Developmental Regressions in the Age of Covid-19
In the last few weeks, more than a handful of parents have approached me either as friends or potential clients to discuss what appear to be significant developmental regressions in their children aged five and under. Some of them report that their once great sleeper is climbing into their bed at night. One told me that bedtime used to be a breeze and now their daughter wants to snuggle all night. Others find themselves cleaning up potty accidents between Zoom meetings. A few have seen both! I can say, anecdotally, that my own kids’ behavior has also changed, though ours has manifested as defiance and attitude, for better or worse.
We have been social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 virus now for about three months! My children have only left the house to drive through Dunkin, run some energy off in an empty field near the neighborhood school, and to pick up groceries or dinner curbside. We have been blessed in that our primary income has remained stable, and will for the duration of the crisis. Overall, our family is personally experiencing limited consequences and I like to believe that our stress as a household has stayed more or less level.
“The whole pandemic is essentially one mass trauma that we are going through and little ones can be especially sensitive to big changes that they can’t understand. Anxiety in little ones can manifest as developmental regression, emotional outbursts and anger, clinginess. They don’t have any way to truly understand it all, so they will act out in ways that get their needs met, although it doesn’t make logical sense to adults.”
But boy, if I’ve learned anything about children since becoming a parent, it is that they are so, so perceptive. You might think you are being cool as a cucumber with your handy daily color-coded schedules and Pinterest crafts or arranging virtual playdates for your kids all while working from home, but they still sense that things are off. They might not even quite realize they’ve been homebound, but they do know that something is up. They listen to our grown-up conversations from the other room. They certainly know when we are on edge and a bit snippier than usual. A lot of children cannot begin to articulate what is happening to them or to the world around us. They are clueless. Just because your toddler can’t hold lengthy conversation about flattening the curve or how this might affect the global economy doesn’t mean they don’t perceive a great deal.
This leads to back to these parents and their concerns. What are our children experiencing during this period of staying at home and social distancing? How might it affect their development? What can we do about it?
“The whole pandemic is essentially one mass trauma that we are going through and little ones can be especially sensitive to big changes that they can’t understand. Anxiety in little ones can manifest as developmental regression, emotional outbursts and anger, clinginess…” says child psychologist Lindsey Venesky, PhD, NCSP. “They don’t have any way to truly understand it all, so they will act out in ways that get their needs met, although it doesn’t make logical sense to adults.”
Everyone, children and adults, operate on a hierarchy of needs. (Hey, Maslow! Haven’t visited you since college!) Right now, we are all sitting near the bottom of the pyramid, like it or not. Now is simply not the time for self-actualization and you shouldn’t be pressuring yourself to accomplish great things. Moreover, you should grant a tremendous amount of grace to your toddlers who may be choosing behaviors that seem particularly frustrating to the parenting set. Our kids probably all have food and shelter covered, but do they have enough physical touch? Are you providing a sense of security and predictability in their days? Do we give them choices and control? Are we connecting with our kids each day and filling their buckets? Are we making time to spend one-on-one with them?
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is covered in most educational psychology courses on day one. The idea is that for our children to thrive, learn, and achieve, we must first meet their more primitive needs. In the case of the pandemic, we may find our children regressing because there is a real threat to their basic needs for predictability, security, routine, and connection.
Now, I am not up here on my soapbox trying to make anyone feel like they are failing their kids. My children are on their tablets as I type. We are all making concessions and reverting to survival mode just to get through the days.
The bottom line is that all of us, your child included, just want to feel safe, loved, and secure now more than ever. To meet that end, they might choose to “act out” in anger, throw tantrums, have potty accidents, or look to you for some snuggles in the middle of the night. I doubt I am the only adult who has craved comfort in the form of a cookie, glass of wine, warm cozy casserole, or a hug. Why do we think our children don’t have the same needs? Of course they do! And as frustrating as it may be for us, we owe them as much patience as we can muster (though mama, you are not failing if you are yelling more than usual, or need a break, or consider listing a small child on Etsy! We’ve all been there more than once this week alone!).
So, what can you do if your child is experiencing a developmental regression? Of course, short of letting our kids run amok peeing all over the place willy-nilly and sleeping in our beds and kicking us all night every night?
1) Keep a routine.
Now, to be clear, this does not require color-coding, strict adherence, or any sort of perfection. But, an approximate sameness from one day to the next would be a good start. In our house it looks like this:
7:00 TV show while we get breakfast on the table
Breakfast
8:00 Play inside (this is when I try to get down on the floor and engage with them, connect, play the games they choose, and give them my focus)
9:00 Play outside as soon as the sun is warm and I begin to lose my mind at the mess we’ve made
10:00 Throw a snack at them and tell them to stay outside and play together because we had three children so they would entertain each other
11:30-12:00 Lunch
12:30 Tablets while the baby naps and Mommy works
2:00 Shoo them outside and remind them repeatedly to close the screen door so flies don’t get in
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Mom and Dad try to spend some intentional time with all three boys
7:00 Bedtime
Sometimes we get wild and crazy and throw in a bike ride to visit the goats down the street and on Friday mornings we go get coffee and donuts. It is what it is, and I do my best. The only times that are strict from one day to the next is wake up time and bedtime. Because sleep.
2) Make time for your children during the day.
For those of you who love to torture yourselves, I suggest spending one-on-one time with your well-behaved only child by painting in white shirts over a white rug. This looks like it will end well.
I know how hard it is to carve out dedicated one-on-one time right now. Have more than one kid and it is virtually impossible to do. We work from home, school some kids from home, clean one room while another room is destroyed, fold the millionth pile of laundry… I know. I know. But… try. Put it on your to-do list if you have to. Even five to ten minutes of truly uninterrupted time with your child can fill their bucket in a way nothing else can. Focus on them. Play whatever they choose! Over here, it means I pretend to by mommy dinosaur sitting on my eggs and then my tiny baby dinosaurs hatch and climb all over me. I sure hope your kids mix it up for your sake, but follow their lead, even if it is down a very silly rabbit hole.
3) Give them some wiggle room
Dr. Venesky couldn’t say it enough: give these kids a little grace. The pandemic will pass. It will. It doesn’t feel like it, but this situation we are in is temporary. We are all living through a strange, new, invisible trauma, but one day we will return to “normal.” When we do, we can gradually resume all of our old routines, boundaries, and expectations and enforce them as we would under normal circumstances. That time will come. Venesky says that the best thing we can do today for our children is to meet those primitive needs for love and safety.
4) Know your children and read their needs
All of the advice in the world is only useful if it suits your child and nobody knows them like you do. Do some kids just need to go back to diapers for a bit while they experience a regression? Maybe, as much as I hate to say it. There are other kids who might benefit from going back to square one of potty training with rewards and no pants. Might there be some kids who can bedshare and get the security and love they crave while also being well-rested and pleasant? Sure. There may be just as many kids who really need boundaries in place around bedtime and sleep for their well-being. Be the parent- make the best choice for your child. Sleep is at the bottom of the pyramid for a reason. If you believe your child would be healthier staying in their own bed, then establish those boundaries. Be the parent your child needs, not the one you see on Instagram.
5) Boundaries are okay
We are living through an extraordinarily difficult and unique situation. Most parents are being asked to do more every day than is possible. At the very least it is impossible to do it all and do it well. If your mental health depends on your children staying in their own beds at night, it is okay to protect that boundary. Draw the lines you need to draw to be the best version of yourself for your children. You will be far better equipped to meet all of their other needs if your sanity is intact.
Writing this little blog, I set out to prescribe a list of concrete solutions to our collective parenting woes. I wanted to take problems and tell you, “this is how to fix them.” It would be wrong for me to publish anything that pretends to have the answers to your family’s problems without first knowing anything about your family’s problems. I briefly even wondered if I should even be accepting clients right now! As I wrote, it occurred to me that what I do is uniquely valuable in this moment. My goal going into every consultation is to assess a family’s needs, goals, style, and personalities to create a plan just for them. So, for some families I might just encourage them to do nothing for the moment and make sure their kids feel safe and secure. For others, it might mean developing a strategy to gently return to the status quo and correct some regression. Every family is going to look different because we all cope with anxiety differently.
The best thing I can do is support families in whatever way they need. So, if you just need someone to bounce ideas off of or if you want to know the best way to approach your child’s sleep or potty training regression, we can talk it over, or I can just be a listening ear. We really are all in this together.
