Navigating Crisis Situations With Children

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When a child is experiencing a crisis or is concerned about a crisis, as parents, we often tend to tell them, “Don’t worry, nothing happened” or “Be happy” or “Everything is going to be ok” and so on. When we do so, we try to “protect” our children from the crisis. However, crisis can be a great growth opportunity for your child. While facing a crisis, a child learns how to handle difficult situations. Moreover, dealing with crisis situations can bring out values that are important for a child and can also help build their character in a natural and authentic way. So instead of trying to avoid a crisis, help your child go through their emotions and face the crisis. You can do so by having conversations about it with your child and holding a safe space for them to express themselves.

Here are some steps you can go through with your child to help them navigate crisis situations. It is important to note that the steps are not strictly in a specific order; rather they are fluid and you can move back and forth between them over a period of time.

Step 1: Acknowledgment. There are three levels of acknowledgment.

a) First, acknowledge what your child is feeling. For instance, if your child tells you that they are really worried about a crisis in the family, acknowledge the same by saying, “I understand that you are worried about the situation.”

b) Second, acknowledge and express gratitude that your child has chosen to share their feelings with you. You can say something like, “Thank you for expressing how you are feeling, to me, because it helps me understand what you are going through.”

c) Third, acknowledge that it’s okay to feel what they are feeling. Suppose they tell you that they are extremely scared, or worried, or frustrated, you can tell them that it is okay to be scared, or worried, or frustrated. You can perhaps add that even you would feel the same way in such a situation. This can be reassuring for the child.

Step 2: Help the child label their specific emotions. Develop their emotional granularity. For children, the vocabulary to express their emotions is pretty simple and mainly comprises of the words mad, sad, glad and scared. The corresponding emotions to these i.e., anger, grief, joy and fear can seem quite overwhelming to a child. For instance, if you take the emotion of fear, it is actually a huge one. However, when you examine closely, fear could stem from several causes like lack of clarity, lack of a feeling of security; it can come from darkness, etc.

So what can you, as a parent, do to help your child? You can help them granularize their emotions. In other words, bring down a big emotion that they may be feeling to a very specific emotion that they are going through in that instant. You can do this by asking them questions. For example, when a child says they are afraid, you can ask them, “Are you afraid because you are unsure?” or “Are you afraid because you are lonely?” or “Are you scared because you feel unsafe?” and so on. This emotional specificity or granularity can help de-escalate from a very strong emotion such as fear or hate to an emotion very specific to what the child is going through at that instant. When we move to a granular emotion, the negative emotion gets diffused, it becomes less strong and more manageable.

When you speak to your child this way over multiple occasions, you will find them using more and more granular emotional vocabulary over a period of time. As a parent, it is important that you work on building your child’s emotional vocabulary. This is because the more emotional granularity your child achieves, the easier it is for them to find a solution to their crisis or identify a way forward.

Step 3: Give/Share information. Have conversations with your child around whatever they are feeling or whatever it is that is making them anxious or disappointed or scared. You could ask them questions about it and at the same time, make sure to be around your child to answer the questions they may have. This is important because when you give them answers, they are likely to get more information and clarity, which will help them decide on the way forward.

Step 4: Be present for your child and offer your support. Say, for example, your child is worried about something. In such a case, ask them, “I can see that you are worried, and this worry is stemming from a lack of clarity. What do you want to do about it? What do you want to do to make things better?” This is a very significant step – when you, the parent, don’t solve your child’s problem but support them completely in navigating the crisis. You hold a safe space for them and be present for them while they figure out a way to navigate the crisis on their own. By doing so, you give them an opportunity to build their core values and character. The support here is offering them help with the things that they cannot do by themselves.

Depending on the situation, this step can take one or more flavours; the questions you ask your child can cover a variety of aspects like:

- How do you want to solve the problem?

- How do you want to contribute to the well-being of the family, community, or the world during these tough times?

- What values mean the most to you?

- What qualities/virtues will really help you navigate the crisis?

- What is the growth opportunity that is lying for you in this situation?

Here are two examples to understand crisis management with children:

Eleven-year-old Hari’s parents are going through a divorce and Hari’s mother tells him about it. Hari expresses anxiety regarding the divorce to his mother. So to begin with, Hari’s mother can acknowledge the fact that Hari is feeling anxious. She can thank her son for taking her into confidence and sharing how he feels about the whole situation. She can then reassure Hari that it is ok to feel what he feels. Following this, Hari’s mother can try to granularize her son’s emotion, focusing on what he says he is experiencing in that particular instance. Anxiety is a huge emotion and so she can ask Hari if he feels anxious because he is losing a sense of security or if he’s worried about how their life is going to be, post the divorce. She can also make sure she is available to answer any questions that he may have. So, Hari may ask his mother if he would be going to the same school anymore or if he would have to change his school and make new friends.

His mother can play a supportive role without rushing to fix his problem. She can provide information about the change of school that could help Hari make this transition. She can ask Hari for ideas on how he would want to cope with the transition and support him through it. She can offer to drive down Hari if he wants to meet his current friends on weekends. She can even help fix an appointment with the therapist in case Hari feels that would benefit him. In this way, Hari’s mother can help him go through a huge crisis such as divorce, taking one step at a time.

Let’s look into another example that reflects the current times – the COVID lockdown. Eight-year-old Aditi is feeling sad because she hasn’t met her friends in a long time and is missing them. She misses her school, her playtime and is feeling bored staying at home all day. Under such a scenario, Aditi’s father can assure her that it is okay to feel lonely, bored and upset that she is not able to do things like she normally would. Aditi may be worried and may wonder whether she will get infected with the coronavirus if she touches her father or mother. When she asks her father this, he can give her specific information and tell her, “Don’t worry, it won’t spread that way. We are both maintaining good hygiene by following all precautions.” (and explain what those precautions are) . This can give Aditi a lot of clarity.

He can then go on to ask, “what do you want to do about your situation? Is there some way in which you can contribute? Do you want to be a champion?” Aditi would then perhaps come up with the idea that just by being at home and taking care of her own cleanliness, she is a champion who is contributing positively to her family and community. By having such a conversation, Aditi’s father can actually help his daughter move from an anxious frame of mind to positive contribution, thereby building values as well in the process.

When your child is navigating a crisis, there are two things that they need to be clearly aware of. One, that you are present for them as much during the challenging time they are going through as you are for them during happier times; and two, you will always hold a safe space for them to express themselves. Further, while going through the steps discussed above, it is important to ensure that you have age-appropriate conversations with your child. Also, make sure you are a role model for your child. The way we navigate a crisis will contribute significantly to how our children deal with them.

Over a period of time, when you have conversations with your child and support them in navigating crisis situations, you are actually helping build values and character in them. And in the long run, you will see them become emotionally resilient individuals, capable of navigating different challenging situations in their life.

(Edited by Anupama Krishnakumar)

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