Covid trauma and the intense anxiety caused to children

“Covid trauma” is perhaps my own term here, but I use it to refer to the intense anxiety caused to children by the specific events of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21. Their heightened anxiety is ongoing at the time of writing, and likely to continue further into the future unless we help them deal with it now. 

Not all children are showing it. Some children have better coping mechanisms. And age plays a part as well. But in general, there are bound to be anxious moments around a number of topics. And it’s been a long time for them.

For example, the “lockdown 16 months” – with its constantly varying rules, regulations and guidelines – has represented a significant portion of most children’s lives. 

If you’re 5, it’s around a quarter of your life. If you’re 10, an eighth.

And adults? Let’s say we’re around the 40 mark. That leaves over 38-and-a-half years untouched. The difference is stark.

So I'll address four topics here:

• Fractured relationships
• Bereavement and deaths
• Socialising stagnation
• Missed learning

Others aspects are emerging all the time, so I’ll see how things pan out in future months and update for you accordingly.

Covid trauma, children, and anxiety around fractured relationships

We’ve all felt a bit cut off during the pandemic and its lockdown stages. No hugs, no visits etc at times. But this is an issue with children to a far greater extent.

Children are developing their independence by means of trying it out gradually, slowly moving away from parents to include other key people, and in the meantime relying on the wider family and perhaps neighbours, childminders and friends of parents to be adults they can trust and turn to.

Strip that away in any meaningful sense and you have… what? 

Fear. Huge fear is part of Covid trauma.

Without this home/family support group intact and in touch your child can have felt unprotected, at risk and in danger of not surviving. That’s trauma.

Fractured relationships are ones that appear cut off. We adults know that it has been temporary (for the most part) but for children the sudden cut-off has been bewildering at least, and a fracturing at most. 

This is because ongoing stable relationships are the basis from which children explore and move on in their development. 

Seeing granny on a small screen is simply not the same – even though some grans and grandpas live on the other side of the world – because the video contact is artificially framed within the fear and anxiety the world has been breathing in for most of a year before vaccinations arrived on the scene.

And it’s more than that. In a context of “work from home” with parental stress showing up regularly, constant screen lessons from a digitalised teacher, and fear of going out and catching this vile virus – the world they knew came to an end. That’s Covid trauma.

We’ll talk about how to start putting things right in a moment.

Covid trauma, children, and anxiety around bereavement and multiple deaths

How exactly has anxiety built up in our children since the pandemic started?

• Family members getting ill, to varying degrees, and some ending up with long Covid
• Losing a family member, relative or friend, or a friend’s relative 
• Watching their parents’ anxiety and grief and dread
• Hearing about funeral rules, non-visiting in hospitals and not saying goodbye
• Knowing millions worldwide have been dying
• Seeing awful scenes on TV of patients arriving to find overfull hospitals
• Lack of comparative understanding about numbers of deaths from other causes, which are not mentioned

Seeing it as a list makes it even more obvious that even one item might be frightening. But multiple items piled on top before the first has settled are simply traumatising. Even if your child shuts it in and ignores it for periods of time. 

This is Covid trauma.

Anxieties and traumas that are not dealt with get activated again and again when similar items happen. “Triggered” is the right word. But it’s become a little bit associated with "simple little annoyances". So “activated” is a little more descriptive in showing that anxieties and fears surface again as if happening first time.

As before, we’ll look at dealing with this Covid trauma in a moment.

Covid trauma, children, and anxiety around stagnation of socialising

How often do we text a hug or a high five? Or an emoticon of a film, or wink?

Do we think this is unusual? Probably not, because it’s part of relationships in general and we’ve already learnt how to socialise and be there in person. Texting is just a temporary substitute. A reflection of the real thing. And we accept it as such and feel hugged, high five-d, or "in on" the film or joke that’s being shared.

Not so our kids.

They have to learn the art and finer points of socialising over many years. They learn to read expressions, whole body language, intonation and jokes by being with the other person. They cannot learn on their own. And after they've enjoyed a good relationship with family at home, their main arena of learning for the larger aspects of socialising is with friends and other adults.

They learn about how to behave in swimming club. They learn how to keep themselves safe when away from home. They learn team skills and how to win and lose while playing sports.

How do they also learn about life and socialising? 

By playing. This is why there’s such a market for pretend play sets.

Children act out adult roles and learn while they do so. They often play these roles with their friends who come to tea. It’s easier than with parents. Some children’s parents have been seriously busy working all hours from home. Other children have no siblings. So, friends it is. And friends have been missing.

So a lot of this social skills learning has gone out of the window or been intermittent according to what we’re talking about. The river has been dammed, and for many of our children it’s stagnated.

At this crucial stage in their development, that’s Covid trauma: not being able to make sense of what’s suddenly happening to their usual life. Even within their more limited understanding.

For children with learning difficulties or those who are non-neurotypical, the anxiety has probably been greater.

We’ll discuss how to start dealing with all this in a moment. But first, the hot potato of the moment: their education. Another source of Covid trauma.

Covid trauma, children, and anxiety around missed learning

Missing lessons is one thing. The real problem is missing a chunk of learning that's essential to the next stage of that subject. So when talking about catch-up, we really have to think about which subjects depend on a chain of learning.

Maths comes to mind, as so much of it is in a group of skills that grow as you make progress – but that's in a linear fashion.

English not so much. You can learn about nouns after or before adjectives.

But reading comes into the "chain" category. And children who can read fluently have a far greater ability to catch up later if they feel they missed a particular topic at some point.

Covid trauma will probably be the result when a child who is normally up to speed with their Maths and reading, finds they’ve missed a crucial aspect. Yes, you can pinpoint it and get help to learn it – at some point, if someone cares enough to find out what the problem is. 

But in the meantime? Your normally intelligent child can feel really stupid when they can’t do something. (If they always feel stupid, that’s a different problem!) 

But the child whose self-concept is based on having ability and being successful will be traumatised by repeated experiences of not being able and not being successful. What have they turned into? Were they wrong about themselves?

Their life has changed in a threatening way. That's Covid trauma.

This can seem trivial to an adult who misses something. We have a somewhat stable view of ourselves by now. OK, we missed out, we'll catch up. But a child is still developing their sense of self.

So we need to discuss what's best for your child in any of these circumstances. Not necessarily what the government says should be laid down for catch-up! Although that’s not to be missed out on, either. But what's specific to your child in these areas.

So that’s what we’ll look at next.

Covid trauma – towards a solution

Anxiety around fractured relationships

Mending your child’s relationships – whether with granny or grandad or with friends – is easier to do than you’d think. Although there's been a serious and shocking hiatus out of the blue, the wound of Covid trauma can be washed gently clean again by one thing that is so important to children: PLAY. With significant others.

This can be 

• playing of physically active games outside
• playing inside games and board games
• a playful attitude around everything that is done

This is not ignoring the wound, it’s restarting some kind of normal healing. And the key ingredient of the salve is the letting go of those inhibitions. That "letting go" always happens during play, playful activities and a playful and/or jokey demeanour around your children. It's totally needed now.

If they see you managing, they will copy. They may not be showing signs of anxiety or even trauma. But children always respond to adult examples and a return to something akin to normal. 

You can make sure your child plays in these ways with friends, cousins, other relatives and perhaps childminders you have in the house again. Bring it back as a way of life.

This is the way to counteract Covid trauma in fractured relationships, and knock it on the head.

What games can your family and friends or other adults play that lower barriers and allow humour, competition or excitement to rule?

It’s best not to assume something is too young at the moment – sometimes you have to backtrack a little after a traumatic experience.

And if you have children of different ages, this is helpful to older ones who will then agree to join in “for the sake of the younger ones”!

So here are some suggestions.

1. Hide and seek
2. Running games: eg “beat you to that lamp post”
3. Egg and spoon challenges with an egg substitute (or hard boiled!)
4. Building up blocks as tall as the child
5. Making your own shoes out of newspapers and sellotape
6. Dobble card game
7. Twister game
8. Pit (a Waddington’s game where you all take your turn together and shout!)
9. Quoits (the garden version) or Hoopla (the wall version) or a dart board
10. Water guns!

What links all these? They're active and not particularly demanding on the brain! 

But clearly this particular remedy isn’t the main antidote when your child has been bereaved. So let’s move on to the second topic.

Anxiety around bereavement and multiple deaths

If your child has been bereaved by the death of your partner, then I recommend help from a therapist if some time has already passed and they really are struggling. 

The signs you notice might be any or all of the ones we mention under symptoms and anxiety plus trauma. 

You should of course talk with your child about their missing parent and allow memories, sadness, and moments of memorial. That’s healthy. It will help you all to recover and make sense of things (if anyone can make much sense of Covid deaths right now). 

But overall, it’s good to have help from outside when you yourself are also suffering. Your child will benefit a lot.

If the death concerns a wider family member, then it’s quite often good to simply talk and play and remember as often as is necessary. 

Not all the time. Children remember things on and off, and the intensity hits them irregularly. So in general, we need to go over and over things from time to time to settle them into the new reality of that person not being there. And a good person to do that in the wider family is you.

If you feel something more serious is going on for your child, again consider a therapist. But time is a good healer too. 

Remember, it can take a long time to place the missing person in a different "position" in your life/their life. Do visit my page on this if you need to.

The issue of their traumatic anxiety from seeing multiple deaths in the news and other media is a difficult one. In the first place, you need to limit it, if you haven’t already. Otherwise they are reactivating Covid trauma all the time.

There may be many more deaths this summer and autumn, but there will also be the usual deaths from flu and other illnesses.

Children weren’t aware of this in previous years (and nor were many adults!). It’s good for them to move back to that lack of awareness as soon as possible. 

In terms of the anxiety they now feel from hearing all this information, just listen to them, and talk with them about their worries at their level. This may well come down to personal worries such as “will I die if I catch it?” and “will you die?”

You can deal with the first one honestly, because unless your child has an underlying condition the answer is almost certainly no. If they do have one, I know I can trust you to answer them in the same responsible way you’ll have been answering any other questions they ask about their future.

The main facts to keep in mind, sensibly and calmly are these (from a child’s point of view!):

• Yes, a lot of people have died all over the world and it’s really sad.
• We’re taking lots of precautions to avoid catching it.
• We’ll look after each other if we do.
• Doctors have made medicines for other illnesses over the years and they’re  managing to do it for this one too. 
• There are lots of positive things happening, so let’s keep track of those too.
• If you start to worry about anything, let’s talk about it so I can help you.

Balance this out with lots of play and “normal” life, as and when it can be restored.

The sooner schools return to normal, the better. When they do, there are embedded counselling services and Mental Health Leads being installed everywhere. Both of these are a good resource for a more integrated system of help if it becomes necessary. And they'll all be competent to deal with Covid trauma.

Anxiety around the stagnation of socialising

As soon as you’re allowed to and it seems safe to do so, start arranging meetings with other families. Just like we used to!

Social skills have indeed stagnated and in some cases gone backwards. No child usually thinks to themselves “is it OK to touch my friend?” or “will I catch something and die?” Thinking this is an aspect of Covid trauma.

My opinion is that when families meet – or even just one parent from each family, with children in tow – the adults will natter and the children will see that it’s okay to be sociable again. 

You can model this sociability in various ways:

• don’t keep away from the children yourself
• talk to them, joke, empathise 
• join in with whatever's happening from time to time, inside the house or outside
• play, make cakes, go shopping, watch a film – whatever you used to do
• be seen to have a good laugh and intimacy with the other parent(s)
• make certain that the emphasis is on normality

If you have slight misgivings yourself, at least don’t pass them to the children.

You can set up these arrangement with other parents specifically to home in on making socialisation normal again for the children present.

There is a school of thought that says that trauma can bring forth growth afterwards. It's true that only a very few people go on to have PTSD symptoms once life returns to normal.

So although this "pandemic interlude" has occupied a large part of any child’s life (compared to adults), and brought forth all kinds of Covid trauma, it's possible to come out the other side stronger if the adults around our children can return life to normal as soon as possible.

We can only do this for socialisation issues by planning get-togethers with Covid trauma recovery in mind. Schools will eventually be trying to do this at their end, although, at the time of writing, this is unlikely before the new academic year arrives.

In the meantime you can help your child, and your friends’ children, to move on.

Anxiety around missed learning

Some children will not mind missing learning. That’s just life! Those who love keeping up and getting good marks – or even just doing their best and getting praise from the teacher – will be anxious about what they’re missing.

And the worst feelings of all are thinking you’re falling behind, that your future is being ruined, and that you’re powerless to sort if out.

This is Covid trauma.

So what can we do?

My experience as a teacher, therapist and coach tells me the best thing to do now is to help your child understand that they are fine, and that learning is much wider than lessons in school.

Use paper and pencil if you need. Get them to write down or tell you what they feel they’re missing. Now find a different activity that uses the same skills and needs the same knowledge. It might be totally outside anything they’d learn at school.

But with a big picture in mind, you’ll be able to organise things in your family so that these points are covered elsewhere.

I can’t be specific because children of different ages at different schools will name different things. (And if they aren’t bothered, they won’t name anything, and you can just make sure they keep on learning about the world with a curious mind, as you might anyway!)

But let’s take a few examples. 

• Maybe it’s Maths. OK, subtly use measuring, weighing, counting, adding etc in some of your household tasks and get them to help out. Let them lead, in fact.
• Maybe it’s English. Read with them more than you would. Choose a book that’s slightly ahead of their own reading ability, set up an attractive half hour of time and read to them a chapter at a time. Discuss the book.
• Or maybe discuss advertisements, invent a poem together, make up silly rhymes, whatever it takes to keep an interest in language up front, and their ability to use it effectively well-oiled!
• Maybe it’s music, dance, drama – put on a little drama together as a family. Or play charades, or sing along to some pop music, invent a rap, whatever. Bring it alive in your own way. Constantly. They'll still be learning!

The point is to ignite, and keep ignited, their curiosity about everything in life. School isn’t the answer to learning. Attitude is.

By helping our children to love learning anything and everything, the Covid trauma of missing some schooling will diminish in scope over time.

A book for these times!

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ALWAYS:

Trust your instincts,
use your judgement, protect the spirit
of your child