How Children Cope During the Pandemic

Guest Contributors: Arifa Zaidi M.D. and Timothy Rice M.D.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us. Undeniably, some families are impacted more than others. Social gaps exist in the pandemic (Kolata, 2020), and children in their every-day lives bear witness to this fact, too. When logging-on for remote schooling, students glimpse into the homes of their peers. Home backgrounds remotely shared with the classroom give new clues into how their classmates live their lives (Lee, 2020). Call it "the weight of the Zoom background."

How do we apply the principles of psychoanalysis from the times of Freud to the present to help us to talk to our children about differences in lifestyle and status that present themselves in this new forum?

Step 1: Understanding defenses: A focus on feelings and our responses

Difficult realities can evoke painful feelings. Sometimes children and adults alike employ less adaptative measures to manage these feelings. These include processes like denial and disavowal of awareness of what is seen. Psychoanalysts identified these processes as defense mechanisms, which occur outside of our conscious awareness. These processes impede an individual’s coming to terms with reality and its personal meanings to the individual through feelings. They also foreclose an opportunity to talk and to process the realities of what is observed. This can lead to isolation from the community and fragmentation of society.

More adaptive defense mechanisms include affiliation and sublimation. Affiliation entails mobilizing the feelings that arise towards finding a means to identify and to warmly connect with a loved one as a source of support, while sublimation unfolds in a process where the feelings generate products for the common good. In the latter, for example, action may be taken to become involved in a community project to reduce social gaps. While these more adaptive defenses occur outside of awareness, they create an opportunity to become involved with reality for the greater good and to reflect and to talk about what is transpiring. Engagement with reality with a parent and child permits an opportunity to process the once painful feelings within a sphere of positivity.

Step 2: Preparation for action: Engagement through active reflection

How can we shift from reactions like denial and disavowal towards more active engagement with the realities before us and our children? First and foremost, a parent has to do the hard work of acknowledging these realities and allow themselves to accept their own feelings, both positive and negative, in relation to these realities. In this manner, denial and disavowal may be overcome.

Fewer opportunities for access to care in minority and low-income families translates to greater health complications and less opportunity for parents to support the home. Disease, death, increasing unemployment, and alcohol and substance use rates impact the children in these homes; those who are disadvantaged hurt the most. A 2019 study in the British Journal of Social Psychology shows that socioeconomic status is an important factor in building the self-concept (Eastbrook. 2019). How might this affect the children in the classroom? Are socioeconomic disparities acceptable? Is having exposure into each other’s lives enriching for children? Are these issues too deeply rooted in society’s history to discuss with children?

These questions require reflection within the adult. The uncomfortable feelings that are evoked can be confronted. Overcoming denial and disavowal through reflection generates the potential for more productive responses to these feelings. Now the adult becomes ready to speak to the child.

Step 3: Action: Present an invitation for your child

Children are more likely to use denial or disavowal than adults (Cramer 2006). A parent can help a child move from these less helpful defenses towards more productive responses through an invitation to follow their lead. Show the child that you can face the feelings that come up with these realities. Your openness, warmth, and strength makes it easier for the child to mobilize affiliation to you. In child development, there is a natural shift towards affiliation; by promoting this process, you are not only facilitating a healthy development, but allowing the child an opportunity to engage in difficult topics.

Ask the child, “How has school been for you through the computer?” Lead the child towards the specific questions that show that you can confront what may arise: “Many children have had uncomfortable experiences upon seeing things in the backgrounds of their classmates’ homes; has this happened to you?” Do not be surprised if your child initially denies or disavows with a, “Huh?”, or “I don’t know what you are talking about?”, or a “No.” Your child may be reporting accurately, but your child may also be employing less than helpful defenses. Help the child by commenting on this, “Sometimes we all see things we do not want to see and it is easier to pretend we did not.” After that, if the child appears open to further discussion, prompt the child with direct questions like, “Some children have noticed classmates learn in cramped spaces, or with yelling and fighting in the background, or someone sick. Has anything like this happened to you?”

If your child becomes distressed and wants to stop the conversation, let the child do so, but be clear that you are available to discuss this at any time. You may later want to bring up the child’s distress about the conversation to let them know that all is well, for example, “I noticed that when I asked you about some difficult things you may have seen in the classroom you wanted to end our conversation. Was there anything about that?” Reassurance to the child that these things are safe to discuss with you, and that you are accepting of your child unconditionally, is the priority in these conversations.

Defense Mechanisms Essential Reads

Idealization: Is This Too Good to Be True?

A New View of Defense Mechanisms

In many situations a child will come to a point of bringing up something difficult that was seen. This presents a fantastic opportunity to allow the child to affiliate with you through your ability to talk about it, process the feelings around it, and even make an action plan to help channel those feelings into something productive. Many families may choose to contribute to the community in some way. Others may find another pursuit. Irrespectively, you are helping connect with your child on a difficult topic through the lessons of psychoanalysis, and how defenses make up many layers of our lives.

Conclusion

Psychoanalysis provides a structure for healthy parenting. Understanding defenses is a first step. Using reflection to help oneself move from denial and disavowal towards an availability for affiliation and sublimation prepares the parent to help the child. Engaging the child in a conversation through these strengths over feelings not only helps a child in this difficult area of social gaps exposed through virtual schooling, but helps to promote a healthy socioemotional development through defenses. Acknowledging that painful feelings can arise in what we see and showing our children how to address them will generate children that can find strength to start closing disparities and to open an opportunity for a more equal future.