COVID-19: Holding Our Children's Hearts as Their World Changes

What a rough few days in my house. Meltdowns everywhere, and some of them have been my own. We took a mini vacation to a neighbouring island with my partner's mother, and it did provide a much needed reprieve from the stress, but we came back home to more stress; more cancellations; more sadness. It's hard.

Kids everywhere are suffering as the seriousness of the corona virus pandemic becomes apparent, and their worlds begin to crumble around them. Maybe their parents are fighting over pandemic measures. Maybe there's no toilet paper because the neighbours literally had every last roll delivered to their door but the shop shelves are empty. Maybe they're out of ramen. Maybe their vacation got cancelled. Maybe they just feel the existential threat of Disneyland closing. Or maybe, as in my daughter's case, the musical she's been obsessing about performing in all year is in grave danger of not going ahead, and even if it does, it's unlikely she can perform, because both she and her mother have autoimmune issues and just can't risk her participation. Maybe she feels the existential despair of knowing that her friends are getting together without her. Maybe our older kids, like my son, feel a deep fear of failure, as college courses may not be completed and academic next-steps may falter. Maybe it feels like their parents are being way over-dramatic about all this, and destroying their lives for nothing, or maybe they see our fear and ill-advised panic-shopping as a true existential threat. Maybe they just see our helpless feelings and now struggle to contain their own. And we all melt down.

A few days ago I thought this pandemic presented a really great opportunity to bond with my children, to grow a better garden and get to some long-ignored projects. Now I just see stress everywhere I look, and I worry that we won't make it through.

I ask myself what matters most to me and, as always, the answer is my children's welfare - both physical and psychological. And I see that both are now threatened. At the moment, ensuring their physical welfare means isolation, and isolation is deeply psychologically harmful, especially to a couple of teens who are just learning to make their way in the world, without me. And let's not forget: It's a world full of people who are currently stressed over a pandemic, running the gamut from panic shopping to selling off their stocks, to running for the hills, to mocking anybody who uses hand sanitizer. That's a hard landscape to navigate even for me, never mind for a kid whose existence seems to revolve around people and activities that are suddenly all threatened.

We can't change this terrible feeling, but we can hold our children's hearts close to our own. We can continue to remind ourselves that our meltdowns come from fear, and that love can't cure corona virus or bring back all the things that have suddenly been cancelled, but love is a poultice. We can take comfort in our children's heads resting on our shoulders, in knowing that our love is helpful, if not always accepted, and we can enjoy the brief moments of happiness we find in distraction. We can hold our own hearts gently. We can inch forward with discovery and invention as we find new ways of living in our quickly changing world, knowing that our children will grow from being a part of the change. We didn't ask for this pandemic, but we can ride it. Maybe right now it feels like hanging on for dear life, but let's hold our loved ones' hearts close, as we do.