What About the Kids?

My usual place for reflection and creative thinking is when I’m driving around.  In my car, it’s quiet.  When I was commuting to and from the office daily I listened to the ABC’s Conversations podcast in the morning and ABC Drive in the afternoon.  It helped me transition from home to work and work to home.  

Then the pandemic arrived.  No more driving around.  No more transitioning from home to work and vice versa.  Just the transition from bedroom to office, a corner of the lounge room with a desk and a computer.   Then the desk to the sofa at the end of the day.  A trip to the bathroom was a long commute.  The world went quiet.  

My work stayed loud.  Busy.  Overwhelming.  The need for people to connect and be supported in the midst of a quiet and scary world was enormous.  My parenting practitioners and I pivoted fast.  We learned zoom at breakneck speed and we re-wrote all of our parenting courses so that they could be delivered “remotely”.  My counsellors worked out how to be in the here and now with their clients over a computer screen, rather than in a room together.  None of us wanted to leave our clients hanging in the unknown. Navigating their new normal alone.

And we worked and we worked and we worked.  Supporting adults in the unknown even though it was our unknown too.  Supporting parents in the unknown even though we were supporting our own children in the unknown.  

The pandemic finished but my commute stayed quiet.  No radio.  No podcasts.  No music.  Like many of my colleagues, I had stopped listening and watching the news years ago.  I still don’t watch or listen to the news.  I choose when to read about what’s happening in the world in my own time, at my own pace and in small doses.  My world in the car remains quiet.  I like it that way.

The pandemic finished and the world instantly got loud again.  The world shouts at us.  Every. Single. Day.  There are wars and bombs raining down seemingly everywhere.  Financial insecurity is a daily stressor.  Housing vulnerability is screaming.  Poverty quietly breaks hearts and spirits.

In this world our children roam.  Our children see it and hear it and watch it and experience it.  What do we do with our children when it’s exhausting and overwhelming for ourselves? Their grown ups.  Their protectors.  Their carers.  The people tasked with keeping them safe.  How can we keep our children safe when we don’t even know if we can keep ourselves safe?

So many times I hear people say “The kids will be ok”.  “Kids are resilient”. “Kids bounce back”.  And yes, they usually do, from the everyday skirmishes of life in the playground or at the park.  What’s going on in the world right now though is not a skirmish in the park.  Our kids won’t necessarily be ok unless we help them to be ok.  So how do we do that?

Firstly, let’s quieten their worlds.  Turn off the news.  

I heard last night that Iran had been bombed during the week.  I had no idea Iran had been bombed until someone told me.  Like I said, I don’t watch the news.  When we watch the 24 hour news cycle, what it does is transform our brains.  Our brains are malleable and we usually only think about the positives in that.  Someone had a stroke and with intensive support from OTs and Physios, their neuronal connections find a work around and they can recover.  Our brains are malleable so they also get impacted by the trauma we experience and the trauma we observe.  And it’s even more profound for children whose brains are still forming and developing.

We think that if the kids don’t see it or hear it then they’ll be ok.  They won’t though.  They experience our distress.  Our worry.  our anxiety.  And the kids will hear about it no matter how careful we are.  They see it because they are unbelievably observant and curious creatures.  They pick up on the tiniest nuance in our expressions and in our voices and in our hushed conversations when we think they’re in their bedrooms.  So, let’s turn off the news.

Secondly, let’s love them radically.  When children feel and experience unconditional love they trust.  When children trust they feel safe.  Children trust us when we don’t hide things from them.  When we hide things, they distrust us.  When they distrust us, anxiety invades the space.  Loving children radically means preparing them for the world.  We need to talk to children about what’s going on but in a way that lets them know they are safe in our arms.  We can’t hide our children from the world, so we have to prepare them for the world.

Our little children don’t need to know about bombs raining down in any great detail.  They need to feel safe.  They need to know that in some countries a long way away the governments don’t like each other and they’re fighting because they can’t find a way to fix things by talking.  Little children find it very difficult to understand what’s real and what’s not.  Visual images they see stay in their brains and inhabit their dreams.  When we talk about it, their questions are answered but the images aren’t there.  That helps them feel safe.

Our middle sized children need to know a bit more.  They learn about geography and history at school.  Some of their peers are watching the news and bringing the stories with them but they invariably don’t understand what’s happening.  When children don’t understand what’s happening, they interpret what they see and usually in a way that is far, far, far removed from the truth.  Children need us to explain it to them.  Not in a way that is hostile or biased, but objectively and thoughtfully.  And the truth at the moment is very difficult.

We can talk about how we feel about what’s happening but not in a way that burdens our children.  Our children need us to hold their emotions, not the other way around.  If we don’t really understand the geo-political and historical situations, then it is our responsibility to be educated.  Not by listening to gossip, innuendo, hate or rage, but by reading informed articles that help us to understand.  It is important that we don’t give our children the impression that people groups or individual citizens are to blame.  What is happening in the world right now is about governments, it’s not about individuals with particular religious views or cultural heritages.

Our big kids need us to respond to them like the adults they are becoming.  They need us to engage them in thoughtful conversations where we help them to think critically.  They need us to open up conversations, not shut them down.  When we shut down conversations, our big kids are left floundering and isolated.  When our kids are isolated, they are vulnerable to unhelpful or even dangerous influence from others.  

When we hear our big kids make all encompassing generalisations or individual judgments, we need to invite them into a conversation where they can reflect on their emerging beliefs and how their words can impact not only themselves but others.  We can only do that when we set them an example of caring objectivity and reflection.

Our kids need us to help them process their emotions. Emotions aren’t good or bad, they just are. They aren’t the truth though. They tell us how we’re experiencing a situation not the the facts of the situation. When we tell kids it’ll be ok and move on, they feel alone. When we tell them not to worry, they will worry even more. Our kids need us to accept their emotions. To respect their emotions.  To let them fully experience their emotions. When we can just be with our children in their emotions we can help them find words for their emotions. When children are helped to label their emotions,  they can learn to manage their emotions. When we sit with our children in the fullness of their emotional experience they feel felt. When children feel felt, they know they’re safe. 

So what about the kids?  The kids are only going to be ok if we help them be ok.