Family close but apart - are drive-bys just making it worse?
May 9, 2020 4:17 AM Subscribe
This is not a question about social distancing procedures as much as it is about the psychology of it.
We are a close-knit family living in four separate households in the same city. There are a few dozen cases in our metro area (under a million people). We are not seeing each other in person but we do weekly drive-bys where we stand under the balcony and wave while talking on the phone or shouting from the window. The kids seem to enjoy it mostly but I fear it might be confusing for them as well. Why can't auntie come in when she's already here? The toddler says solemnly, BECAUSE VIRUS, but I'm not sure how much he understands. He once told Grandma on the phone "Grammy is not coming cause she's angry with me".
I (the single aunt) work at a hospital so there is no way we can merge households (none of them really) and it looks like we have to be apart for who knows how long. Wouldn't it be psychologically healthier for the toddler and the other kids to just let the relationship slide for a while instead of maintaining this bitter-sweet balcony relationship? We do video calls but the small ones get bored easily. I'm okay with being more distant if it's better for them but I honestly just don't know. The parents so far are on the side of let's maintain as much (distant) contact as we can - if anything, I am the most paranoid one when it comes to contact precautions - but I'd like to make up my own mind. If we cannot see each other for at least a year does it make sense to maintain the closeness and how much of it? We were almost like one household in several apartments before the pandemic hit. Now we can't, BECAUSE VIRUS. I wonder if anyone else is in a similar situation and what your approach is. How do you make it easier on the kids?
We are a close-knit family living in four separate households in the same city. There are a few dozen cases in our metro area (under a million people). We are not seeing each other in person but we do weekly drive-bys where we stand under the balcony and wave while talking on the phone or shouting from the window. The kids seem to enjoy it mostly but I fear it might be confusing for them as well. Why can't auntie come in when she's already here? The toddler says solemnly, BECAUSE VIRUS, but I'm not sure how much he understands. He once told Grandma on the phone "Grammy is not coming cause she's angry with me".
I (the single aunt) work at a hospital so there is no way we can merge households (none of them really) and it looks like we have to be apart for who knows how long. Wouldn't it be psychologically healthier for the toddler and the other kids to just let the relationship slide for a while instead of maintaining this bitter-sweet balcony relationship? We do video calls but the small ones get bored easily. I'm okay with being more distant if it's better for them but I honestly just don't know. The parents so far are on the side of let's maintain as much (distant) contact as we can - if anything, I am the most paranoid one when it comes to contact precautions - but I'd like to make up my own mind. If we cannot see each other for at least a year does it make sense to maintain the closeness and how much of it? We were almost like one household in several apartments before the pandemic hit. Now we can't, BECAUSE VIRUS. I wonder if anyone else is in a similar situation and what your approach is. How do you make it easier on the kids?
Sometimes just having an activity is so helpful to get through the day. I think these visits could be good just because they are something to do and somewhere to go.
I also think it’s ok for kids to be sad and confused. It’s how we talk to them about those feelings that counts, I think. We focus on “telling the story” with our 2.5 year old. “X happened and then you started crying. You seemed sad.” Wait and respond to questions. She usually says “tell it again!” She loves these stories. It’s totally changed my perspective about “bad” emotions.
posted by CMcG at 5:44 AM on May 9, 2020 [17 favorites]
I also think it’s ok for kids to be sad and confused. It’s how we talk to them about those feelings that counts, I think. We focus on “telling the story” with our 2.5 year old. “X happened and then you started crying. You seemed sad.” Wait and respond to questions. She usually says “tell it again!” She loves these stories. It’s totally changed my perspective about “bad” emotions.
posted by CMcG at 5:44 AM on May 9, 2020 [17 favorites]
Years ago they wouldn't let parents visit sick children in hospital because the kids would cry so hard after the parents left that it made them sick. Of course the more the parents visited the better the kids did and the faster they healed, but the medical staff only observed how upset the kids were at the moment when they were left again and didn't realise that the kids without visits were doing so much worse.
A kid who says something like, "Grammy is not coming cause she's angry with me" is a kid who is processing an absence that worries them and is showing many good mental health traits. First they are exploring how other people feel. This shows they are aware that they can make people angry. Second they are exploring the possibility that they do not always know how other people feel. They are exploring the possibility that Grammy is mad and not telling them. Thirdly they are looking for reasons to explain things that don't make sense to them. They could also be projecting. If a kid says "Grammy is angry at me..." it often means that they are angry at Grammy. This is good if it opens a dialogue and the kid is given support at the extremely tough and essential work of learning to recognize their own emotions and to handle them. Projection is not a bad thing until it gets coupled with denial. It's a halfway step between recognizing the elephant in the room and recognizing which corner it is standing in.
So no, your visits will prevent the kids from forgetting they have a reliable alloparent and create a long term sense of security and relationship permanence. The alternative of ghosting on them, or going incommunicado might not cause visible distress, and the parents might report that they never ask questions and never mention you, but that doesn't mean the kids wouldn't have an awareness that they had lost someone close to them. Children's talent to endure lies in their ignorance of the alternatives. If auntie disappears and something they loved is gone and they don't talk about it, it's more likely to be that they don't have the words to express their feelings and don't believe that words will help them get you back, or process their loss.
Bottom line: if you have a good relationship with the kids continuing it and making it predictable is good, reducing it will be a loss for them.
But now I'm going to turn back to you: Is it possible that your question springs from finding the outside visits hard to sustain? Is it possible that you are feeling so much pain from not being able to hug them and boop their noses that you think it would reduce your distress to stop seeing them? Is it possible that it's been a few weeks now and you are getting exhausted and over extended and don't have the mental energy to keep doing the visits the same way you have? Yeah, that projection thing. Maybe you are asking the question because the visits aren't working for you anymore?
I think you should continue the visits as much as you can but I think you should consider some changes to what you are doing. Consider finding additional ways or different ways to connect with your family, and more ways to support your own mental health and executive functioning just in case you are in desperate need of a hug yourself and have been standing outside longer than you can endure.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:51 AM on May 9, 2020 [41 favorites]
A kid who says something like, "Grammy is not coming cause she's angry with me" is a kid who is processing an absence that worries them and is showing many good mental health traits. First they are exploring how other people feel. This shows they are aware that they can make people angry. Second they are exploring the possibility that they do not always know how other people feel. They are exploring the possibility that Grammy is mad and not telling them. Thirdly they are looking for reasons to explain things that don't make sense to them. They could also be projecting. If a kid says "Grammy is angry at me..." it often means that they are angry at Grammy. This is good if it opens a dialogue and the kid is given support at the extremely tough and essential work of learning to recognize their own emotions and to handle them. Projection is not a bad thing until it gets coupled with denial. It's a halfway step between recognizing the elephant in the room and recognizing which corner it is standing in.
So no, your visits will prevent the kids from forgetting they have a reliable alloparent and create a long term sense of security and relationship permanence. The alternative of ghosting on them, or going incommunicado might not cause visible distress, and the parents might report that they never ask questions and never mention you, but that doesn't mean the kids wouldn't have an awareness that they had lost someone close to them. Children's talent to endure lies in their ignorance of the alternatives. If auntie disappears and something they loved is gone and they don't talk about it, it's more likely to be that they don't have the words to express their feelings and don't believe that words will help them get you back, or process their loss.
Bottom line: if you have a good relationship with the kids continuing it and making it predictable is good, reducing it will be a loss for them.
But now I'm going to turn back to you: Is it possible that your question springs from finding the outside visits hard to sustain? Is it possible that you are feeling so much pain from not being able to hug them and boop their noses that you think it would reduce your distress to stop seeing them? Is it possible that it's been a few weeks now and you are getting exhausted and over extended and don't have the mental energy to keep doing the visits the same way you have? Yeah, that projection thing. Maybe you are asking the question because the visits aren't working for you anymore?
I think you should continue the visits as much as you can but I think you should consider some changes to what you are doing. Consider finding additional ways or different ways to connect with your family, and more ways to support your own mental health and executive functioning just in case you are in desperate need of a hug yourself and have been standing outside longer than you can endure.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:51 AM on May 9, 2020 [41 favorites]
He once told Grandma on the phone "Grammy is not coming cause she's angry with me".
I have a ton of respect for young humans as autonomous people with their own thoughts and feelings, and yet it's also true that sometimes they say things that aren't real even in their own heads. (And, really, adults do this too sometimes.) They make sentences that sound grammatically correct but mean something entirely different to them, or they use statements as a way of stating a hypothesis, or they forget/haven't really learned what a word means but reuse it in a set phrase, or they just choose the wrong word like if you were learning a foreign language and messed up on vocab but didn't notice. All of which is to say, I wouldn't conclude that the kid literally thinks Grammy is too angry to visit on the evidence of a single utterance alone. They're just asking for support and/or guidance and/or reassurance in a very age-appropriate way, and will (as always) benefit from calm, confident responses.
Overall, I'd trust the parents about the kids. Do let them know your own feelings, so they're not gently pushing for visits for your sake if you'd be okay without/with fewer, but otherwise, big emotions/thoughts don't automatically mean anything is wrong. (Besides the obvious.) My preschool kid tears up a little at the end of every Zoom "class," and it's okay. We're here to support them with that. Everything's hard now, and having the contact is, for them at least, better than all of those relationships effectively vanishing.
posted by teremala at 7:05 AM on May 9, 2020 [9 favorites]
I have a ton of respect for young humans as autonomous people with their own thoughts and feelings, and yet it's also true that sometimes they say things that aren't real even in their own heads. (And, really, adults do this too sometimes.) They make sentences that sound grammatically correct but mean something entirely different to them, or they use statements as a way of stating a hypothesis, or they forget/haven't really learned what a word means but reuse it in a set phrase, or they just choose the wrong word like if you were learning a foreign language and messed up on vocab but didn't notice. All of which is to say, I wouldn't conclude that the kid literally thinks Grammy is too angry to visit on the evidence of a single utterance alone. They're just asking for support and/or guidance and/or reassurance in a very age-appropriate way, and will (as always) benefit from calm, confident responses.
Overall, I'd trust the parents about the kids. Do let them know your own feelings, so they're not gently pushing for visits for your sake if you'd be okay without/with fewer, but otherwise, big emotions/thoughts don't automatically mean anything is wrong. (Besides the obvious.) My preschool kid tears up a little at the end of every Zoom "class," and it's okay. We're here to support them with that. Everything's hard now, and having the contact is, for them at least, better than all of those relationships effectively vanishing.
posted by teremala at 7:05 AM on May 9, 2020 [9 favorites]
Response by poster: Years ago they wouldn't let parents visit sick children in hospital because the kids would cry so hard after the parents left that it made them sick.
Thank you. I just realized this has been my main worry - that I'm just making them sad when I leave.
So far I am dealing by having each drive-by supplemented by a gift/cake. Something to do after I leave.
Thanks everyone for your empathetic responses - this just brings so much guilt either way.
posted by M. at 10:50 AM on May 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
Thank you. I just realized this has been my main worry - that I'm just making them sad when I leave.
So far I am dealing by having each drive-by supplemented by a gift/cake. Something to do after I leave.
Thanks everyone for your empathetic responses - this just brings so much guilt either way.
posted by M. at 10:50 AM on May 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yes, contact. With a toddler or very young child that 15 or 30 second "Hi there, what have you been doing today" or whatever is fine.
If you do that, even that, once a week or so, you're still in their life. If you don't do it for a whole year you're totally gone and forgotten from their perspective.
Even if you are thinking that 30 second phone chat didn't do much, maybe think of it more as: You are setting yourself up to really resume the relationship when you can. After the year if you show up to take them to the park or whatever, they'll be going with Aunt M. who they've seen and talked to every week. Not some complete and total (and SCARY!) stranger.
Also, when you chat with them for 20 seconds and then go on to chat with their parents & other family members for 10 or 20 minutes or whatever about various things, believe me that still sinks in with the kids, too--way more than you would think, and even though they are not actively participating at that point.
But kids know VERY well who their parents' friends and best relations are.
posted by flug at 5:27 PM on May 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
If you do that, even that, once a week or so, you're still in their life. If you don't do it for a whole year you're totally gone and forgotten from their perspective.
Even if you are thinking that 30 second phone chat didn't do much, maybe think of it more as: You are setting yourself up to really resume the relationship when you can. After the year if you show up to take them to the park or whatever, they'll be going with Aunt M. who they've seen and talked to every week. Not some complete and total (and SCARY!) stranger.
Also, when you chat with them for 20 seconds and then go on to chat with their parents & other family members for 10 or 20 minutes or whatever about various things, believe me that still sinks in with the kids, too--way more than you would think, and even though they are not actively participating at that point.
But kids know VERY well who their parents' friends and best relations are.
posted by flug at 5:27 PM on May 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
What that means is parents who check in with kids, help them express emotions and correct misconceptions (like the anger thing) when they arise do way way way better than kids whose families don't do those things.
I'd keep up the drive by contact. I think it's important for you, and they get to see them to, form new memories keep a closeness. They might need a little more context or help, but overall I think it's a great tradition. Also there may be a circumstances where you end up having to take care of the kids and those small contacts help build trust in times of emergencies and such.
posted by AlexiaSky at 4:42 AM on May 9, 2020 [11 favorites]