G R E AT L I F E | C O L U M N
The “new normal”
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f you told me that the column I would write for our summer 2020 edition would involve child-sized face masks, homeschooling and FaceTime playdates, I would have thought you were crazy. None of us could have imagined what the past few months had in store. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed so many things. It has made us talk about topics we never thought we would with our children. parentlife WITH STACIE GAETZ I’ve had to explain how people can die from a cold to my five-year-old daughter and repeatedly remind my three-yearold son not to touch … well, pretty much everything. Kids couldn’t go to school, see grandma and grandpa, visit friends or even play on playgrounds. Even now, almost everything is different in some way. That is why it is so important that we try to maintain some sense of “normal” through it all, for our kids’ sake. I was recently talking with a local mental health professional who told me that the pandemic will increase anxiety in most children who are old enough to comprehend even a little bit about what is going on. This hit me hard. My immediate response was “What can I do to help my kids?” It turns out one answer is rather simple. Like most of us, children thrive in a routine and when so many things are uncertain and even the adults in their lives don’t have the answers to many of their questions, consistency is key. No one knows what the big-picture “new normal” will look like but we do know what the norms are in our homes. Those little things that haven’t changed even though everything else has. Morning cartoons, schoolwork after breakfast (albeit at home now), lunch, outdoor time, dinner, bath before bed, mom reading the same story every night (seemingly since the dawn of time).… These small, routine actions are comforting and grounding for children and can “Small, routine actions are comforting go a long way when everything else seems unsettled and scary. We can’t control the pandemic or the virus, but we can help our children feel and grounding for children and like they are safe. It may seem insignificant, but pouring the same bowl of Cheecan go a long way when everything rios every morning and singing You Are My Sunshine every night may play a bigger role than you think in maintaining your child’s mental health. life else seems unsettled and scary”
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S U M M E R 2020
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