Posted on 11/12/2021
I get it; I do. It seems everyone is blaming every kind of problem that they have on Covid. As if it really impacts their ability to brush their teeth or remember an appointment. But in all the jokes, let's not forget that it really has been a tough 21 months, and for some, the hard parts are not over. How has Covid impacted your life and your emotions? Just think: your children have probably been impacted even more significantly by the disruptions, changes, losses, unknowns, and overall angst permeating the atmosphere around them. So how do we help them come out of this and move on? There are no easy answers, but we do know how to start.
Naming Losses
The human brain likes to name and categorize things. We can see this in all kinds of areas; consider the taxonomy of living things or the Dewey decimal system. Somehow naming and organizing things helps us humans begin to wrap our minds around them and feel like we have some level of control. And words with agreed-upon definitions are helpful when it comes to communication, research, and understanding. So let's start by naming this post-Covid reeling that many of us find ourselves doing: it's a response to trauma. Trauma, as school psychologist Amy Bodkin, EDS, describes it, is about a person's perception and personal experience of an event, rather than the event itself.
Anything that sends your body into fight or flight, that's trauma. It's about how your body responds to an event; how others perceive the same event is irrelevant. But whether you feel like your family or you personally were significantly impacted by the events of the past 21 months, consider this statement: "Every child, this past year, has had a disrupted childhood." Bodkin goes on to describe 4 basic stages or states of awareness: unaware, aware, alert, and alarm. Many of us have spent much of the past 21 months toggling between the states of "alert" and "alarm," as have our kids. And that comes with a cost.
Categorizing Losses
So once we've named the issue as "trauma," what next? The path back includes recognizing that we can't recover for our kids what has been lost. Whether it's been celebrating a major milestone or going to summer camp, taking a vacation with extended family, or experiencing an entire school year of memories, we simply can't get those back. They are true losses, and they deserve to be grieved. Add in complications such as change, anxiety, fear, disagreements over government and personal responses, and we have quite the set of difficult emotions to work through.
Maybe you don't know how to work them through yourself, so you feel ill-equipped to help your child or children do so. Naming those difficulties and losses for yourself is a great place to start.
Continue reading with Part 2.
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