Talking about COVID-19: Helping our Kids Cope
By Drea Baptiste
So this week, we found out that my Grade 8 son will not have a Graduation ceremony or dance. We were not entirely surprised by this decision made by the school board, but had secretly hoped that our son would get to experience this milestone ‘they way we did’. I was in tears thinking about what my 13 year old self would have felt like knowing that I could not get to celebrate this achievement with my friends, teachers and family. We sat down together with our son and shared the sad news. Needless to say— our son was disappointed, big time.
We’re all struggling to keep things as ‘normal’ as possible for our kids.
Pre-covid, my main concerns were about raising a freshly minted teenager who is already 4 inches taller than me and has the voice of a man! This was going to be a big year of changes —entering a new phase in life — but little did I know how big.
How can we protect our kids through this crisis when there are things completely outside of our control? Dealing with uncertainty during this pandemic is challenging for most adults, never mind kids.
As parents, all we can do is our best. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few weeks, is that it’s going to take a lot of trial and error to help our kids build resiliency during this time. Here’s what’s been working for us …
Honesty is the best policy.
When it comes to COVID-19, none of us has the ‘answers’ we are all looking for. Specifically, how long this pandemic will last and what will it be like when we ‘return to normal.’ As parents, all we can do is make sure our kids receive honest and accurate information. I wish I could tell my son that he will get to ‘physically’ attend his first day of high school in the fall, but I can’t make that promise. Instead, we try to be honest about ‘what we don’t know’ as much as what we do know.
This also means, keeping our son ‘in-the-loop’ as far as sharing new information and preparing him for changes that may happen. We spoke often about how school would likely be cancelled for more than two weeks - we’re now on week 8 - and that minimized the impact when it was confirmed that at-home schooling would be continuing. We’re also careful to make sure he hears hard news from us first (like the cancellation of his Grad Trip) so we can be there to support him and talk through how he is feeling.
We check in often and ask questions.
Ever try talking to a 13 year old boy? “Ya, nope, grunt, moan”. That’s it. Getting my son to talk about ‘stuff’ outside of video games, anime and sports is like pulling teeth! But we persevere! Whether it’s over breakfast or during dinner, or popping by to give a hug, we are constantly checking in and asking questions like:
How you feeling? What’s up? Did you talk to your friends today? How are they doing? Anything come up you want to talk about? You hear or see anything interesting today?
Now, most of the time, we get these kinds of replies: “I’m fine. Not much - gonna go listen to music. Ya. I guess so. Not really. Nope.” This all comes with an eye roll because we’re ‘bugging him’…and that’s ok. Because there are days that he does want to talk to us — because on those days he had something to tell us - and on those days, he needs us to listen.
We keep a routine but we let the schedule slide (at bit).
It seems like all the experts agree that setting and sticking to a regular schedule is key, despite that we are home all day. We’ve put together a new ‘at home’ routine where we all get up and eat at regular times. This has helped us find a sense of normalcy by establishing some consistency and structure.
However, ‘the schedule’ is not carved in stone. We’re each learning how to balancing our school from home and work from home responsibilities. We now have a family schedule and shared calendar so when a zoom meeting for work interferes with helping with school work we adjust who does what and when. It’s a lesson is adaptability, but what isn’t these days?
Most importantly, we try to alternate periods of study, work and play. Sometimes, it’s ok to switch things around or let things slide for the sake of everyone’s happiness and sanity! Giving 15 minutes to shoot hoops in the front drive before starting homework is ok. Sleeping in an extra half hour is ok. Taking the day off (every once in a while) is ok.
We’re going ‘old school’ with our family time.
It’s easy to let ourselves be entertained by binge-watching Netflix, marathon video game sessions and scrolling through memes. But we’re on our screens constantly now - whether for work, school or play - and too much screen time is getting to be too much.
Both my husband and I are children of the 80’s. We remember a time without screens, and scheduled play dates and being ‘bored’ was unheard of. We’re starting to bring back some ‘classic’ ways to be creative and active as a family.
These oldies but goodies include board games, puzzles, bike rides and art projects.
We let our kid virtually ‘hang out’ with his friends.
Teenagers are social creatures. They crave time with their friends to just ‘hang out’. When our son gets to play Minecraft with ‘the boys’ he laughs out loud and becomes super animated.
Relaxing the rules on using social media, texting and video games doesn’t mean he is allowed to be online constantly. He gets a good amount of time with his ‘boys’ on a regular basis - after homework and chores are done - and it’s working out well.
His mood has improved greatly, and this time with his friends has helped him feel less alone and less stressful about being away from them and school.
We’re feeling our feelings.
At first, the news that school was cancelled for three weeks left our son cheering. “A vacation from school and I get to stay home and relax, and draw, and play video games? Awesome!”
Once the dust settled and the impact of COVID-19 became clearer… online school, homework, class assignments, can’t see my friends, Graduation trip cancelled, Graduation ceremony cancelled, no summer camps…my son was feeling anything but excitement.
He’s been angry, frustrated, disappointed and sad. And that is totally reasonable given the circumstances. When he ‘freaks out’ because he lost a video game — it’s obviously not about the video game. We tell him that we know he is going through a lot and that it’s ok to feel what he’s feeling. It opens the door for him to talk it out when he’s ready.
We’re taking it a day a time, and focusing on the short term.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions we don’t have the answers to. Will we get to ‘go out’ during the summer? Will they have summer camp? Will I get to start high school? These are long-term things that are out of our control but we can be proactive in the short term about what we can control.
Each week we look at things we can do as a family that would be fun to do. Like a Harry Potter movie marathon, or riding our bikes around the neighbourhood, or planning a game night. It allows us to look forward to something.
As soon as the weather cooperates we’re thinking about doing a ‘camp-out’ in the backyard. and getting excited about making s’mores and looking at the stars.
Each day I try to remember to be reasonable and kind with myself. We all want to be our best parenting selves as much as we can, but sometimes that best self is the one that says, “Go for it,” when a kid asks for more time on the iPad. We all have to find that balance that works for our families. I asked my son the other day, what he liked most about being home (because of COVID) and he responded: “It’s nice to spend more time together as a family - we were always so busy before - it’s nice just to hang out and have fun together.”
If there is one good thing about having to live through a pandemic - that would be it.
References and Resources
Anxiety Canada Talking to Kids About COVID-19
Kids Help Phone How to cope with social distancing during COVID-19
Kids Help Phone Letters of support from kids like you during COVID-19
Voices of Youth COVID-19 and youth mental health
WIRED The Reality of Covid-19 is Hitting Teens Especially Hard
About Kids Health How to talk to your child about COVID-19
WHO Children’s story book released to help children and young people cope with COVID-19
WHO Helping children cope with stress during the 2019-nCoV outbreak
CBC News ‘She just started sobbing’: Parents struggle to help kids cope with COVID-19 Anxiety