Coronavirus Fear: How to Take Care of You and Your Children

Schools, churches, conferences, birthday parties, weddings, and employment have closed down. This is an anxiety inducing time for caregivers and children. 

As caregivers, we need to sit down and debrief with children. Find out what they are seeing and hearing through their social media outlets. Empathize and help them modulate their fears. It doesn't help children, when we tell them not to be afraid because their brain takes in data and tells them otherwise. 

For example: If your 10 year old son or daughter fortune-tells that he or she will get sick and die, you may respond by saying, "You are very scared that you will get sick aren't you? Daddy doesn't want to be sick either. Because of all the things we have seen on TV and on the internet, it is frightening to think about getting sick. I have seen them too." 

Then, help them shift their thought of "we will get sick and die" to looking at ways to stay healthy and strong. Affirm their current efforts to stay healthy. Brainstorm the myriads of ways we can stay healthy. Identify the things they can do based on what CDC has advised. Always assure children that parents will help them through it and will not get mad at them if they get sick. Tell the kids that all the closures is a good thing because we are trying to stop the spread of the virus and that closure does not mean that the virus is everywhere.

Also test their fortune-telling and catastrophic thinking that "I am going to catch the virus and die from the virus," by asking questions that provide evidence that disproves that thought. Ask questions like, "Out of the number of people you know in your life, how many are sick with the virus? What percentage of people have recovered from those who have contracted the virus? In your lifetime, how often have you been sick and recovered from illness?"

Focus on enjoyment. Identify the things they get to do now while they are at home and enjoy them. Make time to talk and connect more with your children. Keep them busy. Find ways to make them feel they are helpful, especially loved, and appreciated at home, through identifying positive things about them. 

Remember, In times like this, we can chose to focus on feeding our fear, or we can focus on the things we have and people we love in our lives. Take this time to talk our spouse, children, grandparents, and siblings within our home. Find out how they are feeling and what kind of support they need to get through this time. Take time to Skype, FaceTime and talk to others you have not seen or talked with and reconnect with them.

I have experienced that in this digital world, although we can do things so much more efficiently to save time, we have less and less time for each other. In the midst of the Coronavirus scare, we are frantic trying to protect our family's physical body, but we forget to check on their emotional and spiritual health. We now have the extra time we've always wanted to connect with our loved ones.



Our mind is very powerful. Depending on what we focus on, imagine, feed, and generate in our minds, we can become paralyzed by our fear. Fear is paralyzing but can be tamed! We can take advantage of this time by using it to strengthen our relationships.