Coming Out of Our COVID Caves: An Expert’s Guide to Re-Entry
For the past 15 months, we’ve been carefully following safety protocols, and strict mandates have helped inform our decisions. Now, as we come out of our COVID caves, the rules are more ambiguous and varying comfort levels collide. It can create a whole new wave of anxiety around what feels safe, especially when our precautions don’t match those around us.
In this Voices of Compassion podcast, CHC’s Dr. Vivien Keil, shares coping strategies for easing our family’s way back into the world with courage and compassion. Read more ›
They are the people you love most in the world, but living 24/7 under one roof with your family is stressful and tension filled. Even small things that never bothered you are major irritants now. And now you have the added tension of re-entry – with different family members having different ideas about what that should look like. How do you as a parent navigate all of this and support your family? 
As parents, we all want to create a safe, nurturing and stable home for our families. And the collective, cumulative trauma of the past year has made it harder than ever. So it makes sense that we might turn to trauma-informed parenting, often utilized by foster parents or those whose children have experienced trauma, for ideas. 
My name is Ramsey Habib Khasho. I still wince when I say my middle name. (Sorry, Dad). The name harbors years of discrimination against me and my family, and the ensuing internalized shame. And then there’s the shame of feeling the shame, even after all this time. 
Feeling anxious about coming out from behind your computer screen? You are not alone. According to the APA, nearly 50% of Americans say they feel anxious about getting back to ‘normal’ post-pandemic, enough for psychologists to coin the phrase “re-entry anxiety.”
We’re experiencing what mental health experts call a “collective trauma”– overwhelm, isolation and the loss of what life used to be. Some have flourished during shelter-in-place and are anxious about re-entry. Others have lost so much that it feels like only thing left to hold onto is hope. 
For those with social or situational anxieties, sheltering-in-place may have brought comfort and control, and even the anticipation of re-entry can be debilitating. But these stressful times can also be a teaching moment, for us to validate our kids’ feelings and model healthy coping strategies.
Research indicates that self-compassion is associated with greater emotional resilience, higher self-confidence, more caring behavior, and less reactive anger. 
COVID has altered almost every aspect of our lives, and the effects of this cumulative and prolonged stress response can affect our brain size, structure and functioning.
The work of young children is to build language and social skills, much of which happen through family relationships, play and social interaction with peers. With kids spending so much more time at home and online, it’s important to create lots of opportunities for our young children to practice these skills in other ways. 
