Situation of COVID-19: A question from my child!!

Today, after having breakfast, we were reading his favourite story book. In one of the stories, they mentioned about a person falling sick.

The next question that he immediately asked me was, “Dadda, what is happening in the world because of Coronavirus?”

To start with, this question sent shivers down my spine, because the news that I have been following on the spread of the pandemic, and as we all know, is not good. I was wondering how should I translate all that information of people and morbidity to him.

However, the next moment something changed inside me, and I informed him that, “we can know what is happening if we check the World Health Organisation Situation Report.”

I was able to buy time, as we were figuring out the correct link on internet and loading it up on the screen. And in this time, I was thinking, how best shall I be able to help him understand the situation with a Positive approach. Gradually, I was reaching to the idea of the facts I had been myself ruminating on how I view this entire episode of pandemic. I realised that maybe this is an opportunity where I will be able to introduce few things that are usually not on the conversation list.

Below is a Parenting Approach that I followed:

1. Resilience: With the data in our hand, we checked the situation of the region where it all started, and I mentioned that even in this virus spread, people are staying strong and firm. We performed our first calculation of the concept called Data Interpretation where we figured out ‘people who were sick but survived’. Our next calculations were on regions that did not have any deaths, and so on.
2. Gratitude: I mentioned to him that everywhere in the world, humans are being affected by it, however, there are many places where people are safe because of so many efforts being taken by the governments, societies, organisations etc. We need to thank them for helping us keep safe, and thus Gratitude was introduced in the most organic way, something that I had never thought of earlier.
3. Spirituality & Responsibility: The moment we finished discussing the importance of so many people in keeping us safe, he immediately mentioned, “can we all be safe?”. To which I answered, “well we can pray that may the superpower nature help us all to stay safe”. I continued, “and that we can all do our part by taking precautions of washing hands and as advised by the authorities.” This was followed by thinking good for all people in the world and a hope for everyone’s well-being.
4. Limitations & Realism: The next question that naturally followed was on the people falling sick even after we take so many precautions. To which I explained to him, “we are sometimes limited by natural forces like the one in this scenario, and we have to think what can be practically possible.” I further continued, “our knowledge of this virus is limited and that is why we are not able to treat or vaccinate people like we do for other diseases.”

This discussion was followed by a deep breath and a family hug. We kissed each other and continued the day with care and hope.

After today’s discussion, I can sense that in this globalised civilisation, we all can collectively learn so many things from this pandemic situation. Multiple industries have different takeaways and suggestions for future preparation to minimise such scenarios from happening.

At the same time there is a large population of children and an unorganised industry of “Parenting” who are a part of it. Fear is equal for adults and children alike. However, we need to inform and guide our kids in a careful way, so that the focus is not just on fear, but on what can we learn and share in order to make our future better.

After all, today’s children are tomorrow’s future!

With Hope And Prayers.

Shaleen.