Hearing Children in the Time of COVID-19
Always concerned about the well-being of our children, I thought I would give you some tips to help your children get through these strange and psychologically difficult times more peacefully, far from school, friends, and for you, work. This is the modest contribution of the Caramel & Cie teams.
COVID-19, an over-publicized event that disrupts the lives and routines of all children and their parents, can indeed generate anxiety in each of us, as at the time of September 11, 2001, the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks, etc. I therefore called on Agnès Bailly, a psychoanalyst and psychologist specializing in monitoring children, to get her opinion on how to approach the subject of COVID-19 with our children.
I hope you enjoy this little article that I personally really like because it goes a little further than just giving advice!
Rafaela Garcia (founder of Caramel & Cie)
Partnering with children's issues
"How do we explain Covid-19 to children?" I've been asked. I'd rather turn things around this way: How do we address their unique and personal questions, at their own time?
Trying to explain things with "ready-to-use" knowledge may not resonate with your child and may block their questions, preventing them from expressing their concerns. There's no doubt they have something to say.
Children's books can help parents approach a delicate subject, provided you remain open to the unexpected question your child may ask. Be attentive enough (and you can't be attentive all the time) to welcome their words, what they may say to you out of the blue, when you least expect it and when you are least available. Yet, that's when they will ask you their question, which may seem trivial or completely out of step with what is happening.
A 5-year-old boy I saw at the very beginning of the epidemic told me:
– “I’m afraid I’ll miss my father’s birthday tonight… I have a cold.”
– Me: “Did you hear things on the radio?”
– “I’m afraid of the virus… it’s deadly, you know.”
Reassuring him with a scientific speech would not have allowed him to ask me his question afterwards.
– Me: “Do you ever wonder about death?”
– “Yes! Since I was 3 years old.”
– Me: “Something serious must have happened at that time?”
– “Yes, but I forgot…”
I advanced cautiously:
– Me: “Have you heard about the attacks?”
– "Yes! That's what I forgot!" he said with real relief.
Since then, he has come to talk to me about his questions about death with greater freedom and his discoveries for “coping with it”.
While this little boy can name what he's experiencing, this isn't the case for everyone. Since every child is more or less caught up in their parents' anxieties, it's not easy for them to hear their concerns. There's no right way to answer children's questions. The important thing is to remain as open as possible to their questions and to become a partner: to answer them with our flaws and our own questioning, that is, in a way that isn't anonymous. This means much more to them than ready-made knowledge.
Agnès Bailly, psychoanalyst psychologist,
member of the School of the Freudian Cause, 75010 Paris.
