How To Talk To Your Little Kids About Hard Things
Life can be difficult, but knowing what to say to your child doesn’t have to be.
Miscarriage. Deaths. Medical diagnoses. Health emergencies. Pandemic. Police murder. Evacuation. Infertility. Burglary.
These are all hard things. In the last year, each of these has touched my family, and I have talked my little kids through every one.
My children, who are currently almost three and five years old, have been through a lot in a year. Let’s face it — it’s 2020 — we all have. One of the jobs of adults is to make sense of things for the children in their lives. The problem is, it can be hard to know exactly how to do that — especially during difficult times.
I’m lucky. I hold a master’s degree in counseling psychology. I worked with children as a therapist. I worked as a trauma researcher. Now I’m a writer. This means I have a practiced sense of the things you should think about and the kinds of words you can use when talking to little kids about hard topics. I wanted to share what I know, in the hopes that this knowledge makes hard situations a little easier for adults who have children in their lives.
I know that when hard things happen, it helps to have someone tell you exactly what to do. So that’s just what…
