Last week I wrote about How to Look After Your Mental Health during the Covid-19 Situation. Things have obviously ramped up a bit since then, but the advice still stands. Before you attempt to look after any kids, please know that it’s important that you take care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and all that. So ensure that you take time to get yourself to a place of reasonable resilience and calm, so that all the caretaking of others you do makes you feel better rather than worse.
My advice is a little different for different age groups of kids, so I’m going to split this blog into what you might do to help your under 5s, your primary age children and your teenagers. I hope that you find it helpful.
But if you only do one thing, make it this, because this is my top tip across all age groups: kids will copy you. This doesn’t mean you have to be the perfect, super-calm, all knowing responder to the crisis. It just means be as kind and caring as you can, towards yourself, towards the rest of the house and towards that 80 year old across the road. Your children, whatever their age, will absorb that kindness and care. You all deserve it.
Under 5s
Let them play. This is the way children learn at this age anyway, so please don’t think they will miss out if you’re not doing phonics with them. This is a great time to get out some toys they haven’t played with in a while and let them explore. To avoid boredom (yours and theirs) consider rotating the toys, so that they see some different ones every few days. Never forget that children are usually happiest when playing with the simplest things. Who hasn’t seen their child make entertainment out of an empty cardboard box? Try putting a washing up bowl of water and a few plastic cups in the garden and see what happens.
Don’t worry about using the TV. If your little ones are able to sit and watch a Disney/Pixar film, let them. Some families have strict rules about how much TV they let their kids watch, and this is the time to relax those. Make sure you have your own entertainment device of choice handy for the eleventy-fifth watch through of Shark Tale.
Use simple language and keep explanations short. They may not grasp what’s happening at this age, and they are unlikely to understand how unusual and scary this seems to everyone else. That is a really good thing. Let them be innocent of it all - as long as they’re washing their hands, that’s all they need to know! Some will ask questions though, so have a think about some simple answers you might give. A good rule of thumb is: if they’re ready to ask, they’re ready to know. But I find a truthful one line explanation usually suffices - any more detail than that and your average five year old will glaze over.
Know that timeframes don’t mean much to them. It won’t help them to know that this might all be over by the summer/Christmas/their birthday, because young children don’t have a sense of how long ten minutes is, never mind further into the future than that.
But routines DO mean a lot to them. What does help little ones is knowing that there will be a sense of basic routine they can count on. They will feel more secure knowing that they’re still not allowed to hit their little brother, that bedtime is still roughly the same, and that you still like to read them their favourite story. These boundaries and consistencies reassure them that nothing important has changed: their carers still care and they will still be looked after.
Primary age children
Primary age children are now off school, unless they are children of keyworkers, and you may be facing the task of homeschooling them as well as keeping them entertained, fed and feeling safe. It’s a big ask, so here are my top tips.
Be relaxed about homeschooling. Your school may have provided plenty of work, both online or in hard copy, and do hang onto it. However, don’t feel under pressure to ensure it all gets done by a certain deadline or that you somehow teach it all engagingly AND answer all those tough questions about converting millimetres to kilometres and what a modal verb is. Rather take the approach that your child(ren) will get some of it done, and accept that some of it will be impossible for them/you. They are not going to fall behind: everyone is in the same boat. Fill the gaps with things they like and choose: if you’ve got a creative kid, encourage them to write stories or paint or make cartoons; if your child has a passion for space or wildlife, let them research their topic and teach YOU all about it; if they’ve got some hobby like baking or dancing or football, allow them to let rip with that in the kitchen/living room/garden and hone their skills. These are all useful life skills, right? They are still learning. Leave the learning about long division to a professional, when school reopens (unless you and your child adore long division and actually want to pore over it together!)
Listen to them. They will have seen the news (and probably not just the Newsround news, but the news that’s everywhere…) and they will have questions and worries. Follow my rule of thumb for the under 5s and remember that if they’re ready to ask, they’re ready to know. Keep it at their level though, and don’t overload them with information. They will ask follow up questions at this age if you didn’t tell them what they needed to know the first time. Many children this age will feel scared and this is your opportunity to reassure them. Don’t dismiss their fears - most likely you, too, have experienced a degree of fear about this situation - but try to help them keep it in perspective. It’s not helpful to say things that aren’t true or that you can’t know to be true, e.g. “you’ll be back in school next week.” Much as you might think they want to hear this, be careful to be honest without alarming them. Some children will feel angry, and that’s a natural response too. It sucks that they can’t go and do their normal activities and see their friends, or their grandparents. Maybe they are facing missing a big school trip or event, or even the end of their primary career altogether. Allow them to be angry and sad and upset. They mainly need to express that, and don’t expect you to fix it.
Help them bear uncertainty. We all like to know what to expect and when, and not being able to do this is particularly hard on this age group. You can help them by explaining in terms of a larger certainty, i.e. that this will end. But acknowledge that we can’t know when, at the moment. You can talk in terms of what is likely, given the information that we currently have, and explain that you will keep talking to them as this gets updated.
Have some fun. Maybe your family likes board games, or playing frisbee in the garden, or collecting wild flowers while out walking the dog. We are all a bit limited as to what we can do at the moment, but find the fun stuff for your kids in your home, and remember that often they will count “fun” as things they do with you/their siblings. Maybe you can have a video game tournament, or all dress up for dinner, or see who can take the silliest selfie.
Suggest capturing memories. Whether they’re sad, afraid or quite enjoying their time with you at home, see if you can get them to preserve their memories of this time somehow. It will doubtless be a time we all talk about for a long time to come. If they are inclined to make a scrapbook, diary, photo album or film about what this has been like for them, encourage them to do it and facilitate preserving it as you would other family keepsakes.
Teenagers
Teenagers have got this particularly tough. I was thinking about how I would have coped with this situation in different stages of my life, and I concluded that my teens would have been the absolute worst era for this to hit, so my sympathy goes out to them all.
Help them bear uncertainty. While your 10 year old is worried about when this will end and when they will be able to go to the park, your teenager might be facing incredible anxiety about their future in the face of exams being disrupted. Help them look at the long term view: that there will be a way to get the qualifications they need for the next stage, whether that means waiting for teacher assessments or repeating a year or taking a year out. It may seem like a disaster now: it will mean little when they’re 25.
Ensure they can connect with their peers online. Peer connection is crucial to teenagers for so many reasons, including sound developmental ones. They will keenly feel the loss of their peer group while they are “stuck” with us oldies. Ensure that they can contact their friends online and lend them your laptop if you have to. Being able to chat to friends online via video calls and social media will be the next best thing and they will probably find this a bit of a lifeline.
Beware extremes of work ethic. Not doing any of the schoolwork they’ve been set, or conversely spending many hours buried in it, are both signs that your teen isn’t coping well. If they haven’t got off the starting grid, help them: none of us have done this organising ourselves from home thing before, and chances are you too have struggled to motivate yourself to get your work done. Share your own organisational tips with your teen, or draft in a more organised friend via video chat or messaging to provide ideas. Then praise them when they get something (however small) done. In the case of a workaholic teen, who may be desperately trying to distract themselves from their anxieties, gently suggest nice things to do to give them a break. You probably know what they would consider enjoyable or a treat: run them a bubble bath or suggest a bike ride or unearth their favourite film. Once you’ve got them relaxed, keep your ears open in case they want to talk.
Listen. Teens generally don’t share their thoughts and questions with you as readily as your primary age children might. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk. They might be waiting for you to open the conversation. They’ve got access to much of the same information online as you have and might be struggling to process it. Listening to their worries will help them to sort through the jumble of thoughts in their mind. You don’t need to suggest solutions or offer up fixes (unless they ask) because often listening sympathetically is enough. This is a good chance to build a helpful channel of communication with your teenager that you might use well after this situation is over.
All children will no doubt remember this time in their lives. When they look back, they won’t remember the details of what you did or said, but they will remember how you made them feel. All of us are capable of making children feel safe and reassured, as long as we are looking after ourselves adequately so that we also feel safe enough. So take care of yourselves, and give yourself a pat on the back for how well you’re doing.
