Parenting during COVID-19: Intolerance of Uncertainty

If anxiety is a fire, then uncertainty is its oxygen.

Every day of not knowing when their school will open up again, how much longer they will be icons on a screen to their teachers, can fuel despair in our children. Not knowing which relatives will survive this winter is a devastating “what if” for anxious children. When we reassure our children, we are also struggling as parents to give such platitudes without certainty.

Core fear is often the driving force behind these daily anxious thoughts.

In the case of COVID, the core fear for children can be that not everyone they love will survive the virus and that we will never return to normal. Uncertainty triggers us to try to foretell the future. As adults we can understand the science of vaccines or perceive how policy changes can flatten the curves. Perhaps we can foretell a rosy outcome in the near future. However, for those of us suffering from the negative bias of anxious thinking, we are not necessarily able to tap into these concrete sources of hope.

Most parents and children alike have a natural aversion to an unpredictable situation.

This aversion is normal and healthy, and evolutionarily necessary. It keeps us on our feet. However, when aversion turns to anxiety, we are quick to catastrophize unknown outcomes. Even before the pandemic, most anxious parents are familiar with the discomfort of the uncertain. Especially with our oldest child, every major juncture and transition in their development is a master course in confronting the unknown. If we are lucky, we have more seasoned parents around us, reassuring us when we catastrophize a doctors’ visit or fear the worst before the first day of kindergarten.

COVID-19 is distinct because we are all new at this. No one around us can offer the wisdom of having been through it before. Our children sense and reflect this newness.

Children can perceive that this is a different flavor of the uncertain, and a more dangerous version.

A child who is anxious about COVID might ask dozens of questions, such as “When will I get to have a sleepover again? How long until I see Grandpa? Is school going to be normal next year?” These questions can be irritating due to our own uncertainty as adults living through the pandemic ourselves. However, we must recognize that the child is desperately trying to put parameters on their worry, define the future with some familiar confidence.

While we cannot offer our children certainty, we can empathize and validate their emotions. We can recognize their struggle and offer them some insight into ours. But I would not share the true extent of our fears. We are the closest our children have to a seasoned guide through the pandemic, and they need to hear us say: everything will be OK.

Learn about how Parenting Therapy at South Boulder Counseling can help you here.