Don’t Project Your Anxiety Onto Your Children During The Coronavirus Quarantine
Although it might seem appealing to let go of your feelings and just act as you feel like, don’t! With anyone, and especially with your children. Isolation can put our minds in serious difficulties. Even if it is for our own benefit, like staying safe from getting infected with COVID-19, coronavirus isolation is a hard test.
It is tempting, and you will feel relieved, and you might also come with good rational reasons for which you act upon how you feel when children are driving you mad. But remember, it will be even harder to bear the feeling of guilt when you later have to deal with the consequences of your behavior. Especially in a time of need, when your child needs you the most.
It might not seem like much. Staying at home and finally enjoying time with your children. Or, you might already realize how difficult it is to stay in all day with them. But it will get to a point where you might experience stressful thoughts towards your children. They are to be expected but to deal with them, and you will have to do some introspective steps.
How to NOT project your anxiety onto your children during the coronavirus quarantine
The first step in managing your anxiety is to acknowledge you are anxious. How can you not? We don’t have the experience, nor the theoretical support to understand what’s to be done properly. We learn as we go, and we adapt as we can. You are anxious. And anxiety is an alarm signal that your mind gives you to be aware of and find the way out. Not to let go and spread it, but to accept and endure it. The state of emergency won’t disappear just because you raised your voice and surrender to the agitation you feel.
The second step is to find meaning in what you do. When we have a purpose, we can act like rational people, and we can put our distorted passion for survival in meaningful actions. Taking care of the emotional state of your child needs you to be rational and passionately protect him from getting emotionally bruised. It’s in your power to do so.
The third step is to be a role model for your children. Don’t lie to them. Try instead to explain to them what happens and give them a reason to act like an adult by offering them a model. And the model is you. Children need to be accepted in the adult world, and this is something that they can act upon. Don’t underestimate them by thinking they are children. They, too, are genetically programmed to survive. Make them responsible for their actions. You have to protect your child, but you also have to help him become empathic, aware of the reality, able to resist life’s moodiness.
The fourth step is to create a structure for them. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever crosses your mind. Freedom is the ability to exist as a whole in a given circumstance. Life is always a given circumstance. And every circumstance has a structure. If one can see the structure behind it, then he can master it and turn it in his favor. Being at home with your child means that you have to fulfill all the roles he encounters in society. You have to take the place of his teachers, of his other relatives, of his friends, not to mention al the unknown people out there.
To become a social human being, it means to become aware of all the other people around us. Not just our family and friends, but all those people that we haven’t met yet or never will. Because our decisions don’t affect just the tiny circle that we live in. Every action has a butterfly effect, and it reverberates just like starlight. You are the world for your children now. So, it is your chance to take care of the world your children will live in.
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.
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