‘I lost my holidays’: Helping children voice and deal with disappointment during Covid-19

As we got through the first stage of a heightened alert phase, many parents and children should be breathing a sigh of relief. They’ve been urged to stay home for about a month and many are still restless.

Studies have shown that suppressed feelings of frustration and resentment may fester and erupt as emotional outbursts, aggression, anxiety and moodiness.

As the June holidays draw to a close, parents would welcome a reprieve as their children return to school.

But for the children, they may feel that they have been robbed of their break, plans and expectations of what the holidays were supposed to bring.

As uncertainty from the Covid-19 pandemic looms, we may need to prepare for a new norm of staying home for the holidays or a disruptive school term.

How should parents deal with their children’s disappointment and mitigate this?

My 11-year-old nephew Cayden said with a sulk: “June holidays are (almost) over and I didn’t get to go out or do anything I had planned. This is the worst holiday ever. It’s not fair!”

This is probably the cry of many children who were looking forward to activities, birthday parties, sporting events, school excursions and trips in the holiday period and during the school term — only to have these cancelled time and again during this prolonged pandemic, which has been more than a year now.

And it is especially so as Singapore reverted to a heightened alert phase in mid-May due to the growing number of infections in the community.

How should I respond appropriately and compassionately to my nephew? How can I help him deal with his disappointment?

It may be easy for adults to understand that “things don’t always go as planned, so we deal with it”, but it is not the same for children who have far less experience in handling their emotions or having coping strategies when their expectations are not met, repeatedly.

This is a good time to foster resilience in our children and develop their ability to graciously and confidently handle the hard knocks when life lets them down.

We can begin by helping children voice their feelings.  

STRONG EMOTIONS HIJACK LOGIC

With my nephew Cayden, I know that logic or lecturing him won’t help him. Doing so may provoke him instead and result in a negative response.

I would first need to respond to his brain’s emotional needs. 

When a child is feeling upset or angry, the emotional part of the brain hijacks the entire brain and the child is thus beyond reasoning. 

This happens to adults, too. Have you ever made irrational statements and decisions in the heat of anger?

GIVING VOICE TO FEELINGS

Instead, I first acknowledged Cayden’s feelings.

“You look like you are very angry right now,” I would say, to let him “feel felt”.

With younger children, we may need to support them in learning “feelings” vocabulary through emotion charts or stories. 

Being able to label your feelings creates self-awareness and is the first step to managing your emotions and self-regulation, a critical skill to develop in life.

BUILDING CONNECTION

Next, I tried to build a connection with Cayden to show that I cared about his situation.

“Going out and doing the things you had planned for the holidays must be important for you,” I said.

Sensing that I was available to listen to him, Cayden began to talk about how he was looking forward to going out and doing many things including meeting up with his friends.

I listened empathetically without making any comments or judgements. 

By voicing out his disappointments, Cayden got his negative feelings off his chest and started to make sense of the situation. He also calmed down.

Building connections is an important step in helping children move from a reactive state to the point where they are receptive to learning from the situation.

For younger children, more prompting and support may be needed to help them voice out what is bothering them.

With teenagers, a compassionate and non-judgemental approach may be needed for them to trust that you have their welfare at heart.

DEALING WITH DISAPPOINTMENT

With older children, it is important to involve them in coming up with solutions to tackle the issues at hand.

This will empower them with confidence to find ways to help themselves when things don’t go their way in future and they will be more committed to carry out a solution they had devised.

You could share with your child how you felt when things didn’t turn out right for you and it was okay to feel that way, but not to let it get you down and how you learnt different ways to deal with it.

Recall examples of how the family or members had dealt with disappointments to give the child some ideas about what he could do.

When a child is calm and has moved out of his emotional state, his mind will be open to listening and creative ideas may surface.

Discuss what can and cannot be changed.

Help him find other ways to have fun and develop new hobbies or even help others. Channel the extra energy to good use.

Remind him to be grateful for what he has rather than what he has missed out.

As for Cayden, he decided to spend time at home practising his volleyball skills to make it to the school team next year. 

I wished him all the best and he went away happily with his own solution.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Cynthia Lim is a senior lecturer with the Early Childhood Education Programme at the SR Nathan School of Human Development, Singapore University of Social Sciences.