Attention
Attend to emotions: your own and your children’s.
Severe and prolonged stressors, such as the coronavirus pandemic, can lead to toxic stress. Not only is toxic stress bad for adults’ health, it can also negatively impact children’s healthy development (3,5). Taking steps to boost our physical, mental, and emotional well-being is especially important during crisis situations.
One such step is attending to our own emotional needs, as well as those of our children. Emotions are powerful drivers of decision-making and behavior. Acknowledging big feelings is an important part of managing our own stress while supporting our children through challenging situations. With the support of caring adults, all children can build resilience and thrive (4,7)!
Attending to My (Adult) Emotions
Attend to your own feelings. Pay attention to how you’re feeling. Give yourself permission to feel, while trying not to dwell too long in any negative emotions.
A lot of us are undoubtedly feeling extraordinary stress in this time of great uncertainty. First, acknowledging and validating these feelings is important. Then, try refocusing on something positive so as not to dwell too long in negativity. You might try taking a few deep breaths, listing three things you’re grateful for (10), doing a short meditation, or calling a friend or loved-one.
Even though children don’t always do everything we say, they are always closely observing us, including our words, body language, and tone of voice. When you are stressed or anxious, this presents an opportunity to model positive stress-management techniques for children (8). In addition to caring for yourself, finding opportunities to be positive will convey hopefulness and positivity to children.
Reduce stress. Find opportunities – even small ones – to relax and reduce stress. Here are a few of our favorite ways to unwind.
For many of us, reducing stress involves being outdoors, socializing, or engaging in other activities that have been disrupted by COVID-19. While we all must do our part to keep ourselves and those around us healthy, we can also find ways to take care of ourselves and reduce stress. For example,
Write in a journal. Provide balance by writing about what went well today, as well as what may not have gone so well. Having an optimistic and hopeful outlook in life is positively linked to both our physical and emotional well-being (1).
Connect with a partner, family member, or friend. "Go for a walk” with a friend remotely while talking on the phone, use an online platform to play a game, confide your feelings of stress, or simply exchange silly text messages to boost morale.
Engage in physical activity, even in small doses throughout the day. You might go for a walk or jog around the block, put on a favorite workout video, do some stretching, take a hike in nature (if accessible), or whatever form of exercise you enjoy (2,13). Remember to maintain a safe physical distance from others if exercising outdoors, and to take other recommended precautions.
Do something fun with your children, such as playing a game, drawing, or building a fort with household items.
Perform simple random acts of kindness. For example, offer to do a particular chore you don’t normally do or want to do. Send a “thinking of you” e-mail to a friend you haven’t heard from. Donate anonymously to a charity. However simple these acts are, they matter a lot to those receiving them… and they boost your own well-being (9,12).
Meditate or do yoga (11).
Find time and space to do something that makes you happy—whatever that may be—even just for a couple of minutes.
Be kind to yourself. We are all bound to hit a few bumps in the road. When you hit one of those inevitable bumps, try not to blame yourself or those around you. Instead, focus on how to move forward.
Right now, even our regular day-to-day may feel like it has more twists and turns than usual. Be kind to yourself as you learn to navigate this winding road and remember that we are all learning this together. Some ways to ease the stress of the day-to-day include:
If you have a partner or roommate at home, share household responsibilities so that no one is doing more than their fair share. Help each other get things done, even if certain chores are normally done by only one of you.
Prepare meals with others who live in your home—including children.
Forgive yourself when priorities need to shift in this ever-changing situation.
Use technology to connect virtually with those you love.
Practice “distant socializing”. “Social distancing” does not have to mean social isolation. Use technology to stay connected, while maintaining a safe physical distance (6).
Adults (and children) can stay connect by phone and video chat. Get creative! These services can be used not only for talking, but also for game night, a dinner date, a group workout, even a playdate for children.
Attending to My Children’s Emotions
Start with empathy. Express empathy when children are feeling big feelings—about COVID-19 or anything else.
Acknowledging children’s feelings helps them feel seen, heard, and understood, which is one important part of helping young children calm down or “re-regulate.” As children begin to calm down, you might try naming their feelings to build their emotion vocabularies. You can also help children see the connection between their feelings and their actions. For example,
“I’m sorry you feel so mad right now. I know how much you wanted to keep playing with your blocks, and you’re really frustrated that you have to stop and take a nap. You got so mad you threw one of your blocks all the way over there.”
Challenging behaviors like hitting, biting, and throwing often occur because children are acting on big feelings. As children learn the words to express their emotions, they become more equipped to express their feelings with words rather than showing feelings through behavior.
Empathy is also a wonderful way to strengthen relationships between adults and children, and to model positive ways of treating others!
Helpful tips on talking with young children about COVID-19 can be found here.
Be an emotion detective (and prevent challenging behavior). Notice and respond compassionately to children’s emotions. This is a wonderful way to strengthen your relationships with children and can help prevent challenging behavior.
Be attuned to children’s emotions. Being attuned means observing others’ actions, interpreting the meaning behind those actions, and responding compassionately. As you practice attunement, you may start to notice patterns in your children’s feelings and behaviors, such as certain times of day or situations that usually cause frustration, tears, or even a tantrum. You will also start to notice the subtler cues that children give when they are just starting to get upset, such as retreating into a corner or quietly disengaging from a challenging activity. By attuning to these cues, we can often step in and address the feeling or situation before it takes over (see Start with Empathy, above, for more on how to do this).
Because children (like adults) are unique individuals, strong relationships are an essential foundation of attunement. Because attunement will help you respond compassionately to your children and help them navigate tricky situations, it will also strengthen your relationship!
See the world through the eyes of a child. Children often engage in challenging behavior because of an underlying unmet need. One way to identify and meet these needs is to see the world through children’s eyes, without judgment.
Children see the world differently from adults, and focus on things that adults often fail to notice. As adults, we value certain experiences that sometimes don’t feel important to young children (like going out to buy household cleaning supplies). When we think like a young child, we can begin to recognize that a thrown block doesn’t mean “I’m naughty and I like to throw blocks even though I know better!” Rather, it means “I’m hungry” or “I’m having a hard time sharing and I need help” or “I don’t want to go to the store—why don’t you understand that bleach isn’t important to me?!”
References
1. Alarcon, G. M., Bowling, N. A., & Khazon, S. (2013). Great expectations: A meta-analytic examination of optimism and hope. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 821-827.
2. American Heart Association. (2017, January 9). Working out to relieve stress.
3. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (no date). About the CDC-Kaiser ACES Study.
4. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (no date). Resilience.
5. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (no date). Toxic Stress.
6. De Witte, M. (2020, March 19). Instead of social distancing, practice “distant socializing” instead, urges Stanford psychologist. Stanford News.
7. Ginsburg, K. (no date). The 7 Cs: The essential building blocks of resilience. Fostering Resilience: Preparing children and teens to THRIVE through both good and challenging times.
8. Katz, B. (no date). How to avoid passing anxiety on to your kids: Help yourself, and them, by learning techniques to manage stress in a healthy way. Child Mind Institute.
9. Layous, K., Nelson, S. K., Oberle, E., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2012). Kindness counts: prompting prosocial behavior in preadolescents boosts peer acceptance and well-being. PloS one, 7(12), e51380.
10. Morning Edition. (2018, December 24). If you feel thankful, write it down. It’s good for your health. National Public Radio.
11. Pascoe, M.C., & Bauer, I.E. (2015). A systematic review of randomized control trials on the effects of yoga on stress measures and mood. Journal of psychiatric research, 68, 270-282.
12. Sin, N. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2009). Enhancing well‐being and alleviating depressive symptoms with positive psychology interventions: A practice‐friendly meta‐analysis. Journal of clinical psychology, 65(5), 467-487.
13. Weir, K. (2011, December). The exercise effect. Monitor on Psychology: A publication of the American Psychological Association, 42(11), pp.48.