How We Talk About the Pandemic To Our Kids Matters
Janet Farrell Leontiou, Ph.D.
I have been teaching communication to college students for over twenty-five years. The focus of my teaching is on the power of spoken word. Given what we have been through with Covid and what we may be facing with the current Omicron variant, I wanted to provide some food for thought to parents on how to speak to kids about the virus. I think that the virus provides us with an opportunity to teach our kids some important lessons providing that we approach it with that mindset. The examples offered are gathered from the first round of Covid and many of the examples still linger in our vocabulary. The script offered surrounding Covid was, to my mind, horrifyingly consistent and it may explain some of the negative consequences we are now witnessing.
Here are some ideas to keep in mind:
- Framing the situation in a negative way
How we frame the pandemic and how we choose to speak about it makes a difference. We speak of being “stuck” at home and/or “isolated.” I do not think that these words reflect reality and the frame constructed is that the individual does not have a choice. We are not stuck at home but if the pandemic gets bad again, we are fortunate to be able to stay home and reduce the risk of infection. We are not isolated but instead home with our families. There are those individuals who were isolated–people within assisted care facilities–and may become isolated again and generalizing our language to include everyone makes what older people and those with disabilities face appear less real. The terms of being “stuck” at home and “isolated” became ubiquitous during Covid. This language does not help to create the kind of reliance we wish for our kids.
2. Stressing what has been taken away
Try not to stress what students do not get to participate in–not able to attend school, have a graduation ceremony, attend prom, etc.. The pandemic is an opportunity to teach kids that life doesn’t go as we expect but that we get to decide how to respond when things do not go as expected. Some people stress the importance of adaptation as a life skill. This is the opportunity to teach that lesson. We can choose to focus on what has been taken away or we can choose to emphasize what we have.
I do not think it is a good approach to feed kids a steady diet listing all the ways things that did not go as expected as if something was robbed from them. The lesson here is that life does not always go as planned and what matters is what we choose to do when things do not go as planned. This leaves the door open for what can be created from the obstacle. I am not offering the cliche when one door closes, another opens. Instead, I am reflecting on all the things within my life that would never have happened if things went as I had planned.
Without intending it, we are teaching kids that life is here to give something to them instead of the other way around. We become angry at kids when they act entitled and I am asking for us to reflect on some of the subtle ways we may be contributing to that sense of entitlement.
3. Failing to distinguish what is within our control from what is not
The pandemic is an opportunity to distinguish what is within our control and what is not. We are not in control of a raging pandemic and the more we resist understanding this, the more miserable we become. We are so desperate to return to what we think of as normal that we keep behaving in ways to push that reality further and further away.
4. Do not construct kids as victims
The more we talk about how unfair the pandemic is to them, the more we encourage them to see themselves as victims. The pandemic is neither fair or unfair but instead, it just is. It is the backdrop of their lives and what matters is how they choose to respond to it.
5. Do not use the pandemic as the reason for everything
I hear some adults speak of the pandemic to explain away anything negative that is happening. I even heard adults explaining away the spike in school violence with the suggestion that it is because kids have been at home for almost two years. I think that the violence we see in schools today is a symptom that our kids are in crisis but the idea that kids have forgotten how to be social beings within a social environment is absurd.
6. Stop speaking of a time when we can return to pre-pandemic life
We may never return to a world without this pandemic and we may have to accept that this is now with us. The more we talk about getting to a place where this is all behind us, the worse we are making it for ourselves. I ask that we watch using expressions like “we should be done with this by now” or “it is now time to return to normal.” I know that this is not intentional but this language is actually making the situation worse. Our kids are watching us and the more we complain and resist what is happening, the more we are teaching them these reactions.
7. Failing to acknowledge that suffering is part of living
The pandemic provides us with an opportunity to teach children, in age appropriate ways, that to be a human being is to suffer. Some kids have lost people whom they loved during the pandemic. Right now, more than ever, provides us with an opportunity to grasp this truth and choose to treat each other with kindness.
Adults have an opportunity to use the pandemic to teach some essential life lessons or we can echo the ubiquitous script creating negativity, helplessness, and vicitimization. We say that a parent’s work is to “raise” children and if we keep that in mind, the pandemic is an opportunity to make them stronger, more resilient, more adaptable, and kinder human beings.
Dr. Farrell Leontiou is associate professor of Communication at Nassau Community College. Her new book, Viktor E. Frankl Goes to Community College: How Creating Meaning May Save Your Life, is due out from Peter Lang Publishing in March 2022.
