Tips for Helping You Engage with
and Support Your Children During This Time

I hope everyone is doing okay and is healthy. Most everyone is getting into the groove staying at home.

Here are some tips for making sure you are connecting to your child’s emotional well-being during this quarantine.

1.    Ask
Ask your kids how they are feeling regarding Covid-19 and quarantine. Let them tell you. You don’t have to solve anything. Just listen and have empathy. You could say “I get it” or “Yes, I feel like that, too” and then offer some hopeful thoughts. They say trauma occurs not just because a difficult situation happened but actually how this difficult situation was responded to.

Using feeling words such as afraid, mad, disappointed, happy, helps further emotional connectedness.

2. Choices
Since being in quarantine is limiting our choices, try wherever possible to allow your child choices. It can give them a sense of freedom which we don’t have much of right now.

3. Hugs
Sometimes when we are scared we isolate. Make sure you make time to give your family hugs. This can help regulate their system. Even virtual hugs (i.e. Zoom or FaceTime) seem to be comforting.

4. Do
Do something for others. Whatever you feel safe doing. We have decided to call or write to someone we know to check in with them daily—especially people who we know live alone.

5. Prayer and Gratitude
If you and your family members pray, this is a good time to pray together. I find it helpful at night to pray with my child. We pray for those we love and for people who need our prayers. Make sure this prayer is age appropriate and that it instills peace and gratitude and does not churn up fear. See if there are things you are grateful for during this quarantine time you can say with your children.

6. Engage
If your child says, “Do you want to learn this TikTok dance with me?” or “Do my PE with me,” whenever possible, take them up on it—even though you still have work to do or you are tired. Don’t miss out on the invitation.

Take care. These are difficult times and we are doing the best we can. We will get through this time together.

Anaïs Muñoz Kelly, Psy.D, LMFT, is in private practice in Marina Del Rey and Venice. She works with children, adolescents, and adults dealing with transitions of all kinds. A bilingual (English/Spanish) multi-cultural therapist, she focuses her work on getting to the root of problems so people can live more fully in the present. She’s also a parent who is too tired most nights to learn any hip hop routine her child wants her to learn. Website: https://dranaismunozkelly.com.