16 minute read
Helping Families Manage Fears and Stress Surrounding COVID-19
April J Remfrey, MS
It has always been part of our strategic family plan that our daughter would have a multicultural upbringing, far from the homogeneous small U.S. town where I spent my childhood. When she was eight years old, we decided to move from the U.S. to a community in Switzerland with extensive ethnic and language diversity. We love the impact this departure from the familiar has had on our daughter. Thus, when it came time to make decisions about her education, we felt comfortable with her choosing a different path than ours. I had followed the standard education pathway, from high school to undergraduate university studies and then on to graduate studies, culminating in a master’s degree. But, when our daughter finished middle school, instead of continuing with traditional high school classes, she enrolled in a three-year apprenticeship in conjunction with academic courses. While my daughter’s experiences are uncharted territory for us, we have always felt a sense of comfort provided by the notion that our decision-making was supported by a foundation of research, contemplation, and foresight. That is until 2020!
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For all our planning and considerations, what I couldn’t have predicted was how COVID-19, a virus I could previously only imagine in my nightmares, would change our world. To varying degrees, some more traumatic than others but challenging nonetheless, we have all been impacted by the virus. In regards to our daughter, we couldn’t have anticipated that the end of my daughter’s middle school career would be spent on a computer and that all schoolwide celebratory events would be cancelled. I had no idea that she would have to wear a mask in public for fear of catching a virus that was infecting and killing millions of people around the world. There was no way to predict and prepare for a global pandemic or the emotional strain and trauma that it would bring into our lives. Bottom line, when it came to COVID, we definitely didn’t have a strategic family plan! Yet here we are more than a year into a global pandemic, and it begs the question: How do we help our children process and manage this experience without being overwhelmed by fear, trauma, uncertainty, sadness, loneliness, anger…(the list goes on)?
As we continue to support and educate our children during this global pandemic, and embark on the end of the academic year transitions, we need to take a multifaceted approach. It is essential that parents and educators focus on understanding the macro and micro implications that Covid- 19 factors have had on our children’s experiences, emotional well-being, and education. From this foundation of understanding, we can then provide support and educational systems that are comprehensive in nature and consider both the structure and flexibility needed during these difficult times. This article will focus on resilience in children, helping children deal with scary experiences, providing support for children with special education needs during Covid, and providing smooth school transitions for all children considering Covid implications.
Are our Children Resilient?
I have often heard people say, in relation to COVID-19 and other challenging situations, “Don’t worry! Kids are resilient.” Resilience is defined as the process of handling stress and recovering from trauma or adversity. So before we take a sigh of relief and agree that our children ARE O.K, or that they WILL be O.K., let's ask ourselves, “Is the notion that kids are naturally resilient really true?”
If we consider that the definition of resilience involves the phrases “the process of” and “recovering from,” implying that resilience is not an innate skill, but one developed over time, then the answer is no, children are not innately resilient. Children, like adults, try to survive, but that doesn’t mean that trauma and stress won’t have a significant impact on their health or a residual impact on their lives. Oftentimes, we don’t know the degree of their struggle because children don’t have the means of articulating how they are feeling or what they are experiencing. In order for children to become resilient, to emerge healthy from significant adversity, they typically need to first overcome or process insignificant stressors and obstacles in a supportive environment. These successes help them build their confidence, bolstering hope and developing problemsolving skills that will enable them to manage the next greater challenge.
As a parent, it can sometimes be painful watching our children get hurt, make mistakes, and fail. As caregivers we want our children to be happy and successful, but we need to recognize that happiness and success involves learning from mistakes, solving problems, knowing how to manage stressful situations, and deal with chaos. Sheltering your children 1 from all stressors sets them up for failure because they need opportunities to develop the skills, hope, and confidence that they need to overcome future issues. When our child has a fight with their friend, doesn’t make a team, fails a test, falls down and gets hurt, it is not in our child’s best interest to make their problems go away, nor should we withdraw all support and allow them to fend for themselves. Our role is to provide unconditional love, encourage problem-solving, and respect their emotions. We have to remember, not all stress is bad stress; some stress provides opportunity for growth.
Developing Resilience
As we have hit the one-year mark of this global pandemic, it is important that parents and educators focus our efforts on creating environments in which we help our children develop resilience and deal with their fears. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University 2 says there are four key factors to building resilience. I chose to highlight the three below:
1. Supportive relationships with at least one adult. During my 22-year teaching career and 16 years as a parent, I have also come to realize that, while ideal, it isn’t only necessary for children to have a supportive relationship with a parent. They also benefit from support from adults outside their home. In addition, teenagers with supportive parents also benefit from the support of adults other than their parents, such as coaches, teachers, relatives, etc., as they work through seeking independence from their parents.
2. A sense of self-efficacy and perceived control. As a family, you can also create scenarios in which your children have small amounts of control over situations. This starts with giving your child choices and allowing them to make their own decisions. You don’t want to leave the door open to a child-controlled home, but there are small options you can provide your child with that can make a big difference in their sense of control. For example, “Would you like to go to bed now?” can be changed to, “Would you like to go to bed in five minutes or 10 minutes?” Instead of saying, “You must wear a hat today; it is cold,” you can say, “Do you want to wear your blue or red hat?” Simple shifts in language can put perceived control back into the hands of the child.
3. Self-regulating and adaptive skills are vital to the development of a child. Two common examples involve managing emotions and transitioning from one activity to another. Parents can help develop selfregulation skills by giving their children a five-minute warning before changing activities. For example, five minutes before everyone must come to the dinner table, let your children know. In this way, you are helping your child understand an abstract concept, time, but you are also giving them a warning so the need to transition is not a surprise. Over time, these five-minute warnings will become ingrained and your children will quickly regulate difficult emotions when required to leave a fun activity. Eventually, they will be able to prepare themselves for the end of an activity on their own. It is also important for parents to model self-regulation for their children, showing their children how to manage difficult emotions.
Dealing with Scary Things
Another important component of helping your kids deal with Covid is to have a communication strategy. Simply put, we should understand how to best speak with our children about scary things going on in the world. NPR 3 interviewed multiple child development experts who suggested the following:
- Limit exposure to the news. If you feel it is appropriate for your child to watch the news, make sure you do so together. It is important to discuss what they saw, help them process, and answer their questions immediately.
- Talk to your children about what they have heard from others and how they are feeling about what is happening. Your children may not tell you what is going on without prompting. Think about how often you ask your child about school or how things are going and they say, “Nothing really,” or “Fine.” Asking them specific, open-ended questions is more likely to encourage them to talk about what is going on. For example, did anyone in your class talk about the coronavirus today? What do you think about everyone wearing masks at the store? And, how does that make you feel?
- Give children the facts but also provide context. The “why” is very important for all of us when we take in new information. For example, talking with older children about why this pandemic is so dangerous in our era of global travel. The “why” helps us categorize information appropriately in our mind’s filing system. When we look at facts and context it can help our children take an event out of their mind’s folder labeled fears and place it in the factual folder of history or medical information.
- Avoid labeling people as bad or evil because this may only heighten fears in our children. This is valuable when discussing the news or how people in general are handling the virus and how you feel about it.
- Take positive action together - how can you be a helper? I would like to emphasize this last point because coming up with ideas to be a helper or a problem-solver provides children with a sense of control of their environment, even amongst chaos, and also a sense of empowerment that they can make a difference. Control and empowerment are incredibly effective in dealing with difficult situations.
I would also like to add that it is important to manage adult conversations around children, as even young children can absorb tone and catch pieces of adult conversation that aren’t developmentally appropriate and may evoke fear. If you are struggling yourself, be cautious that you do not overshare your fears. It is valuable to talk to your child about whom they speak with when they have fears, but do your best not to overwhelm them with your own fears. A helpful intervention for children who are feeling uncertain or scared is for parents and educators to model positive conversations, talk to their kids about which techniques have worked for them, or talk about fears that they had but were able to overcome.
As parents and educators, we must recognize that fears about corona or the impact it is having on our kids' lives will likely present itself in many ways. Oftentimes, children act out or have fears about something that is completely separate from what is actually bothering them. This is similar to the child who is hungry and decides to hit her brother or have a tantrum over the T.V. being turned off, or the classic tired child who is hysterically crying about having to go to bed. Children of all ages will need more attention and compassion during this time of global crisis to help them feel safe.
Meditation is an easy tool we can all use to provide calm forboth kids and parents during this time of crisis. There are some really great programs for kids you can find online, but it is also really simple to just have your child focus on deep breaths while feeling or watching their belly move. You can also ask them to take a few moments to focus on smelling three things, hearing three things, and seeing three things. These techniques give them a chance to quiet their minds. If you would like to increase positive thoughts, kids typically enjoy talking about what they are grateful for in their day. This is an exercise that can be done before mealtime or bed, and kids are often excited to share. I also recommend a loving kindness meditation, a type of meditation that is very concrete. A guided loving kindness meditation involves thinking about yourself and others in a loving way and wishing them well.
Supporting Children with Special Needs During Covid
Children who have unique learning needs are the most vulnerable students impacted by Covid. Not only are some of these children, depending on any medical diagnosis, at greater risk for experiencing severe Covid symptoms, but they are also the children who need the most consistent support and structure from their schools. Unfortunately, due to Covid safety measures, children who receive extra support outside of general education are missing out on valuable services at a significant rate. In the United States, where special education services are mandated by law, this has been a very difficult time for families and school districts alike. Adhering to legally bound time frames for testing students who have suspected deficits has been a struggle. While the challenges we have faced in 2020/2021 are unprecedented, there are a few considerations schools should consider when supporting special education students:
1. Consider surveying parents to learn about the gaps they are seeing to create a full picture of individual students’ needs.
2. Create individualized plans for transitioning students back into the school setting with flexible re-entry in mind.
3. Ensure related service providers have all the resources needed to ‘see’ their current caseload during distance learning. And once schools are back to face-to-face learning, students need to be seen within the first week of return.
4. Have an individual in charge of all transitions to monitor and ensure that no student is falling through the cracks.
5. Coordinate team meetings as often as possible to troubleshoot and modify services due to changing needs.
Home learning has been difficult for all students and parents, but it has been especially difficult for those that have additional learning needs.
Preparing for End of Year Transitions
As educators, students, and parents prepare for the end of the school year, it is important that we take a multifaceted approach, considering typical school transitions as well as the implications of Covid. If there was ever a year to be on target and proactive with preparing for transitions, this year is it!
Effective transitions should always include a comprehensive learner profile for each student (updated at least annually) and available for new teachers/support staff. The learner profiles I create for students are in addition to formal reports/testing results, and include information from classroom teachers, SPED teachers, aides, parents, etc., and provide insight into:
-The student’s strengths
-The student’s weaknesses
-Extra support services and the amount of time and frequency with which they are provided (for example, reading support 1 x per week for 50 minutes)
-Strategies (formal and informal) that foster student success
For students with learning differences, educators will also want to provide any formal testing, goals and objectives, and progress monitoring data.
This year it is also essential that we consider how Covid may have impacted each student and provide insights for educators going forward. I would like to suggest a few ideas that can help transitioning students after more than a year of irregular academic experiences transition smoothly to their next academic year.
First, I would like to recommend that, included with each learner profile, teachers offer an overview of the general education experience for their classroom. For instance, was the class in person, hybrid, or fully online? Specifically, when and where gaps in in-person instruction occurred.
Second, educators should also consider progress monitoring and identifying gaps in students' skill development and content knowledge. On a global scale, teachers have done an incredible job improvising during the pandemic, but most are still reporting that their students have struggled in certain areas in regards to retention and developing new skills. Teachers can help make further teaching more efficient and effective by identifying gaps through assessments and progress monitoring. Thus, new teachers can be provided with data they can use to develop future curricula and remediate missed/insufficient learning experiences.
Finally, each student can also benefit from parents and teachers noting the emotional impact for students regarding Covid. For years to come, we will need to be aware of the impact Covid will have on students' emotional well-being. The influence may not be obvious now for all students, but it can have residual effects in the future.
Overall, a gathering of qualitative and quantitative data on the learning and general experience for each student over the past 18 months will help us reduce the negative impact on students. Teachers and students with targeted education plans based on data will have an accelerated recovery compared to those who do not.
In conclusion, as we take measure of this past year and look forward, towards continued struggles, the world can seem like a scary place to raise children. And while it is true that children are not innately resilient and won’t necessarily take everything that is happening in stride, we should recognize and find comfort in the notion that they have parents and educators who love them and are there to support them. Have confidence in yourself that you are the biggest component of your child’s safety net and that you don’t need to shelter them from everything, but rather, guide them as they learn to manage their fears. Recognize that helping your child through this experience will provide them with the strength, confidence, and skills to manage future challenges. Stay safe!
April J Remfrey, MS
April J Remfrey, MS, is an educational consultant that focuses her time working with globally mobile families that have children with special needs when they are searching for a new school. April has also created an ILP/RTI goal documentation cloud-based program for international schools and serves on the board of directors for SENIA.
She has a BA in special education and elementary education at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, USA and received a Master’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA in Exceptional Education. She has been a teacher for 20 years in three different countries and has experience in the public, private, and international school environments.
Since 2013, April, her husband, and daughter have lived in the Zurich, Switzerland area. Never one to sit still, April likes to hike in the stunning Swiss Alps, cook gourmet food, and play clarinet in the local concert band.
References:
1 Remfrey, April. Remfrey Education Consulting, 2020, www.remfreyeducationalconsulting.com/post/lawnmowerparents.
2 “Resilience.” Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 17 Aug. 2020, developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/resilience/.
3 Kamenetz, Anya, and Cory Turner. “What To Say To Kids When The News Is Scary.” NPR, NPR, 10 Jan. 2020, www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716704917/when-the-news-is-scarywhat-to-say-to-kids.
