If guiding your child through COVID has taken a toll on you . . . what do you think the impact has been on your child? Child abuse has skyrocketed during the pandemic and the suicidal rate increased! While those are the extremes, emotional stress has touched most children in some way. As a parent, what can you do to help your child?

 This article will look at four (4) ways that may be helpful: 1. Thoughts that conquer fear; 2. Be completely honest; 3. Practice safety measures as an example; 4. Basic values to instill confidence and hope.

BUILDING CONFIDENCE NOT FEAR

The first step in helping your child overcome fear, is to handle fear within yourself. Help him gain confidence by observing you. Children have an acute sense of your emotions: your fear is magnified in them because they have an innate sense that if you can’t take care of yourself, you cannot take care of them. In handling your own fears, love is a powerful tool. When embraced fully in the moment, it guides your thinking in new directions. The source of love is spiritual so. . . go there!

Ask yourself how you can connect with what you perceive the highest sense of love to be. If you are religious, discover how your faith defines divine Love and let that analysis fill your thoughts. If you connect, you will feel a deep sense of peace within yourself. If you don’t feel it, you are not there yet, keep working. Once you feel it, you are ready for the discussion with your child. Let him/her know how scary the world seems to be, but there is something far more powerful than what the world says. Share what you have learned in a manner he/she can understand. Observe your child, when you sense something is not right, have a conversation with him/her. Allow tough questions . . . be honest.

BE HONEST

Guiding your child through Covid requires honesty. Honesty has several faces:  one is to be genuine with oneself.  In so doing, your child will more likely accept what you communicate.  Teenage children are trying to discover what life is about, and regard peer relationships significant, many times more than yours.  If you have created an atmosphere of respect for your child’s viewpoints, whether you agree or not, it is easier to get honest communication from him or her.  Being truthful and honest yourself, allows the child to be honest.  He has learned that even if you do not agree, you will not be judgmental.

Another face of honesty is the ability to listen to something you may consider “dumb,” but can still communicate understanding.  If the child believes his thoughts and feelings are viewed as dumb, the responses received, most likely will be half-truths at best.  Listen intensely, ask more questions than give answers. Questions can be framed to allow the child to find answers without your pointing them out. Most of all, guiding your child through Covid means recognizing that your only desire is, what is going to help your child deal with whatever problem is at hand, who wins the argument is less important.

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH

“Do what I say, and not what I do!” has never been an effective way to get a positive response from a child. If you would like to keep your child safe, you must practice safety measures yourself. We can easily see how America’s leadership not following that example, has had a negative impact on the control of the virus. If you wear a mask, your child will think it is best to wear one! If you wash your hands often, keep surfaces clean, stay six feet from people or refrain from mixing with crowds of people, your child will respond more positively! We are. . . what we believe!

Finally, it is essential to view news media that give truthful information. There are so many lies and conspiracy theories in the world today . . . America has been a powerful leader in such theories for six years! Remember . . . the people YOU love, are hurt most by them. Truth builds faith and hope.

POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS BUILD HOPE

Hope and faith are ingredients that have improved human relationships for centuries . . . they still work today. Hope allows a person to expect goodness to occur in his life, and faith is a strong belief that it will happen. The human psychic needs both. Your child needs both, and you cannot help him/her achieve it if your “mental house” is empty! So, guiding your child through Covid, is building confidence. Confidence is built on hope and faith.

How does one achieve hope and faith? It comes from mentally looking outside of what is happening in your life to a better place–a place that is the opposite of what is going on. For example, if you have no food in the house, focus your thinking on the idea that this “Higher Power” you believe in, is more powerful than lack. Lack is a human experience, not a divine one. Thoughts like, “I express this Power, so my true self cannot suffer from hunger and . . . neither can my child. This logic applies to any sense of lack. You may feel awkward at first, but keep focused until you glow with peace. It does work! Once you know how to erase “lack” from your mind, pass it along to your child.