5 Smart Steps to Explaining COVID-19 and Pandemic Disease in Children

5 Smart Steps to Explaining COVID-19 and Pandemic Disease in Children

As an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, almost every country decides to close the access of infected citizens into the city alias city lockdown. The closure of this access turned out to have an impact on other public facilities, including schools.

This of course raises a variety of questions in the minds of children, especially when there are people closest to them who are COVID-19 patients. The possibility of children knowing COVID-19 from the news does exist, but it never hurts them to hear from their own parents.

According to Victor Carrion, a psychiatrist at Stanford Children's Health, parents and caregivers need to explain COVID-19 to children according to their questions and their age. In addition, you also need to pay attention to the language spoken so as not to cause anxiety.

Here are some tips that might help you when telling your child about this disease outbreak.

1. Ask what the child already knows

Before explaining in full about COVID-19 to children, it turns out you need to ask first what they already know.

Asking children also needs to be seen according to their age. For example, for school-aged children it might be better to ask whether people at school have explained COVID-19 and what they said.

Meanwhile, for children who are toddlers or younger, you can ask them if other adults have talked about the plague. That way, you can find out whether all this time the child has heard the correct information or not.

After that, you can start inviting children to discuss and see how they react. Some children may be interested and will often ask you, but not a few who rarely ask.

Therefore, explaining COVID-19 to children also needs to see the situation first, whether the child wants to follow the news or just curious.

2. Explain honestly and easily understood

After getting information about what children already know, now is the time to explain to them about COVID-19 in a language that is easy to understand and honest.

First of all, try to focus more on helping children feel safe, but stay honest. Try not to explain the outbreak of this viral infection in too much detail and beyond what the child asks.

For example, there are some children who might ask about their schools being closed and you can certainly answer their questions honestly.

However, when they have never asked or never happened, you don't need to raise the topic. Also, when it's time for your child to ask questions and you happen to not know the answer, answer honestly.

After that, use the question to find out with the child through official pages, such as the CDC, WHO, or the government website about COVID-19.

It is intended that children know about the facts and not only see news about scary information such as mortality rates. Don't forget to use a calm voice when trying to explain COVID-19 to a child.

3. Give space when children feel anxious

Explaining COVID-19 outbreaks to children can certainly cause them anxiety. The response is very reasonable. In fact, many of them may worry whether it will happen to them or their loved ones.

What's more, not a few news on social media or other platforms that show information frightening for them.

When this happens, try to direct the child to content that is appropriate for the child's age, so they don't find the wrong news or scare them.

Try to tell them that COVID-19 in children does not cause severe conditions like adults. Also, make yourself a reliable parent and adult to talk about fear or look for answers to COVID-19.

4. Help the child to feel in control

Filtering news about COVID-19 to children is good, but it helps them to feel that the situation is in control is also no less important.

You may be able to start explaining to children about the symptoms of COVID-19 not causing severe symptoms in them. However, do not forget to remind children and adolescents to continue to make prevention efforts, such as washing their hands properly and maintaining cleanliness of the body.

The amount of information that comes in around mortality and high transmission rates certainly makes children more worried. You can balance this out by convincing them that hospitals and doctors are ready to treat infected people.

In fact, telling children that experts are developing the COVID-19 vaccine can actually alleviate their anxiety even a little.

Meanwhile, teenagers are apparently more worried about other family members than themselves. If the child feels anxious about the condition of his grandparents, let the child contact them to find out the latest news from there.

Thus, you can explain COVID-19 to the child calmly, but still be careful.

5. Continue to talk about COVID-19

Actually, explaining outbreaks of COVID-19 to children cannot be done just once or twice. Information about diseases that attack the respiratory system will continue until it really ends.

Therefore, you need to always check your child. In fact, you can use COVID-19 as a means for children to learn about their bodies, such as the immune system to fight viruses and disease.

In addition, keeping up with the latest information about COVID-19 is also important if they ask.

However, when you want to discuss about this outbreak with children, try asking questions about their opinions. This aims to let you know how your child feels and open up conversations that are not always about COVID-19 news.

Explaining COVID-19 to children is indeed not easy because it requires great patience and caution. If you feel you cannot handle this yourself, ask for an adult partner or other family member.