Taylor’s Blog

BOULDER COUNTY KIDS HEALTH Taylor’s Blog COPING

by Taylor Cannon

AAs we continue to hunker down to safely ride out the duration of this global pandemic, worldwide issues haven’t ceased to plague the world outside our doors. A long overdue nationwide reckoning with racism is challenging us all to take a critical look at the ways in which our lifestyles and choices reinforce patterns and structures that are toxic to our communities. The impacts of global warming are drastically reshaping our seasons, our climate and our wilderness. And meanwhile, most American children are only attending school in the classroom for a few days a week, or not at all. Families have been required to shift their schedules and expectations to accommodate the precautions necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It feels like everything is changing, rapidly and with significant turbulence.

It is unrealistic to expect to protect children from the fear and uncertainty that so many of us are experiencing during this time. As their caregivers and role models, our job is not to shield kids from all possible discomfort or worry, but to be honest with them about reality and provide them with healthy, effective coping skills. Read on for some ideas for guiding children through these rapidly-changing times.

BE HONEST

Kids are surprisingly adept at picking up on the emotions of their loved ones. If you’re experiencing frequent anxiety, it’s safe to assume that your child is aware of that fact. If we choose to avoid talking about the cause of our feelings and instead ignore

DANGER Quarantine Area

or disregard them, we are not only modeling poor emotional intelligence, but we also run the risk of unnecessarily increasing the child’s anxiety due to fear of the unknown. By discussing the cause of your unease with your child, you give her the power of information. It’s only when we have the facts that we can choose how to react to them. This is an important point to make (and a helpful one for us all to remember)-- when we’re coping with anxiety or discomfort, it’s essential to identify these feelings and consider what their cause might be. Then, we can decide whether our worries are rational or irrational, and make good choices about how to work through our feelings.

BE PRESENT

Connection is a wonderful antidote to stress. When the anxiety in the household begins to feel as though it may boil over, it’s time to take a step back and find time to put away the screens in favor of face-to-face interaction. Spend an hour playing a card game together. Have storytime or a sing-along to some of your family’s favorite songs. Face-to-face interaction, when combined with laughter, is some of the very

best medicine. And it’s free! This time is great for raising spirits in the moment, but you’re also building invaluable trust and bonds that will come in handy in future times of stress and anxiety.

TEACH HOPE

Child psychologist Madeline Levine calls optimism “an ultimate life skill,” and I wholeheartedly agree. The brightness of our future is reliant in large part upon the hope of the next generation. This isn’t unique to the contemporary age; the future has always been in the

hands of those who believe that things can get better. Hopeless people can’t change the world, and they also can’t have legitimate agency of their own lives. Now, you might be like me, and a sunny outlook might not be something that comes naturally to you. If that’s you, it can help to focus your attention on the small things, and to mention them in real time to those around you. Instead of resorting to fatalism in politics, environmentalism or even in terms of the pandemic, we can choose to seek out the positive and nurture it with all our might.

Times like these aren’t easy or fun, but they are excellent opportunities to foster resilience. Striving to communicate honestly and sincerely about our feelings and the facts that trigger them is essential to creating an atmosphere of trust and security within a family. And of course, it’s always important to relieve stress and anxiety by connecting with one another without distractions. Hope for a brighter future is the impetus for productive action and positive change, and we can’t lose sight of that fact, even in the darkest of times.

Taylor Cannon writes a blog for Grandrabbit’s Toy Shoppes. This piece was originally posted on Grandrabbit’s Toy Shoppe’s blog, Play Matters which is located at www.playmattersgrandrabbits. com. Play Matters is an outlet for Grandrabbit’s to further its mission of nurturing the hearts, minds and bodies of children. The blog aims to cultivate a thoughtful community in which to discuss ideas and perspectives with the goal of bringing up healthy, happy, confident and engaged kids.

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