Child anxiety through covid-19 – Being the calm within the storm!

I mentioned it in an earlier post, coming across a poll considering the shift in focus from academics to mental health once school resumes. I personally was not on-board with the idea.

I love my kids to death, but let’s be honest! For many, this was just an extended spring break – or early start to summer holidays! I’m not trying to be insensitive here, but unless you’ve somehow been directly affected by covid-19, I can’t speak for all kids of course, but ours aren’t exactly traumatized!

So instead, let’s talk about parents easing their children’s anxiety at home.

Kids are extremely intuitive! They pick up on your stresses and worries. If Mom and Dad are constantly listening to the news stats, over reacting with ‘toilet paper’ hoarding and telling their kids they have to stay in and stay away from everyone else to stay alive – then yeah! Our kids are going to stress and get a little freaked out!

But what if this time doesn’t have to be all bad?

What if I told you, It’s really only traumatizing to our children, if we – as parents – choose to panic and feed fear to our kids!

Okay, so what should we be doing then? I mean, we don’t want to lie and we have to tell them something for why the whole world is upside down!

Make home safe.

Use this time to build on your relationships with your children and reassure them, this is the best ‘medicine’ for their current and future mental health! Build them strong through this time instead of waiting to ‘fix’ things later. Help them cope through this time, by not focusing on the negative.

What does that look like?

Our kids, they’re enjoying a lot of down time from our typically busy lives, andA LOT more family time and togetherness! Siblings are turning into friends, and everyone’s actively learning and doing more around the house.

Our home is turning into more of a community effort instead of Mom and Dad scrambling around everyone’s schedules!

I for one, am actually grateful for this stress free downtime we’ve been given to all reconnect and reevaluate our lives!

Instead of feeding children fear and anxiety, choose love and encouragement.