Mister Rogers always has the right things to say. “It’s knowing that love can hold many feelings…”
YES. Our life’s current disruption, Covid-19, has fear, anxiety, sadness laced through-out. And all these feelings are necessary and important. The more we can give our feelings and our children’s feelings the calm, accepting, gentle attention they deserve, the more our children (and us) can feel secure in the love that allows them to process, grow, feel safe in all the topsy turvy of life. 
We can get busy trying to keep our children from feeling afraid or sad. We can get busy trying to fill their days, distract them, move them along to “happy”…and so often we do so because we love them and it will help US feel better.
And yet, it can be such a disservice, for those less-than-wonderful and very real feelings get buried. And when feelings get buried they tend to nibble away at us from the inside out and reappear in stronger, more detrimental ways.
So today, honor all your child’s (and your) feelings. Name the feelings, affirm them. Give them a space of grace–maybe within your arms? Maybe with you sitting alongside? Maybe just a safe, quiet place in which to melt down? Know that with your quiet self alongside allowing feelings to be felt your child can better able manage them.
And from there, play can be encouraged (a key way for a child to process upsetting things), books can be read, eyes can be twinkled, hugs can be shared, a renewed sense of purpose can be had as you both take action in whatever way leaves you feeling stronger, more settled, purposeful.
Then fear subsides. Sadness moves toward contentment. Anxiety quiets.
Love can hold many feelings.
Alice
Author and Parent Coach
www.denaliparentcoaching.com
©2020 Alice Hanscam