Explaining the coronavirus to our older kids can be pretty straightforward—we can answer their questions in age-appropriate ways, acknowledge their anxiety, talk about what we’re doing to stay healthy and find ways to help others. But for our little kids, who may now be home from daycare or preschool indefinitely and missing their regular playdates with their toddler or preschool-age friends, it’s a little trickier.
Usually the internet is full of suggestions and resources for how to talk to our little kids about difficult topics, but as Kate Schweitzer writes for PopSugar, this pandemic is a first for all of us.
As my young kids began to learn more and more about the current coronavirus outbreak, I’ve struggled with how to explain this “new normal” to them without relying on the gentle guidance of a children’s book. No such hardcover story or pint-sized board book exists. But a fledgling author named Kim St. Lawrence created the next best thing.
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St. Lawrence’s video version of her children’s story, Time to Come in, Bear: A Children’s Story About Social Distancing, is the sweet explanation our little kids need right now:
The story starts off, “Time to come in, Bear. The world caught a cold. You won’t get its germs if you just stay at home.” It then goes on to explain in a calming, rhyming cadence all the fun things they can still do inside, why it’s important to hold off on visiting their grandparents and that playdates aren’t over forever.
“While we stay inside, Bear, the heroes still fight,” the story wraps up. “To clean up the germs and make the world alright.”
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