Talking to Kids about Returning to School in COVID

Back to School Season is approaching and we’re all talking about. Out loud to ourselves, socially distanced at the park, over Zoom with a colleague, or at a meal with family. We’re talking about what will be done with school where we are, because we don’t know what to do with school where we are.

And as we talk, kids listen. Not only our kids, but other kids too. When it comes to returning to school, we need to be thinking about what we’re saying.

I spent Tuesday afternoon in the ER. Not a COVID patient, the medical staff tried to get me in and out quickly and away from the two COVID patients in the unit (you guessed it)near me. As I waited, breathed through my mask, and prayed, I listened. The 2 took turns talking about the COVID test experience. My worry rose as I tried to breathe, shut out vivid images, and resist attaching to their emotions. I had my own to manage. Our words impact people hearing, even people we aren’t talking to.

Kids listen and think

Kids must feel a bit like this as they listen to grown ups describe their impending school year. Already, there’s some degree of anticipatory mourning and anxiety welling up, as parents, teachers, and students imagine the possible unfolding of the 2020-21 school year we never envisioned until months ago. We may think they aren’t tuning in, but they hear all. Kids take cues from the trusted grown ups in their lives.

Parents are processing Returning to School

Grown ups have a lot to process about the coming school year too, but while kids are sponges, they aren’t meant to be our sounding boards. One time publisher of Mothering magazine, Peggy O’Mara, says, “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” Applied to mothering in the Pandemic, we could say the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice about how to grow up and learn in crisis.

Our messaging provides the language children draw from for answers to their questions. In talking about returning to school in THIS year, we must not ask children to absorb what they are not developmentally ready to process. By being thoughtful about our talk, we can help insulate childhood, rather than letting it be ripped away because we failed to notice the environment we created with our words. A young mental word bank can do without terms, sound bites, and routine talk of anxiety and fear. Healthy family talk, facts, and faith may inhabit our conversations and the images we curate in our home life, children can access tools for resilience.

More to come for Returning to School

Tomorrow I’ll share 3 suggestions for grown ups who need to process, while being confined more than ever. I’ll also share tips for setting up bumpers (you know, those things on some bowling lanes that keep your ball on the lane?) as we’re talking about this issue we’re all talking about. I rarely post 2 days in a row, but it was too much for 1 day.

For now, if you’re wrestling with all the unknowns about school where you are and wondering what you should do, be encouraged by this: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps,” (Proverbs 16:9). As you seek that clarity, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Stay tuned for upcoming news about a partner resource to The ABCs of Praying for Students. It will be a bonus of 5 devotions for Back to School in COVID, and I pray it will be a help as we begin a new season of learning lessons we never learned before. (The ABCs of Praying for Students is now available HERE on Amazon.)