CEO Report
CEO: Samantha Kolasa
Throughout the last few months, we have experienced a completely new way of living and working due to COVID-19. Although there is a path towards returning to a new ‘normal’ following life after quarantine, we cannot, and arguably should not, downplay the ongoing challenges and uncertainties for our children. If done correctly, talking to children about the COVID-19 outbreak is an opportunity to build resilience.
As a Psychologist, I explain resilience as “how well a person can adapt to events in their lives … when faced with a tragedy, natural disaster, health concern, relationship, work or school problem.”
If we want our children to emerge from this pandemic as more resilient, we need to understand that resilience is not the inevitable outcome of exposure to hardship. After all, we probably all know people who thrive under difficult conditions and others who sink under the weight of adversity.
To help our children build resilience, there are some key things we can all do to assist. Families can help by creating conditions to build resilience at home. Children tend to be more resilient to life challenges when they feel loved, cared for and supported. Now, more than ever, children need to experience their family as caring, sensitive, and responsive to their needs.
We can convey this in words, but actions are often far more powerful:
Strive for a consistent home environment
In this period of constant change, children benefit when we structure our home environment to be organised, consistent, fair, and predictable.
Physical spaces that are clean and organised convey a sense of order and calm. Daily routines give children a sense of stability and predictability. Consistent rules help bring structure to children’s lives and combat the sense of disruption and chaos surrounding so many of us.
Organisation need not extend to the entire house. It may be enough to focus on keeping eating and sleeping places clean and tidy. Routines can also be as simple as a set time for storytelling, a short walk after dinner each day or family movie night every Friday. Rules can also be specific to this time period, and they work best if there are clear and obvious benefits to everyone.
Focus on what is going right
Positivity is an especially important factor that contributes to resilience after disasters. It means having a balanced and accurate understanding of the world and making a deliberate effort to focus on things that are going right. It means deliberately seeking out and sharing good news stories. Sharing and modelling positivity for our children helps them learn this habit and will benefit our mental health as well.
Model belief in your own abilities
A strong sense of self-efficacy is another important factor related to resilience. Self-efficacy refers to the belief that we have in our own abilities, especially our ability to succeed when challenged. We can help children develop a strong sense of self-efficacy for coping with the current pandemic by supporting their efforts to take on new challenges and succeed.
Perhaps you can encourage your child to teach their grandparents how to communicate via video chat. Or celebrate the completion of home learning tasks that have been sent home by GEKA educators.
Children develop a sense of self-efficacy for coping by watching you do the same. They benefit from watching adults who fail but learn from their mistakes and keep on trying.
Remember to take care of yourself
If implementing these strategies seems overwhelming, remember that children benefit when we use any of them, so families can make a difference by choosing any one approach that seems manageable and appealing. Whatever you decide, we are more likely to succeed with strategies that also benefit our own sense of well-being.
And finally, it may be most helpful to remember that children do better when their parents are doing well. Under these extraordinarily stressful conditions, it is more important than ever that we make time for our own tried-and-true mental wellness strategies, be it paying attention to nutrition, going outside every day, turning cell phones off in the bedroom, reaching out to a friend or connecting with a mental health professional.
For families of children who are anxious, the Centre for Emotional Health recommends two strategies for reducing anxiety. The first is to change worried or panicked thinking into more realistic thinking based on fact. The second strategy is to reduce avoidance behaviours. Avoiding certain situations makes us feel safer in the short term but it is not helpful in the long term. The key is for children to gradually face situations they are afraid of by starting with less scary situations and working up to more challenging ones. Through continuous practice, children learn that a situation is not scary, increasing their confidence and independence.
To do this well, families need to work out why their child is avoiding a particular situation. They suggest finding out what their child is worried about by saying, “I can hear you are feeling worried. What do you think is going to happen?” The response may be, “I’ll get sick” or “I miss my friends” or a myriad of other things.
If your child is worried about catching COVID-19, the Centre for Emotional Health suggests saying that the fact is that most people do not have it and almost everyone gets better. Furthermore, by following the rules, they are unlikely to contract the virus but, if they do, it will be like when they have been sick before, perhaps with a cold or the flu, and they will get better quickly.
It is important for families to listen to their child, acknowledge their worries, and normalise their response. Try not to dismiss their feelings but also avoid “excessive reassurance”. Steer clear of saying things like, “Don’t worry”, “You’ll be okay” or “Everything will be fine”. Statements like these are not helpful and “you can’t truthfully guarantee that nothing bad will happen”.
Research also shows that when families say things like this, it sometimes makes children more anxious and prevents them from developing their own skills around thinking rationally, staying calm and learning that they will be okay. Instead of rushing to reassure your child, ask them what they can do to help them worry less, and if their worry is getting out of control because they are having unrealistic thoughts about what might happen, try to help them to think realistically by focusing on the facts and problem-solving solutions that will work for them.
Another strategy is to talk with your child about times in the past that they showed courage or dealt with a worry. Use what experts call “labelled praise” to shape their behaviour by focusing on the times they are courageous and rewarding the behaviour you want to see. Finally, says the Centre for Emotional Health, one of the most useful things that parents can do to reduce their child’s worry is to be a calm role model. Our children take cues from us about how to react and they learn how to handle challenging situations by watching and listening to what we say.
