How to talk to your kids about COVID-19

As a parent, you may be asking “How do I talk to my kids about COVID-19?”

“What should we tell them?” “ How can we explain that they can’t see their friends, Grandparents, and schoolmates?”

“How much can we say about crossing the street when someone is walking towards them, why the parks are closed, and why do we HAVE to stay at home?”

Our default position is usually to say that everything is okay; we want their lives to be protected both from the external dangers and from what we perceive as the emotional dangers. So we hide our own anxieties, worries, concerns and stresses.

What many of us don’t realize is that our children are the world’s best lie detectors.

They know that we are stressed. Moreover, when we try to hide our feelings from our children, what we are telling them is that emotions are not okay. In our efforts to protect and care for our children, hoping to protect them from anxiety and fear, we have actually suppressed our emotions and told them to do the same.

Given this, we need to communicate with our children about what is happening with this virus in an honest and age-appropriate way, while still protecting them from the anxieties around the uncertainties that are looming in our adult worlds.

Our children need us to be “Bigger, Stronger, Wiser” (Circle of Security).

The reality is that we can tell our children the truth in an age-appropriate and non-threatening way. We do not need to tell them all the fearful details, possibilities, and outcomes. Our children do, however, have a need to know that our feelings, and their feelings, are important.

As they express their fears and concerns about our current reality, we may find responding and supporting them to be difficult.

It is so tempting and natural to tell your child “I know it might seem scary, but . . .”; however, just as someone might say “no disrespect but . . .” we all know that the ‘but’ negates anything said before and so do our children.  

Swap out “but” for “because”

If we swap out the ‘but’ for ‘because’ it will let our children know that we get what they are feeling and that those feelings are okay. Instead of “I know it seems scary but . . .” we can try “I know it seems scary because no one is playing at the park, your friends can’t come over right now, and you don’t know what else might change.”

We can then move on to support them and help them in the emotions.

If our children are scared, we need to reassure them with only what we can promise –  the safety and security that we can provide. By changing our conversations to this structure we will show our children that their emotions are okay and that we are okay talking about them.  We need to give them the freedom to talk with us about their thoughts and feelings when they need to.

If you would like to have some help with talking to your children about their emotions and/or processing your own, please contact us through our contact page. We have a number of therapists who would be honoured to support you during this time.

Written by Graham Caesar, CCC, RCC