How To Help Your Kids Heal And Develop Resiliency After A Difficult Year
This year’s back to school was very different from most. Some kids are going back to fully masked schools, while others are returning to schools that are operating as if the pandemic is over. Adding to the ongoing threat of COVID and the contention around how best to protect children is the fact that many students have not even been inside of a classroom since spring of 2020. All of these issues may mean that your child feels more anxiety than excitement about starting the new year.
So, what can we, as parents, do to ease our children’s minds and help them have the best year possible?
Newsweek Magazine recently spoke with three leading experts in child psychology on how to overcome the challenges many families are now facing
Acknowledge that your kids need to heal
It has been an extraordinarily difficult time for children. Schools were closed, fun activities were canceled, and many lives were lost… and still, the pandemic rages on. To add to their personal losses, kids also feel the stress and worry of the adults around them. It is important to acknowledge the losses that your children experienced and let them know that it’s ok to grieve.
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, M.D., the surgeon general of California, says that it’s important to help kids gain a sense of control in their healing.
“Help people tap into and recognize what they have control over and their power to heal. Physical activity is huge, especially in team sports where you have coaching, which is mentorship, and the camaraderie of the other athletes. Physical activity also helps reduce stress hormones and release healthy hormones. And anything that allows people to make sense of what's happened and leverages their passion, whether it's music or art or whatever.” she said.
Help your kids build resilience
While our kids are facing enormous challenges, we can help them build the resiliency and grit to overcome them.
Dr. Jack Shonkoff, professor of child health and development at the Harvard School of Public Health says:
“You build resiliency in children, at any age, by doing everything you can do to buffer them from severe adversity that super-turbocharges their stress-response system. And if that stays turbocharged for long periods of time it can have biological consequences. Equally important is to coach and model and facilitate the child’s development of coping skills and adaptive skills.”
Dr. Shonkoff notes that it’s crucial to take the child’s temperament into account when helping them build resiliency. Because sensitive children will have a more difficult time handling changes and difficulties, it’s important to ensure that they have additional support.
Identify the children who need extra support
While everyone has been affected by the pandemic, some are particularly vulnerable. Dr. Shonkoff says that it’s important to identify these children and make sure they have the resources they need to heal.
But, helping children is not enough. Dr. Shonkoff adds that for young children to truly be able to thrive, adults in vulnerable families also need support.
“The kids to worry the most about- and the families to worry the most about- are those who became invisible during the pandemic, who are socially isolated. We don’t know what’s going on in their lives and in their families. There are a lot of kids who just didn’t appear in school that year and a half and they weren’t online. Nobody sent the truant officer after them. We should be intensely worried about them. It’s not just the loss of education, it’s also the environment in which those kids are living that made them invisible.”
Dr. Scott Russo, professor of neuroscience and director of the Center for Affective Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, noted that childhood is the most critical time for developing stress responses. He says that the adversity experienced this year may have a lasting effect on some children.
“A whole host of things went on over the past year, probably from isolation. There was a huge spike in family violence and, particularly, partner violence. Those things are known to dramatically affect mental health. And when you experience them in childhood, your system develops under those boundaries, so to speak. Those are critical periods during which your emotional circuits are developing in the brain. When you experience these very traumatic events, they change the trajectory of how your [brain] circuits form-and they don’t reverse.” Dr. Russo said.
But, Dr. Russo notes that even those kids who have been through trauma can learn to build resiliency.
“When you're exposed to or you experience something that's highly adverse, you have to choose a series of behaviors. You have to decide what you're going to do in the face of that adversity. The choice is important. If you choose to actively cope, you're going to be protected.” he added.
Create Community
One of the most difficult things about the pandemic was the isolation. Not only were many kids not attending in-person school, but many also were not even able to see extended family members or friends. Now that vaccinations are available for those over 12, more in-person social gatherings are occurring. However, the Delta variant is once again raising the risk of socializing.
The good news is that we know a lot more about how to gather safely now. With proper precautions, children can and should spend time with others.
As Dr. Nadine Burke Harris reminds us, community is an important part of building resilience.
“We have the ability to create environments that support resilience by supporting safe stable and nurturing relationships. If kids are getting this support in school and also at home and in their after-school programs and maybe in their church or synagogue-that cumulative buffering helps to offset the adversity that we’ve experienced,” she said.
At Afterschool Village, we provide a holistic community environment for your child so that they can build resilience and develop into the best versions of themselves. Check out our exciting Fall programs!