challenging to find things to be grateful for. You may notice your mind really resisting this strategy. How can we be grateful when there is a financial crisis erupting and people are dying?
I once read a book called The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. She was a prisoner in a concentration camp. She suggested it was gratitude that helped keep her alive. Her sister found it very challenging to be grateful in such dire circumstances and would often point out all the wrongs and horrors in their situation. Yet, even with no belongings, no blankets and sleeping on flea-infested straw, Boom stated, we must be grateful for the fleas. “Why would we be grateful for fleas?” her sister asks. “Because,” Boom replies, “they are keeping the guards from approaching us and taking us to the gas chambers.”
I was recently at the funeral of a 96-year-old woman who had cross-stitched many banners. The one that caught my eye said, “Gratitude is the best attitude.” So true. When you and your family make this a routine you will instantly enjoy the peace and love that will come to you and your family as this becomes your daily attitude.
Finally, don’t forget we are all doing the best we can with what we have in each and every moment. Be kind, gentle and forgiving with yourself so you can extend that same nonjudgmental love to your children as well as other parents and global neighbours.
Wishing you all the wisdom and strength you require as you guide and support your children through this global pandemic.
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If you are looking for parenting advice on this or other challenges, be sure to check out more on my website by clicking here