How are your 3/4/5 year olds handling this?
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Anonymous
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Particularly those used to going to pre-k or k...
My 4 year old is doing suprisingly okay. She seems to get what’s going on and that she can’t see her friends because of the germs. From time to time though I think reality hits her. The first time she realized her beloved music class would be by Zoom she broke down. Whenever she asks to do something and the takes a beat and then says “oh we can’t cause of the germs.” It’s breaking my heart. Like everyone else I want things to get back to normal soon... but mostly so I don’t have to crush my kid anymore  . I’m not religious but I’m praying for a vaccine ASAP so all of this can end.
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Anonymous
| My 3.5 year old seems unfazed. She's enjoying being home with us. We're lucky in that we're both essential, but I'm only working every other week, so she's in preschool every other week and at home with me the rest of the time. DH is working a lot, but that's not a shift from normal. |
Anonymous
Op, your kid is not “crushed.” If she behaves as such, it’s because she’s picking up on your neurosis There will not be a vaccine before we go back to normal. She won’t even remember this in 5 years. |
Anonymous
Go look up trauma response for children who’ve experienced natural disasters... she may not remember, but our children will almost certainly be affected by this. There will be significant variation, but we’re foing to have a generation of children who have even more trauma than before. |
Anonymous
Go find a puppy to kick. I also have an almost 4 year old who does cry at least once a day. Dh and I aren’t anxious and don’t watch the tv at all (so she hasn’t seen news). She really misses her friends and activities and especially her teacher. Staying at home is absolutely a huge transition. Home schoolers and SAHMs don’t stay at home all day. |
Anonymous
| My 3.5 year old is having a very hard time. She misses her friends and teachers and has started beginning sentences with “when the germs are gone”. It’s heartbreaking |
Anonymous
Same. My 4 year old asked this weekend when this is going to be over. We said we don’t know and she was quiet for a very long time. |
Anonymous
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5 year old only child, cries every other day or so. Said explicitly that she is glad to not have to go to pre-K but cries on her usual gymnastics and dance days. She cries after FaceTime play dates because she “just wants to be next to my friends”. Strangely, she also said she misses going to Trader Joe’s. She’s specific enough about what she misses that it’s very clear she’s not echoing what we say, but her longings are much more narrow and focused than ours as adults. Her upset comes in bursts. One day she’ll be fine but the next day she realizes that she won’t see a certain relative this summer or do a special thing at school and she’ll lose it for a half hour or more.
I wish I handled it more like her. I am so sad but can’t seem to cry. And I’m usually a crier. |
Anonymous
| My 5 yo is fine because we are fine. He has a great life. He has me all day around, and basically unlimited time on electronics. When I’m free from work for a bit, we are spending a ton of time together outside in the nice weather we’ve been having. He talks to his cousins and grandparents on the phone more than usual. Maybe once a week we will dial into a pre school circle time to say hi to everyone. We are doing more together than we have, because he’s with me all day, and because literally every weekend there’s a new outdoor adventure. This is NOT TRAUMA for a five year old or four year old, and especially not for a theee year old! Sheesh. These kids are young. What they need most in life is to feel secure, and they feel the most secure with their parents. But getting to hang around all day with mom and/or dad, lots of outdoor adventures, loads of new toys for Easter plus new games on the iPad, and also a new bike on the way? If it’s trauma, it’s the most privileged trauma ever. |
Anonymous
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My 3 and 5 year old are loving this because "they get to spend every day with us." They also loved school, and we never had issues with drop off. But when we do return to school, that's going to be tough.
The only thing that is difficult is that 5 weeks in and they still don't seem to understand that mom and dad need to telework. Just because we're home doesn't mean that we're free to play with them all the time. |
Anonymous
| DD is 5. She is living her best life. She misses seeing her friends but otherwise loves having us all home. We are honest about what is going on and why she can’t go to the playground or school. We are very matter of fact and tell he there is a virus going around and we must stay home, but when we go out to ride bikes or walk we must social distance. |
Anonymous
| Kids in general seem to be dealing with the situation better than adults but it's hard on everybody. |
Anonymous
| My 3 yo seems to be handling it better than I am. In the beginning, they would say “I miss my friends”, but that stopped after 2 weeks. My kid gets a lot more one on one attention at home, and we are keeping pretty consistent with our routine, so that’s probably why it hasn’t been an issue. |
Anonymous
This is like my five year old. She wants the virus to be around forever so we keep staying home. |
Anonymous
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Okay. Almost-four is an only child & extrovert, so he is draining me and his father as we are his only social interaction.
He says he loves staying home, but he’s also more sensitive than usual, and sometimes says he’s sad and lonely when DH and I are not actively playing with him. He gets to eat snacks, watch TV, and basically do whatever he wants during the day, so he loves that. He has gotten a surprise from someone at least once or twice a week so far, so he’s loving that and the UPS man is a real treat. The weather has been nice... we go for neighborhood walks and he waves at his friends in their yards, or says hi from a distance—two months ago, he would have run right to them. He said he wished his whole family could go to the grocery store together. And that he was pretty sure he couldn’t have a birthday party because of the thing with the germs. So we have ups & downs. His mental health will preserved if DH & I —both with anxiety and depression—can stay steady & reliable. We are doing our best, but I do find myself yelling more than usual, which I dislike. I have realized what a much better mother I am with good child care. I wasn’t designed to have a 40# non-stop-talker physically attached to my body for 8 hours a day. |