How to help your child cope with COVID-19 isolation and return to new normal

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult for most of the population. While parents have had to adjust to pandemic-style working, kids have had to stay mostly indoors away from their friends.

Cottage Health pediatric, Laura Sices, said she is most concerned with teenagers coping with isolation. Meanwhile, if parents were available for infants and toddlers, she is less concerned with them.

For those parents who are still at home with their kids, Sices recommends, “To really be present with them for each day for part of the day. Really engage with them at their level on the floor, playing with them, being present. Turning off the electronics for part of the day.”

And for those parents who are ready to return to a new normal as we begin to open up, Sices encourages patience from parents.

“For most kids when there’s a big change,” said Sices, “this opening up and going back to normal routines will be, it’s a transition. It may take kids some time to warm up the new situation, to go back to what feels to them as new routines even though to us parents we feel that they are old routines. For kids, it will be a big change.”