How Do We Help Our Children Thrive During Covid?

How Do We Help Our Children Thrive During Covid?

On the eve of my thirty-fourth birthday, I lay on my daughter’s twin mattress in the living room, surrounded by my three daughters, my best friend, and the little girl she is fostering, and marveled at this world that is so new and yet entirely the same.

Thunder called in the distance. Lightening flashed its reply, forcing me to move the salt lamp into the kitchen so my girls would feel safe.

My best friend and I talked about life in this time.

How do we help our children thrive during a pandemic? What if their childhoods don’t hold as much magic as our own did?

On Saturday, we took them to an independent bookstore, where we loaded up on children’s classics because chapter books have become the thread that ties together our days. We had a picnic at the park and encouraged them to play in the rain-fed creek ribboning between the silver birches rather than on the slides and swings that, due to the pretty weather, had seen a lot of traffic.

The little girl my best friend is fostering called, “There’s a mask in the creek!” My heart constricted at her blithe tone. Six months ago, most children wouldn’t have even recognized a mask. Now, they littered our creek and a floral handkerchief was tied to the branch of the tree like a pennant. My middle daughter pointed it out, but I told her it had probably been used for a mask, so we should not touch it.

Before we loaded up in the van, I walked over to the library next to the park and read the sign that said it was closed to browsing. How many hours had my daughters and I spent browsing those stacks? How many hours had we spent, sitting in a cluster of girl-mom pastels while listening to a story? For eight years I had participated in story time, and now that season was gone . . . or at least delayed.

Will I ever sit in story time with my children? Will I ever visit a park without first gauging numbers and later sanitizing hands? Will I ever get to sit in the school cafeteria, eating cold sandwiches and talking with my daughters’ friends? Will I ever get to take them on field trips or watch plays that are so enchanting it feels strange to step out of the theater and realize it’s not dark?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. But I do know where the childhood magic is.

The girls and I took a walk late Friday night to count the fireflies in the field. Our long gray warehouse’s windows glowed against the backdrop of cumulonimbus clouds. My best friend and the little girl hid in the high grass, jumping up and whooping to scare us. The girls took off running through the orchard, their spindly legs pumping and hands slicing as fireflies parted around them like the detritus of a comet.

Inside, we put on pajamas and made pallets on the floor and ate World War II cake with chocolate ganache icing. My parents came over to wish me happy birthday. We didn’t have candles, so I held my wish inside like a breath as I looked from face to face to face. . . .

My husband. Our children. My parents. My best friend. The people I love so deeply, gathered in one place.

This world we are living in is so new and yet entirely the same. The storm may be building on the horizon, but the owl still hoots in the twilit wood; the fireflies flicker above purple clover; the pear trees tremble in the summer sweet wind. The magic is not lost. Sometimes, we must just dig deeper to find it.

And in that digging, we will find where our treasure is.

How do you find treasure during Covid?