As public conversations around coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) increase, children may worry about themselves, their family, and friends getting ill with COVID-19. Parents, family members, school staff, and other trusted adults can play an important role in helping children make sense of what they hear in a way that is honest, accurate, and minimizes anxiety or fear. CDC has created guidance to help adults have conversations with children about COVID-19 and ways they can avoid getting and spreading the disease.

General principles for talking to children:

Remain calm and reassuring.

• Remember that children will react to both what you say and how you say it. They will pick up cues from the conversations you have with them and with others.

Make yourself available to listen and to talk.

• Make time to talk. Be sure children know they can come to you when they have questions.

Avoid language that might blame others and lead to stigma.

• Remember that viruses can make anyone sick, regardless of a person’s race or ethnicity. Avoid making assumptions about who might have COVID-19.

Pay attention to what children see or hear on television, radio, or online.

• Consider reducing the amount of screen time focused on COVID-19. Too much information on one topic can lead to anxiety.

Provide information that is honest and accurate.

• Give children information that is truthful and appropriate for the age and developmental level of the child.

• Talk to children about how some stories on COVID-19 on the Internet and social media may be based on rumors and inaccurate information.

Teach children everyday actions to reduce the spread of germs.

• Remind children to stay away from people who are coughing or sneezing or sick.

• Remind them to cough or sneeze into a tissue or their elbow, then throw the tissue into the trash.

• Discuss any new actions that may be taken at school to help protect children and school staff.

• (e.g., increased handwashing, cancellation of events or activities)

• Get children into a handwashing habit.

  • 1. Teach them to wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after blowing their nose, coughing, or sneezing; going to the bathroom; and before eating or preparing food.

    2. If soap and water are not available, teach them to use hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer should contain at least 60% alcohol. Supervise young children when they use hand sanitizer to prevent swallowing alcohol, especially in schools and childcare facilities.

• Coronavirus – A large family of viruses that are common in people and many different species of animals.

• COVID-19 – Abbreviation for the coronavirus disease 2019, a disease caused be a novel (or new) coronavirus that has not previously been seen in humans.

• Social Distancing – Measures intended to limit the movement of people in order to interrupt the transmission of infectious, contagious diseases.

• Isolation – Separates sick people with a contagious disease from people who are not sick.

• Quarantine – Separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick.

• Community Spread – When people have been infected with the virus in an area and some are not sure how or where they became infected.

• Epidemic – Affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community or region at the same time.

• Pandemic – Occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population.

• Presumptive Positive - Individuals with at least one respiratory specimen that tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 at a state or local laboratory

Sources: U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary1