How do you tell a child they life they knew is over?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would you do this? A six year old has limited understanding of time. Sounds like you are expecting her to make some mature acceptance which is unfair. This is not forever; we will distance and wear masks as long as the infection continues to be community acquired. They are working on vaccines which will help. Sounds like you want to upset her, to put adult problems on her shoulders. No reason to increase any anxiety she has; you’re her mom, it’s your job to make her life better not worse.

Excuse me? I said I haven't brought this up for exactly the reasons you stated - but at some point, she'll need to know the life she knew is gone and isn't coming back.

Meh. Life is changing. We are evolving. She is 6. She will adapt.

The kid doesn’t need to know “the life she knew is gone”. The kid is six!! Of course in a year or two or three she won’t remember this. OP talk to someone who has raised kids. I can hardly remember (and same for my kids) when they were six and “the life they knew.” OMG. So dramatic. I have to scroll through old photos regularly to try to remember what life was like ten years ago.

Your daughter needs you to be strong and act calm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen, at some point people are just going to start ignoring the “new normal” and just revert back to our “old normal”. Yes, people will get sick and some will die, but eventually we’ll reach herd immunity and things will be back to normal. Many people will not allow this to become a long term way of life, no way.

Won't happen. Can't happen. To many government restrictions.

In most parts of the country, the new normal looks an awful lot like the old normal. Just not in the dmv. Or at least not on dcum.
The thought that we will wear masks and never have human face to face interaction the rest of our lives is absurd.
Some things are probably here for good— I don’t see the old workplace you must work in an office mentality coming back, I can see school having a more virtual distance component especially in higher education, and I can see coronavirus becoming a virus people get very sick from (like tuberculosis or the flu or malaria or measles if you’re not vaccinated). Movie theaters may be a thing of the past.
But I don’t see people cowering in their homes for the rest of time. Kids will go back into school eventually, likely next year. Hopefully we will feel safe to take an airplane at some point. Life will go more back to normal.

[Anonymous]

OP, kids’ resilience can be overstated, but I agree with PPs that you’re making too much of this. I said a while back to my 11 year old something about normal life and he replied “this IS normal life.” And you know, he’s right! We’re still in our home, we are all together as a family, and we’re doing many of the things we’ve always done: eat dinner together, read books, watch movies, hang out at the park.

For the things you ask about, ie school and seeing grandparents, maybe you can’t control either of those things. You definitely can’t control the school thing. It sucks and it’s been disruptive but it’s really not the end of life as we know it. For grandparents, you may have some control. We have gone to visit one grandparent during the pandemic. It was/is super important for us to connect and so we prioritized that and did it safely. This may not be feasible for you (I know for many it isn’t due to health concerns or travel logistics) but my kids have gone many months without seeing their (non-local) grandparents before. They still love them and feel connected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, kids’ resilience can be overstated, but I agree with PPs that you’re making too much of this. I said a while back to my 11 year old something about normal life and he replied “this IS normal life.” And you know, he’s right! We’re still in our home, we are all together as a family, and we’re doing many of the things we’ve always done: eat dinner together, read books, watch movies, hang out at the park.

For the things you ask about, ie school and seeing grandparents, maybe you can’t control either of those things. You definitely can’t control the school thing. It sucks and it’s been disruptive but it’s really not the end of life as we know it. For grandparents, you may have some control. We have gone to visit one grandparent during the pandemic. It was/is super important for us to connect and so we prioritized that and did it safely. This may not be feasible for you (I know for many it isn’t due to health concerns or travel logistics) but my kids have gone many months without seeing their (non-local) grandparents before. They still love them and feel connected.

Privilege, folks. Right here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD (6) thinks things will go back to normal soon. She obviously can't grasp the full impact of the situation yet, and thinks that one day she'll be able to see her grandparents, not a wear a mask, travel, hug friends, attend school. I've been very non-committal about the future because I don't want to negatively affect her mental health, but at some point she'll need to understand that things are different now and won't ever go back. I'm actually wondering if I'm doing her a disservice by putting it off, but I'm dreading it.

Anyway, how and when do you plan on having this conversation?

Listen - and I'm not being ironic here - you need help. Do you have a therapist you can talk to?
People freaking WILL (and some still do!) hug friends, attend school (some privates will be open as soon as this August), travel, and even ditch masks, eventually. A year from now, everything will be back to normal.
Reading some posts here, you'd think an asteroid hit the Earth and the surviving 50 humans all frequent DCUM. "Things are different now and won't ever go back". Geez.

Interesting. You've not heard the term "new normal" either? And you do realize the government never drops restrictions they institute, right?

I think you should go back to your social studies class. Seriously.

Right? I mean, I'm pretty sure at some point they lifted the rations they instituted during WWII. Or wait, do we still have to limit our use of butter? Maybe we do and I just forgot.

It was years of rationing. Don't play dumb. And we still have overreach at the airports, 19 years later.

The airport comparison is, frankly, dumb because they are VERY different cost/benefit decisions. Like, airport security is not a big inconvenience on daily life, so even if the national security response ratcheted more than was necessary, keeping those precautions in place is a pretty low-burden deal. But closing business, schools, etc. is a HIGH burden imposition. Things that are so life-altering (see also, food rationing, quarantines and mask requirements during the Spanish flu, etc.) are lifted when feasible. I mean, a lot of schools cancelled outdoor play and recess for a while during the DC sniper. Guess what? Recess came back. Just because some government restrictions have been left in place doesn't mean they always are or that this stuff is an exercise in governments wanting to overreach.

[Anonymous]

Cholera pandemic lasted for like a decade, so we will learn to manage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1826%E2%80%931837_cholera_pandemic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

No. It will be endemic. But that does not mean it will be a pandemic forever. It won’t. There is some seriously distorted thinking going on. Life will return to mostly normal after a period of time. There will probably be some holdovers. Hopefully people staying home when sick and wearing masks when contagious.

This is certainly right, and I hope your holdover estimates are correct. I've always been the type of go about my daily life when sick before, and I plan to change that. Hopefully workplaces will become more flexible with WFH when people (or their kids) are under the weather. And I'd like to see this normalize wearing a mask when people need to travel, work, etc. with minor illnesses if staying home isn't practical.

But the bars and restaurants will reopen. We will all take great vacations in 2022. Big, rowdy weddings will come back. Schools and camps and kids' sports will happen again.

Previous generations saw wars, recessions, illnesses, etc. Sometimes they severely affected daily life. So people changed habits for the greater good when needed, and once they were safely able to, returned to a more robust life. (I am guessing we will be there within the next year, but of course the exact timeline will play out however it plays out).

[Anonymous]

I don't label the way we are currently maneuvering life as the "new normal." My 6 year old just knows we are limited activities and interactions because we don't want to get sick. He doesn't go out in public places often but he is comfortable with wearing a mask. When he gets upset that we can't do a certain activity I just throw out other suggestions. Although his siblings are much younger, having them around is probably helping him cope with this. It would probably be different if he was an only child. We will see how distance learning goes though because he was SO excited to be going to the 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD (6) thinks things will go back to normal soon. She obviously can't grasp the full impact of the situation yet, and thinks that one day she'll be able to see her grandparents, not a wear a mask, travel, hug friends, attend school. I've been very non-committal about the future because I don't want to negatively affect her mental health, but at some point she'll need to understand that things are different now and won't ever go back. I'm actually wondering if I'm doing her a disservice by putting it off, but I'm dreading it.

Anyway, how and when do you plan on having this conversation?

Listen - and I'm not being ironic here - you need help. Do you have a therapist you can talk to?
People freaking WILL (and some still do!) hug friends, attend school (some privates will be open as soon as this August), travel, and even ditch masks, eventually. A year from now, everything will be back to normal.
Reading some posts here, you'd think an asteroid hit the Earth and the surviving 50 humans all frequent DCUM. "Things are different now and won't ever go back". Geez.

+10000

[Anonymous]

Another person who thinks OP is waaaayyyy over dramatic. My kid is 8. Kids have short memories, plus the part of their lives they remember are so short that they effectively are always having a "new normal". Like, they go to preschool for a couple years, and then then start at a new school for K for a fundamentally different experience than the fun of preschool. And then they have summer break for two months and K is like a lifetime ago. And then first grade. And then summer camps. And they go through all these 3 and 6 and 9 month periods that look totally different than the last 2 years - which is as far back as they remember.

I don't see how 2nd grade (the year my son just finished) vs COVID is any different than 1st grade vs the summer after 1st grade. It's just a big chunk of time without structure versus a structured time.

[Anonymous]

OP has got to be a troll. A very full troll who just feasted on 20 pages.

[Anonymous]

Kids are resilient. You don't need to make any big pronouncements about the future.

I've told my 6 year old the things that I know:
-we will be wearing masks for a long time
-school will be at home for now
-we don't know when this will be over, but that it will most likely be a gradual ending, not an all of a sudden ending.

And lastly: we will be ok, even if things aren't our favorite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, kids’ resilience can be overstated, but I agree with PPs that you’re making too much of this. I said a while back to my 11 year old something about normal life and he replied “this IS normal life.” And you know, he’s right! We’re still in our home, we are all together as a family, and we’re doing many of the things we’ve always done: eat dinner together, read books, watch movies, hang out at the park.

For the things you ask about, ie school and seeing grandparents, maybe you can’t control either of those things. You definitely can’t control the school thing. It sucks and it’s been disruptive but it’s really not the end of life as we know it. For grandparents, you may have some control. We have gone to visit one grandparent during the pandemic. It was/is super important for us to connect and so we prioritized that and did it safely. This may not be feasible for you (I know for many it isn’t due to health concerns or travel logistics) but my kids have gone many months without seeing their (non-local) grandparents before. They still love them and feel connected.

Privilege, folks. Right here.

Huh? Your comment makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Kudos to being overly dramatic, op.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are resilient. You don't need to make any big pronouncements about the future.

I've told my 6 year old the things that I know:
-we will be wearing masks for a long time
-school will be at home for now
-we don't know when this will be over, but that it will most likely be a gradual ending, not an all of a sudden ending.

And lastly: we will be ok, even if things aren't our favorite.

And this isn't horribly depressing to you? Because it is to me. The worst. And my spouse was injured in Afghanistan. At least was only a week-long crisis, not permanent.