Helping your child cope during the current global coronavirus outbreak is of utmost importance. The main aim of this article is to help improve socio-emotional functioning, while also considering your own well-being as parents, given it is intricately tied in to your children’s well-being. For the sake of simplicity ‘child’ here will also refer to ‘adolescent’, unless otherwise stated.
Emotional Intelligence
Children’s emotional intelligence has been found to be much more important for future functioning (including their mental health, ability to maintain relationships and seniority in jobs) than their IQ. What this means is that their ability to manage stress, regulate emotions and navigate social relationships is much more important to their future achievements than their intelligence and their resultant academic scores. This is particularly important to consider during this period.
Children and adolescents are probably experiencing a range of emotions at the moment, ranging from confusion, worry, sadness and guilt to boredom. While children have varying levels of emotional intelligence that are dependent on their personality, research strongly suggests that parents and key adults can help build emotional intelligence in their children.
John Gottman, a prominent American psychologist, has explored a number of parenting styles and has found that a style referred to as ‘emotion coaching’ is good at assisting in the development of emotional intelligence as well as in assisting with parent-child relationships.
Emotion coaching involves listening to and accepting feelings while assisting children to problem-solve on solutions (as opposed to telling children what to do). It is contrary to dismissiveness or disapproving parenting which may make children believe their feelings are wrong and have positive correlations with future mental health difficulties.
In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, parents are advised to help children explore their feelings by asking open-ended questions, accepting emotions (all emotions are OK even though some behaviours are not) and helping children to problem-solve on ways to manage their emotions.
How would emotion coaching (EC) look like?
Child: “I feel worried about the coronavirus − what if we all die?”
Emotional-coaching (EC) parent: “I can understand why you feel worried, as many people are worried and some people have died. Let’s look at the amount deaths though − look, they are quite low and many have survived. We all could die but we are unlikely to. I’m glad you are sharing your feelings. It helps us feel close in these difficult times.”
(Dismissive parent: ‘Don’t worry, we will be OK’)
Mindfulness is a particularly effective way to manage anxiety
Child: “OK, but I am still worried.”
EC parent: “I also worry about this virus but know that you can talk to me when you want. I hope that we can find a way to feel less worried sometimes... at other times we should expect to be worried. I have been trying to read and call nanna, and this helps me. What have you done that helps?”
Child: “Having a bath helps me feel better.”
EC parent: “Let’s try to make a list of other things you could do... perhaps we could do some together...”
Thoughts, feelings and behaviours − how are they linked?
Children are likely to be feeling a number of unpleasant emotions at present. When we feel anxiety, fear and sadness, it is generally due to the thoughts we are experiencing about a situation, rather than the situation itself. This is the reason that people feel differently about situations. Let us focus on two ways of thinking:
“The coronavirus is dangerous and many people will end up dying.”
“While we are trying to slow transmission of the virus by avoiding each other, most people survive and transmission should slow down.”
The second way of thinking is likely to cause less anxiety as the thinking is more positive. It is important to help children focus on positive aspects of a situation to help manage their emotions. Other positive aspects of this situation are that we are spending more time with family and that people are becoming more altruistic.
Also, what we decide to do also has a very big effect on our emotions, thoughts and, as a result, our functioning. If we avoid particular situations or avoid talking about worries, we have less opportunities to challenge these worries which can make matters worse.
During this period a lot of conversations are centering around the virus − it may be helpful to schedule a specific time to talk about this while deciding not to talk about it at other times. Having a set routine and providing children with some choices (what they wear, what they do by shortlisting options) during the day may also help them foster a sense of control.
Mindfulness is a particularly effective way to manage anxiety and could be scheduled daily to assist with anxiety and stress. Mindfulness helps children (and adults) focus on the present by focusing on their physical sensations while accepting any emotion or sensation that comes. Accepting emotions paradoxically reduces unpleasant emotions much more than wishing the emotions away. Deep breathing and engaging in pleasant activities could also help manage unpleasant feelings.
Parental functioning
During these times, parents with high anxiety, stress or pre-existing mental health conditions need to be aware of the impact of their functioning on their children.
Parents are more likely to have issues in coaching children or helping manage their children’s feelings if they are struggling with their own. Children will also notice a parent’s feelings and how a parent behaves will influence what a child does.
It is important to prioritise self-care, a healthy diet and exercise in general. Parents also need to prioritise social support, including professional support, when needed.
Carly Aquilina is an HCPC (UK) registered and Malta warranted psychologist and registered clinical supervisor. She is the director of The Psychology & CBT Clinic, based at St Thomas Hospital in Qormi. She has previously worked in specialist child, adolescent and adult services in Melbourne and London. She is the author of Helping Tim with Trembles ‒ A Psychologist’s Story for Kids who Panic, available by contacting the clinic through Facebook.