Our journey through Covid: A family activity for processing loss

I am so aware of so many living with deep loss at present. The losses have accumulated over the past 18 months in multiple, unanticipated ways. The thing that stands out for me is that as the pandemic continues and pandemic-fatigue has indeed become a thing, we’re struggling to know how to process our own losses and struggles, let alone help our children navigate them.

Children are experiencing anxiety in unprecedented numbers. Anecdotally, from my private practice over the last 18 months, over 80% of children have come for play therapy due to symptoms of anxiety manifesting in their lives.

I don’t think we can separate loss and the experience of anxiety. C.S. Lewis writes about the visceral experience of grief* as feeling the same as fear.

No wonder we are finding ourselves anxious, afraid and overwhelmed.

Here’s a bit of a family challenge and activity, to process your losses together. This is an example of a way to process the Covid pandemic and how it has affected you. I made this on a Google Jamboard. This is a timeline or road map through Covid-19 from a fictitious child’s point of view. The blue sticky notes are dates or facts marking a rough chronology. The green sticky notes are memories of the experience of lockdown and the impact of covid, whether positive or negative.

Example of my journey through covid

Why not each make your own timeline or road map through the Covid journey over the last 18 months? You can do it electronically like I did, or on a piece of paper. Yours might have illustrations instead of lots of words. You could use symbols, or even cut out magazine pictures to collage your journey.

The point is to remember back to when Covid first started, how did you feel? How do you feel about Covid today? What did you miss out on? What did you enjoy? Make sure you record major events that happened in the family. Talk about them together. It’s OK if you remember different things, and it’s certainly OK if you feel totally differently about the same events. You don’t have to make your timelines “agree” with one another, and your timeline does not have to be accurate in terms of chronology. A general sense of when things happened is fine. (True confession, right now I would draw 2020 from June onwards as a blurry line…)

Some of your losses may be massive. You may have lost significant friends and family this past year. Some losses may seem relatively insignificant, such as missing out on social occasions. Losses are losses and it is how we experience them that matters. Respect one another’s timelines, ask questions, feel free to be sad or silly together. Don’t force anyone in the family to participate in this activity, it should be voluntary. Not everyone is ready to think about losses.

Finally, if you feel the need to celebrate what you have achieved, you can always go back to making certificates.

Thank you for being here, on my timeline!

*I use grief and loss interchangeably for the purposes of this post as the losses we have experienced are like grief in this time even if the loss is not specifically related to a death.