One of the biggest issues facing parents these past few months is how to maintain the quality of schooling for our children despite the challenges of remote learning, lockdowns, and mask mandates. For many of us, our children (at least, those under 18) have spent an unprecedented amount of time at home. Even for those of us living in areas where schools have reopened, they’re often not operating at full capacity, five days a week.
Our kids are home more than ever. We’d do well not to waste that time.
It’s not about reinforcing multiplication facts or prepping for the ACT, either! Though these are valuable ventures, there are far more important life lessons and skills that we can help our kids learn during these times: lessons that will last and serve them well as they grow into the people they were meant to be.
Here are what parents can take the opportunity to teach:
2 Critical Life Lessons Our Kids Need During COVID
1) How to Express Emotion in Healthy Ways
As adults, we’re no doubt aware of the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our mental and emotional health. We’re anxious, depressed, fatigued, and stuck in a never-ending brain fog. It would be a mistake to assume that our children are immune from experiencing these feelings, too. Research suggests that the mental and emotional impact of the pandemic on children is only deepening.
Not only are normal routines shattered, but our kids are removed from friends and familiar environments. If adults struggle to understand what is happening, if we fail to manage the uncertainty of it all, we have to believe our kids are dealing with it, too.
Unfortunately, adults as well as children rarely know how to express their emotions and mental health struggles in healthy ways. We see, instead, a build-up and anger, anxiety, depression, and resentment.
This isn’t to say proper expression and processing of emotions won’t still come with some of these feelings. However, proper emotional coping prevents them from turning in a pressure cooker waiting to explode.
Understand that “acting out” for children is often rooted in frustration and emotions that they don’t know what to do with. This is where you, at the parent, can step in. Teach your children how to talk about how they feel. Teach them ways to manage anxiety. Be one thing in their life that is certain and constant!
Model healthy coping in your own life — deep breathing, visualization, and self-care. Ask your kids how they feel and what they think they need. Allow them to vent their worries and feelings.
2) How to Cope with Uncertainty
None of us like the feeling of uncertainty. We want to know what’s coming so we can prepare. However, the uncharted territory of a global pandemic in the modern age has all but eliminated our ability to anticipate the future!
Our children feel this uncertainty, too. Everyone is learning on their feet, and kids are smart enough to perceive that the adults keep changing plans and pivoting to new strategies. This shakes their sense of stability in the world and, as a demographic with very little control to begin with, the uncertainty of it all can be crushing.
Start with being honest with your children. Don’t pretend you know what’s happening or what the solutions are. However, reassure them that you and other adults are doing their best to figure it all out. Validate their feelings and listen. Limit how much access they have to news, particularly pundits and talking heads. Set boundaries between school and home, and allow them to maintain a sense of structure. Allow them to control the things that they can control. It can be as simple as allowing them to choose their clothes when they get dressed, decided on a meal one night a week, or pick the movie the family will all watch together.
These toeholds on control can go a long way as coping mechanisms.
As we look ahead to the future, equipping our children to handle the emotional, mental, and physical challenges that may come is essential to growing into successful, stable adults.
For most of us, we can look back to a “traumatizing” event in childhood. For some it’s the JFK assassination or the Cuban missile crisis. For others, it was 9/11. For our children, it will not be a singular event, but the months of quarantine, virtual learning, and social separation. That leaves a profound impact.
As parents, the best thing we can do is give our children the ability to cope in healthy, productive ways.
How are you helping your children, your spouse, or yourself manage feelings of uncertainty and isolation? Share your coping strategies in the comments.