Unmasking COVID-19 for Your Kids

In a recent parent meeting, a mother told me that their child was almost obsessive about keeping their mask on, demonstrating symptoms of anxiousness when thinking of going out in public or seeing others in public without a mask on. Even when the schools had removed the mandates and most of his peers were now maskless, their child refused to even leave the house without being masked up. “I am worried that this will make it harder for him to fit in” the mother lamented. And now she needed help to remove the mask, and the anxiety that paired with it.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has been one of the most polarizing and dividing events among our society in at least our generation, if not modern history. Arguments for mask mandates, quarantines, vaccinations and political motivations have turned friends and families into literal enemies, with each side accusing the other of not caring for humanity because of their views on the global pandemic. The problem we failed to recognize at the time was that we were each reacting with our own perspective, with our own influences, based on our own experiences and void of any empathy for “the other side”. The adults arguing for their side became dysregulated, often so much so, that we forgot that our little ones were watching.

Breaking Down the Brain Science

What did the pandemic do to our brains as adults? In very simple terms, it really messed us up!  When there is a threat to our health and safety, not to mention the health and safety of our family, our hypothalamus kicks into high gear. Our hypothalamus is responsible for the fight, flight, or freeze mechanism and we can probably picture examples of each of these responses in the world we saw around us.

Plenty of fighting was happening, not just politically, but for toilet paper. TOILET PAPER! Literal fights were breaking out in the grocery store for people hoarding toilet paper. Our family sadly/comically commemorated this phenomenon with a toilet paper ornament on our 2020 Christmas tree. People who had engaged cordially previously on social media were now wishing physical harm or death on people who disagreed with them.

Flight was observed in the self-imposed quarantines, leaving in-person jobs for telecommuting, avoiding relationships and diving into maladaptive behaviors like drinking or overeating.

Freezing was shown simply with the COVID brain fog that inevitably took over some and made it hard to focus and function typically as we had pre-March 2020.

With the hypothalamus acting as a safety mechanism, often activated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it made it difficult for our prefrontal cortex, or the thinking part of our brain, to balance out what we were experiencing.

Because of the constant news coverage, social media feed and discussions around the typical dinner table, our brain was constantly thrust back into fight, flight or freeze, leaving no time to regulate ourselves or examine critically how our actions or words could impact our children in the long term.

The Impact of our Brain Being TOO GOOD at it’s job

Now as adults, this experience was and is dysregulating. And sometimes, yes, we may have had the extra glass of wine or finished off the Oreos to stave off the feeling of helplessness, but because we have had previous experience with self-regulation simply by living long enough to need to learn, we were able to make it through relatively unscathed on the other side. The issue is that our children were watching us. They were watching the same news stories and reading the same stories on the internet we were. They listened to us complain about the politics and the mandates being too lax or too restrictive. They were removed from their peers and the structure of education. And they were bombarded with all of these messages without the learned experience of adequate self-regulation, cognitive processing and critical thinking. And one of the worst things in my opinion was that they were told; “Wear a mask or you will die”.

Now I know that it likely wasn’t said that way, because what kind of person would actually say that to a child? But imagine being 8 years old in March 2020. Your world has turned upside down. You are hearing there is a virus that is killing people and the adults don’t know how to stop it. But, you are also being told if you do have to go out in public to wear a mask “to be safe”. Your 8-year old brain now believes that there is a solution to protect you from this virus which means you will get to stay alive. And then, all of the sudden, the adults decide that masks aren’t needed anymore. Wait, WHAT?!?  In relative terms, you were just told that the mask was needed to be safe, meaning the opposite of wearing the mask meant being unsafe.  Imagine the confusion and uncertainty that your 8 year old self might feel at this time.

So what can we do to reverse two years of confusion?

1. Do what is best for your family

There are still a variety of opinions about the necessary precautions still needed to prevent and protect against COVID-19. The science continues to develop and inevitably, so too does the COVID virus. As before, there is no perfect answer to solving this problem, which means that it is up to you to determine the best course of action for your family. No one knows what is best for your situation than you. Trust yourself as the parent of your child to make informed decisions in their best interest. And be consistent.

2. Be honest with what you know and what you don’t know

There is nothing more confusing for a child than when their trusted adult speaks in absolutes and then changes their mind. Share with your child in age appropriate terms where you stand on important issues and why. Also be willing to say “I don’t have enough information to make a decision right now, but when I do, we can talk about it more”. Also be willing to say “I was wrong/I made a mistake” when you find that the information you shared might have been wrong or misleading.

3. Remove the trigger

In this day in age, keeping children completely off of technology or away from the news is nearly impossible. Even schools have kept some aspects of online learning after returning to the physical classroom. However, it is imperative that we limit the influence that the outside world has on our children’s mental health. News channels make money by people watching, and to keep people watching they must continue to put the most shocking or fear-based information on loop. This puts our brains, and the brains of our children, right back into fight, flight or freeze. If you want your children to have information, talk about it together, without using television or technology, dosing the information in an age and developmentally appropriate way.

4. Validate, Validate, Validate!

Acknowledge the anxiety around removing that safety net that your child sees in the mask.  Normalize that many people are worried about COVID and that they are not alone. Model ways to avoid getting sick, not just with COVID, but also the flu, the common cold, etc. by coughing into your elbow (we call it the cough pocket), washing your hands often, standing further away from others and living a healthy lifestyle. When they are ready, start slowly with removing the mask in open air areas or indoor spaces that have a low concentration of people. Continue to acknowledge what they might be feeling while their mask is off and praise them consistently for pushing through the discomfort. Of course, if it becomes overwhelming support them back to their comfort zone, either in distancing from others or putting the mask back on until the discomfort is tolerable.

5.  Seek professional support

If you find that the mask wearing is in fact impacting their socialization at school, consider reaching out to the mental health professional at their school for support. You may also consider finding a private practice or community based mental health professional to support with the anxiety and self-regulation strategies.

Did your child struggle with the transition to losing the mask?  Tell us how your family coped in the comments!