How to Talk to Children About the Coronavirus

Navigating Conversations with Honesty and Understanding

About two months ago, a reader asked me to address the question, "How do you talk to children about the coronavirus?" My initial reaction was that I didn't know, so I had nothing to say. However, as a mother of two, I realized that I do have some insights since I've been talking to my children about it throughout this period.

I recalled the evening my father died. When I returned from the hospital, my eldest daughter, then three and a half, was asleep. I worried about how I would explain his death to her in the morning. A child psychologist I trust advised me, "If humans knew what death is, we could figure out how to explain it to her appropriately. But since we don't know exactly, you have to think about what it means to you and convey that to her."

This principle was incredibly helpful during that difficult time, and I believe it applies to talking to our children about the coronavirus. If we knew exactly what the coronavirus is, in the same way, we understand a military operation or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would be easier to discuss it with our children.

But we are experiencing this pandemic with our children for the first time, and we can't draw on personal or family history to guide us. Therefore, I decided to base my conversation with my children on what the coronavirus means to me.

For me, the coronavirus is an opportunity to look reality in the eye. I assume the virus will weaken, and we will learn to live with it, but it has torn a hole in the curtain that hid reality from us. This hole is crucial to look through because it reveals that, despite our desire to hold on to what we have, everything is constantly changing.

Before the pandemic, we could hide from this truth by focusing on advertisements, vacation pictures, models, shiny shop windows, and tantalizing Instagram food photos. We could create a bubble where old age, pain, and illness were banished. It was nice and shiny, but did it do us any good? Given our human limitations, were we helping ourselves by avoiding the reality of illness, loss, and pain? I think not.

I only gained the courage to share this with my children after asking my son during a nighttime conversation under the stars, "What is the one thing adults don't understand about children?" He replied, "Adults don't understand that children are much tougher than they think. Children know when their parents are worried, and they would be much happier to know what their parents are worried about than to have it hidden from them."

I listened to his message. He gently told me that parents often say, "Not now, let's not talk about it in front of the children." This confirmed that children prefer to know the truth. The truth revealed by the coronavirus is always the truth. The pandemic may pass, but the truth it uncovered remains.

Another layer of this truth is that we are all connected. This fact was more comfortable to deny before. Poverty and lack were kept at bay by socio-economic status, and wars were geographically bounded. We didn't have to look at what was happening in Gaza, Syria, or Africa.

We had a hidden threshold by which we decided whose deaths deserved our attention. We taught our children that the life of one Israeli is worth more than many others. But the coronavirus changed all that. Suddenly, all deaths are equal. The virus still affects the weak more severely, but no one is immune. The health of others is now directly relevant to us.

We were always connected, and the coronavirus is an excellent way to start a conversation about this with our children. Before doing this, I recommend you think about what the coronavirus means to you. What conclusion do you come to now? If we are all connected, should we be more responsible towards each other? If everything is temporary, should we focus more on the present?

In other words, the closing of the physical world is an opportunity for the important journey within. In communication with children, as in literary writing, one rule always applies: "Don't tell me, show me." The more you act in a way that aligns with your conclusions from this crisis, the more likely your children will adopt the same conclusions themselves.