C2 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAy, MARCH 21 , 2020
Ta ke cues from your children
and respond accordingly. Ta lking
to a 5-year-old is different from
talking to a fifth-grader, but there
are also differences in children of
the same age. Some children
might see school cancellations as
a way to stay home, have fun and
enjoy a little more screen time
than usual. Some children may
feel more comfortable if they get
more updates on the virus; others
might do better with less. And
within a single family, siblings
can be different, so the approach
must be catered to the child. Chil-
dren who feel particularly
stressed and anxious need to be
told that there are “kid worries”
and “grown-up worries.” It’s a
child’s job to wash their hands,
and an adult’s to keep them safe.
l minimize the sarcasm and
dry humor. for adults, making
light of the situation and talking
about a “zombie apocalypse”
might be a coping mechanism,
but this is not the case for chil-
dren. Even children as old as 11
may not fully understand dark
humor. “A dults should use what-
ever coping strategies are helpful
right now, but I would be cautious
about this around kids,” said
mcLaughlin, the Harvard re-
searcher. Those kinds of state-
ments in front of children could
cause them to develop fears about
things that are not realistic.
l find strategies for each fami-
ly member to reduce stress levels.
Children should spend time out-
side and find ways to incorporate
physical activity into the daily
schedule, as should adults. relax-
ation strategies might include
deep b reathing exercises or a long
bath, mcLaughlin said. “Parents
can model these things for their
kids,” she said.sindya Bhanoo is a health and
science reporter based in Austin.hygiene and social distancing.
families might try having two
check-in times each day, once in
the morning and once in the eve-
ning, when kids can ask questions
and discuss the virus. Adults who
feel like they need frequent up-
dates should try getting the news
silently, by reading it on a person-
al device with headphones rather
than watching on TV so that chil-
dren are not exposed.
l G ive children responsibilities
they might not normally have
time for. “Tell the kids, we’re all in
this together and working togeth-
er; this can be interesting and a
learning experience,” Biel said.
His children, 9 and 11, spent a
recent morning staining a fence.
“They loved it, and it isn’t some-
thing they normally do at 11 a.m.
on a monday.”
Establish a routine. This is
something children and parents
can work on together. Because
children know their daily school
routines well, it can be empower-
ing for them to create a new home
schedule with parents. Ideally, the
new schedule mirrors the normal
schedule, but it does not have to.
It can be more of a summer camp
schedule, if that is easier and
preferable. “I get out my calendar
for my preschooler and we talk
about the week,” said Janine
Domingues, a child psychologist
at t he Child mind Institute in New
York City. “It’ll take a little while
to understand that we’re not go-
ing to school again for some time.”
l Help children maintain their
social connections using technol-
ogy. Social distancing does not
mean social isolation, for adults
or kids. “right now, even our
4½-year-old is faceTiming with
buddies and sharing things he’s
working on at home,” Domingues
said. She also asks her parents to
read her son a daily bedtime story
over a video chat.together in a way they normally
don’t have time for. Parents and
children can spend time together
in the kitchen and cook, or work
on a long-postponed household
project, or play board games and
watch movies. Kids can be given
age-appropriate chores around
the house, said Biel, the George-
town psychiatrist.
“During this turmoil and diffi-
culty, kids will learn that we’re all
sort of co-citizens of a new kind of
home for the next number of
weeks,” he said.
Above all, maintaining the
calm in the chaos will be impor-
tant for every family, he said.
Children need to know that their
parents have their backs, even
when there is uncertainty.
“Emphasize that over and over
again,” he said.
He and other experts offered
some suggestions to help parents
with children who might be feel-
ing stressed and concerned dur-
ing this uncertain time.
l Kids do not need to be ex-
posed to the news all the time, but
it is important that they know
what they can do: practice goodold, they have fewer superheroes
inside of them and they need all of
us to protect them. So that’s why
we’re trying to be careful, to help
them.”
As parents grapple with mas-
sive changes to lifestyle and
schedule, they must also work to
introduce a new routine.
“one of the simple things that
parents can do is to maintain
predictability,” said Katie
mcLaughlin, a clinical psycholo-
gist and professor at H arvard Uni-
versity, w hose research focuses on
childhood stress, adversity and
trauma. research shows that lack
of control and lack of predictabili-
ty are major contributors to anxi-
ety in children, she said.
She acknowledged that setting
a schedule might be challenging
as many parents attempt to work
from home while caring for chil-
dren who normally spend their
day in school or at day care. “But
even if it’s a slow process, where
you layer in a little routine every
day, it will be helpful for younger
children.”
And as difficult as this time is, it
may allow some families to comeParents should also shield their
children from panicked displays
of anxiety and fear. It might be
helpful to use an imaginary “feel-
ing thermometer,” to gauge your
emotional state, said Aureen
Wagner, a clinical child psycholo-
gist at the Anxiety Wellness Cen-
ter in Cary, N.C. She tells parents
to use the thermometer to take
stock of their emotional state on a
scale of 1 to 10, where 10 refers to
peak anxiety. The “thinking”
brain works best when the “feel-
ing” brain is lower than 5, she
said. “If you’re at a n 8, 9 or 10, that
is not the time to talk to your
child,” she said. “Similarly, if your
child is at an 8, 9, or 10, it isn’t the
time to talk with them.”
Parents also need to be particu-
larly mindful about having adult
conversations in front of children
during a time like this, because
kids are astute eavesdroppers and
observers.
“Unless you’re physically in an-
other room with a door shut, they
are picking up data from you,”
said Abigail romirowsky, a clini-
cal psychologist at the ross Cen-
ter in the District. “The level at
which they are picking up data
depends on their developmental
stage, but it’s better to assume to
your kids are seeing and hearing
everything.”
Certain conversations, particu-
larly ones that children have no
control over — like fear of a food
shortage, or worries about money
— should be saved for a private
phone conversation or discussed
after children are asleep.
What children need from their
parents is clarity and reassurance.
“You can say the word ‘virus,’
but don’t forget to talk to them
about their immune systems,”
romirowsky said. “You can say
that our bodies have superheroes
inside of them to fight the bad
guys. People who are really, reallydren will understand this experi-
ence,” said matthew Biel, a child
psychiatrist at Georgetown Uni-
versity School of medicine. “It’s
critical for parents to be thought-
ful about how they talk about this
with their kids, and how they talk
about it with each other.”
Children, particularly those of
preschool and elementary school
age, should not be inundated with
constant updates about the virus,
Biel and other experts said. The
barrage of news on the virus, with
updates coming to phones and
other devices, and being shown
on television, can send a repeated
rush of terror through young
minds and have negative conse-
quences. After the Boston mara-
thon bombings, researchers
found that children who watched
more than three hours of tele-
vised coverage on the day of the
attack were more likely to experi-
ence post-traumatic stress disor-
der and develop behavioral prob-
lems. After the 9/11 terrorism at-
tacks, Biel recalled young patients
of his who had seen repeated
footage of the planes crashing
into the World Trade Center.
“Each time, they saw it, the kids
experienced it as a new event.”
one of the many extraordinary
things about the spread of the
coronavirus is how quickly things
are changing. “In the case of a
natural disaster or a terrorist at-
tack, there is the event and the
aftermath,” Biel said. “This event
is rolling and evolving.”
That means parents, while
staying informed and responsible
as the situation progresses,
should also limit their own intake.
“This is exhausting emotionally
and physically for us, and takes
away from our ability to be good
parents,” said Biel, who has two
children of his own.
cHIldren from c1
Above all, children need to be assured that their parents have their backs
Clemens BIlAn/ePA-eFe/sHUtterstoCK
The playgrounds may be closed, but children still need to spend
time outdoors and incorporate physical activities.joHn mCdonnell/tHe WAsHIngton Postsinuous garden beds are
exploding with millions of
planted tulips and other spring
bulbs, planted by an army of
gardeners last fall.Here you will find rivers of
tulips in lipstick red, bubble-
gum pink and golden yellow,
along with some subtler hues
and variegations. Beneath thethumbs among us may have
assembled a paradise of
flowering plants, but even those
curated blooms are more
interested in bees, beetles and
moths than us, because
flowering is about sex and the
transfer of pollen to pistil. The
trees in early bloom need
months to form their apples and
acorns and hazelnuts. Even trees
rendered sterile by our
manipulation think they are
fertile. Sorry, guys, the spring
eruption is not for our benefit,
biologically.
Don’t judge them harshly;
plants have had to put up with
their own pernicious pests and
diseases for centuries, most
spread by us. Think of the Dutch
elm disease, caused by a fungus
spread by beetles, or the xylella
bacteria using carrier insects to
afflict vineyards, citrus orchards
and, in Italy, ancient olive groves.
The spread of plant disease too
often is a byproduct of our
globalization, and so is the
sprIng from c1 coronavirus — there could be no
more graphic example of the
interconnectedness of human
society than the wildfire spread of
this disease from an interior
region of China. In choosing
Homo sapiens, covid-19 has found
both vector and victim in one.
Botanical gardens, our
temples to spring, are closing or
partially closing around the
world, further distancing folks
from the most-awaited season
(for those of us in the Northern
Hemisphere). The royal
Horticultural Society has
announced that the highlight of
Britain’s horticultural calendar,
the Chelsea flower Show in may,
is canceled.
The Dubai miracle Garden, a
giddying display of 150 million
annual flowers in a Disneyland
setting, is closed, according to
its website.
What must be one of the
strangest experiences at the
moment is to wander through
the Keukenhof, the Dutch
botanical estate near
Amsterdam where acres of
ADRIAN HIGGINS
canopy of burgeoning trees, the
air is fresh and scented with
countless hyacinths and other
spring beauties.
for this spring’s display, the
gardeners planted 7 million
bulbs. A floral mosaic alone
consumed 50,000 tulips, grape
hyacinths and crocuses.
The flower beds are set beside
lakes, pavilions and woodland
paths and have been a quaintly
over-the-top display of the floral
and mercantile ingenuity of the
Netherlands bulb industry for
decades. The flowers have
attracted millions of visitors
over the years — at first the
Dutch and their European
neighbors but increasingly East
Asians in a shrinking world. L ast
year, some 1.5 million tourists
came from more than 100
countries to revel in the eight-
week display. This year the
starring blossoms will open to
an empty house.
The 2020 show — themed “A
World of Colors” — was to have
begun Saturday a nd run until
may 10. for now the park isclosed by government regulation
until at least April 6, but it
seems unlikely it will be opened
after that, upstaged by a World
of Covid.
You could say, as the Japanese
do, that the brevity of the cherry
blossoms is a symbol of our own
brief time. You could say, too,
that to plant a tree or a garden is
to defy that. Those are acts of
inherent faith in the future,
whether we are around to see
them or not.
We need plants, even if they
don’t need us, so admire the
spring bursting at the mouth of
the cave. And yet in our
confinement, in our inability to
revel unfettered this spring,
there is a real sorrow. one
thinks of poet Philip Larkin’s
ode to the awakening trees.
“Their greenness is a kind of
grief.”
[email protected]
@adrian_higgins on Twitter Also at washingtonpost.com
read past columns by Higgins at
washingtonpost.com/home.Spring is here. Nature doesn’t care about a pandemic.
Peter dejong/AssoCIAted Press
TOp: Visitors at the Tidal Basin, where the cherry blossoms are
blooming. ABOVe: Fields of tulips and other flowers burst with
color at the Keukenhof, the botanical estate near Amsterdam.