By Claire Bainer, M.A. Edu. & Amy Clough, RN, M.A. Edu

April 2020

 As we adults talk and worry about COVID-19, our little children listen and wonder as well. They can be confused, frightened, and angry because their minds operate differently from an adult’s. Our job is to try to understand their thinking and provide support and language to respond to their concerns. 

When children feel worries, they may express them unknowingly through their behaviors. Behavior is communication for young children and anxious behaviors can be unpleasant for everyone: clinging, whining, crying, resisting, constantly moving and talking, and aggression as they show you how they feel. 

If children perceive you don’t understand, their challenging behaviors may persist as they attempt to connect with you for reassurance. This needed connection can be interpreted as misbehavior or as the child “demanding attention”. When adults feel like this, they can easily become impatient. However, it is often the child’s way of signaling that they need adult help to interpret their uncomfortable feelings. 

A few facts and ideas to help you and your children.

Developmental Considerations

It is hard for adults to believe that their young children before age 6 could be thinking they can’t go to school because they did something bad that made the school close or the school doesn’t want them back. This thinking shows how immature their logic is and how they can’t yet understand that there are external forces influencing their experience and their feelings. This belief will change as the brain matures and children integrate more information about the outside world. But right now, confusion and worries are normal, especially when they are faced with a major change in their lives. 

• Likewise, young children can worry that they may have caused the illness, or they might get sick. Or worse — their adults may get sick and they will have no one to care for them. Children are born with an instinct for survival, knowing that without adults, they will not survive. 

• Being with peers who see the world as they do is stabilizing and affirming for young children. Children may have been with their class for a long time. Missing friends and teachers can be very difficult for preschool children which adds another layer of stress to their young lives.

Ways to Help you and your children

It’s important to sort out what we do have control over in our lives. Adults can communicate that they are the “Bigger, Wiser, Stronger, and Kind” * people in their children’s lives even if they don’t always feel like it during these times. (*From Circle of Security model developed by Cooper, Hoffman, and Powell)

• Try to remember that your child is acting out for a reason. Find support for yourself, (phone conversations, face time with friends, other parents, and relatives, or take a walk). 

• Remember children can jump to odd conclusions and get mixed up ideas sometimes. 

• Watch, listen carefully, and think about what your child may or may not understand about why things are different. Their child care program is closed, no one can have face to face play dates or go to the park. Adults are frustrated or sad and worried sometimes too. 

• Explain that we need to stay home because there is a tiny thing called a virus that is sort of like a germ that makes people sick. The virus could go from one person to another. Doctors have told us that we need to stay at home so we don’t catch the virus from someone else. (Remember even these words might not make total sense to young children). 

• Repeat that it is no one’s fault that the virus is happening, but we can’t be with other people until it goes away – and no, we don’t know when that will happen. We hope quickly. Doctors and scientists are working very hard to find a way to do that. 

• Remind them that the adults will make sure they get back to school as soon as possible and they don’t have to worry about it. Children are not in charge of child care and children can’t start or stop a school, that’s the grown-up’s job. 

• Make a schedule for activities — routines reassure children that they are safe and that there is an order to their day. E.G. After breakfast we’ll read a story, then we’ll do exercises, then you can play with your toys, after we’ll make and eat lunch and have a nap etc. Build in walks, exercise, and fresh air! 

• Even for pre-readers, use a calendar to mark and count the days that you stay home; write in the favorite activity of each day. Then, talk about what you are doing while the virus is going around (Kids will like to tell stories about this time when gramma can finally can come visit). 

• Choose online breathing exercises, children’s yoga, music, dance, art, science and play doh to calm and engage. Get ideas from your child’s teachers/child care providers. 

• Choose appropriate television/social media programs. Preschools may be conducting zoom conferencing with a few children – encourage conversations with stories and asking questions.

Discussions and conversations to build supportive responsive relationships 

Children are comforted when they can clarify and “name” an emotion and what causes it. Skill and understanding are needed to start talking about feelings. A couple of examples: 

• “I noticed that after you found that picture you made at school (.. or facetimed your friend or sang that school song or…), you tore your picture. I wonder if you are sad about missing your school and your friends. It is too bad no one can go to school right now. But we want to be safe and the doctors decided that it was best thing to do for now. Even moms and dads wish the school could be open.” Keep in mind that nurturing repetition of ideas is helpful. 

• Crying, whining or just plain miserable: “Are you missing school/child care and your friends? Everyone is missing you. Even when it makes us sad and lonesome, it is just not a good idea now. It is hard for grown- ups to decide these things, we want you to be safe from the virus”. 

• Facing tantrums, stomping of feet, or other acting out: “I think you might be angry about being home all day. Let’s talk about it. What do you miss most? Let’s talk about what we can we do at home to make some of the anger go away.” (Open-ended questions get children talking). 

• “Let’s practice how to tell your bear, dolly, dog, or cat why you are home with them and make them feel safe with us”. 

• “I’m so glad we are together. You know that each of us has important jobs. Your job is to play, grow, and learn lots of things. Mine is taking care of me and you. If you are feeling worried, tell me and we can cuddle and talk about it, ok”?