Let’s talk about COVID-19 and your kiddos.

Back at the beginning of COVID I wrote a blog post about how to help your kiddo stay active during quarantine. It still holds up – but we were (I was) SO NAIVE back then, and so here we are seven months later, and we’re heading into the winter months. Right now, nothing is normal for your kids, especially your teens and tweens. Even if they’re going to school, they wear masks and social distance and they are eating in their classrooms, and they’re not having recess. 

If they are at home online learning that’s totally different from their “normal.” Your schedule is disrupted, their schedule is disrupted. And unfortunately, now that we are headed into the colder and darker winter … I fear it will only be more difficult as the quarantine wears on. 

Here are the three major steps that are going to help you help your teen or tween, or even younger kids deal with the realities of quarantine through the winter months.

  THE THREE STEPS…

STEP #1: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST. You have to take care of yourself first. For everything that your kids are going through you are going through those same things too. You are dealing with disappointment. You are dealing with the disruption. You are dealing with the decision fatigue. And for this reason you have to, have to, have to, have to… take care of yourself first. 

You cannot, as they say, pour from an empty cup. I know that’s hard, because we don’t always know how to take care of ourselves. And we’re used to taking care of everyone else. But the reality is you have to take care of yourself first. 

STEP #2: TALK TO THEM ABOUT HOW AND WHY YOU ARE TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF. This will really, really, really help your kids. Each day, talk to them about the things that mommy is trying to do today for your mental health, for your emotional health, for your physical health. When you are doing this, be crystal clear about how you communicate what you’re trying to do, and why you’re trying to do that. Speak calmly and clearly and repeatedly about the things that you’re doing to take care of yourself. 

STEP #3: ASK THEM WHAT THEY NEED TO DO FOR SELF CARE. This is the third thing that I would urge you to do as you’re helping your kiddos through these issues, and through COVID-19, and through the winter as that limits us even more. Ask them – at any age, they have a knowing inside of them of what they need.

Ask, “What do you need, to feel safer, to feel more secure, to feel more whole to feel taken care of? How can we talk through that together? How can we try to make some of those things happen? How can we as a family come around one another and help each other?” 

Dealing with quarantine and COVID is NEVER going to be “easy” but it’s going to be so much easier for them to process these questions and to implement the answers, when they see you doing those things for yourself first. 

Sorry to be so cliche, but as a family – you are  “all in this together.” Everyone in your family will deal in different ways, and there is no one thing everyone needs, there is no right way or wrong way. We each need to listen to our own knowing, and then listen to what we are telling one another we need – and then act accordingly. 

Continue to CHOOSE your thoughts. CREATE your life, and CHANGE the world. We will all be better for you doing so!