“How to Get Your Family Through a Pandemic Holiday”

We spoke with Jill S. Cohen, CT, family grief counselor, to get the best advice for having a conversation with kids about missing loved ones this holiday and for making sure this holiday is filled with happy memories for the whole family. Use this advice to help your family get through a very different and confusing holiday season, while ensuring that your own stress and anxiety levels are managed, too.

Cohen, who offers in-person and virtual private practice grief counseling for children and adults, suggests explaining to young ones that the reason some loved ones can’t be around this year is because of how much you truly love them:

“We really, really want to be with [family members] this holiday, but for the same reason we haven’t been going to our friends’ houses or to school or to restaurants, we can’t be with them this holiday. We love them so much that we don’t want to get them sick if we have bad germs or they have bad germs. If we have the holiday without them this year, we can hopefully see them soon and next holiday, too. When we love someone, we don’t want to get them sick.”

On the other hand, some family members may not be present at your gathering this year due to passing, whether from COVID-19 or other causes. This can be even more difficult to help your child reconcile with, but Cohen reminds us that allowing your child to grieve and encouraging them to talk about the lost loved one is important.

“Acknowledge that this is a sad time for all of us, and we feel sad and we might even cry because our heart hurts without them being there. It's okay to feel our feelings and be sad and mad that they are not here,” Cohen says.