I love the reflection that the psychologist F. Morelli makes about COVID-19 in the newspaper “El Mundo”, especially about families: “I believe that the universe has its way of restoring the balance of things according to its own laws, when they are altered. The coronavirus forces us to close schools and pushes us to look for alternative solutions, to bring dad and mom back with their children. It forces us to be a family again.”

In an increasingly frenetic world where we all run all day, taking things for granted and believing that we control time, suddenly this break comes, a completely new situation for us, full of uncertainty and restrictions that can increase every day. However, we can get something very positive from all this, take advantage of this time to enjoy with your family.

How much time do you usually spend with your children doing fun things? The time we dedicate to our children’s childhood is crucial for their education and the transmission of values. Parents are their main point of reference. They shape their personalities using our words and actions as a framework. Learn from us. After a study carried out by Nora Kurtin with more than 3,400 parent hours with the aim of knowing how much time we spend with them each day, it was discovered that in their first 12 years of life we ​​spend around 27,980, that is, 3 years, 2 months and 9 days. That is, an average of about 3 hours a day from Monday to Friday. Perhaps in your case it is a little more, but in reality it is very little time, especially considering that we probably dedicate most of it to tasks such as going to and from school or extracurricular activities, doing homework… Excessive obligations (work, household chores, social activities…) turn us into hyperbusy people for whom time slips through our fingers.

So, let us welcome this period of confinement to spend quality time with our family, and what does quality time mean? Significant mindfulness time. That is, share with them moments, conversations, tasks or activities where our children are active and feel listened to.

Likewise, let’s help our children understand what is happening; They are exposed to a lot of information that their mind cannot process, and this can cause them anxiety and fear, which is why I propose some tips that may be useful: transmit information appropriate to their age, provide them with basic hygiene guidelines that help them manage the situation, reassure them by explaining that in our cities there are people such as health workers and security forces who work to guarantee our health and safety, and as far as possible, avoid exposing them to the media. And let’s not forget that we are models of behavior for our children as parents and, as children.