This will be a holiday season truly unlike any other. With travel, parties, and in-person religious services canceled due to rising coronavirus cases, the loss of these holiday traditions takes an added toll on those already struggling to parent through a physically distant and socially distancing pandemic. Yet, this holiday season offers us, as adults, the opportunity to help our children process all that has happened.
It’s been a long year, and it’s understandable that many parents and children are feeling sadness for all of the losses in 2020. As we look ahead to 2021 and hopefully brighter times ahead, it’s important to remember what we have to be grateful for. Many families have been able to spend far more time together than they otherwise could have. While that extended closeness can bring stressors—as anyone trying to navigate remote learning with children while working from home can attest—it also brings a chance to appreciate the joy of seeing children learn and grow. One friend shared the sweetness he feels while working at home four feet away from his seven-year-old son who is attending school remotely—it has brought about a new closeness, despite the odd circumstances. We have heard many similar stories from around the country.
As two professionals trained in child and brain development, we know that there’s a scientific reason why it’s important to recognize the sweetness children bring and appreciate kids for who they are. Parents help their children make sense of the world around them. Decades of research have shown that the creation of positive childhood experiences can mitigate the effects of adversity. While brain science has helped us understand how adverse childhood experiences cause toxic stress for children, which can lead to poor health outcomes, we also know that positive childhood experiences protect adult mental health and promote healing from toxic stress. In fact, many people emerge from difficult experiences with deeper, more meaningful relationships that they carry with them for the rest of their lives.
Seemingly simple actions can make a huge difference for children into adulthood. Parents can make new positive memories through small moments where you can remind children how important they are and even create new, special traditions. When you can’t give your children exactly what they want or have come to expect this year, these memories of family togetherness will last a lifetime. Remind them that they personally sacrificed to protect all of us—remote schooling, mask-wearing, and social distance protected others who are more vulnerable.
Of course, the holiday season was often stressful even before COVID-19. And all families need support to get through these uniquely challenging times. It’s on all of us to work together with parents to help create positive experiences for children. These can be as foundational as providing safe environments by extending eviction protection for families and making sure children have enough food to eat. It means finding safe ways for children to build and maintain supportive relationships. It means greater understanding and support for families with school-aged kids who are more in need of opportunities to interact with other children so important for their emotional development. And for all families facing stress, it can mean finding ways to reach out to ask for support and be able to vent those feelings.
Protecting childhood must be set into motion by public policies, including paid parental leave, additional stimulus funding aimed at stabilizing family life until the pandemic ends, and support for our cash-strapped schools. We need the continuation of policies that provide food support for kids not getting their meals at school, and economic supports and employment practices that lessen economic stress and allow parents to focus on caring for their children.
We all feel occasional frustration and despair. These are extraordinary times, but our hope is that soon enough we will be able to look back and find those positive experiences that are so crucial to our children’s wellbeing. This holiday season let’s help each other hold it together and demonstrate love, compassion, and hope, so all our children will remember 2020 as a time when they and their families celebrated and they felt safe and unconditionally loved. Children will always remember these times; as adults we can make sure that they have something to laugh and smile about when they tell stories to their grandchildren.
For more information, please visit https://positiveexperience.org.
Robert Sege, MD, PhD, is a pediatrician and Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he directs a new Center for Community-engaged Medicine and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington. He serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Children’s Trust and Prevent Child Abuse America.
Melissa T. Merrick, PhD, is President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America, the nation’s oldest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect. She is also a Licensed Psychologist.
