Atlases No More: Parenting During the COVID-19 Crucible

By amazon Tuesday, September 29, 2020 Comment Edit

How to lead your family well through times of transition.

Transitions in family life are inherently difficult. They require us as parents to be open to change while also maintaining a sense of family cohesion. When we are able to anticipate, communicate about, and plan for major family transitions, we adapt better. When we avoid acknowledging or are taken unawares by a necessary transition, we can struggle to preserve a sense of balance as a family and stressors can begin to pile up quickly. And, when under the burden of such a pile up of stressors, we can so easily buckle under the weight, failing to live up to our usual standards for loving our spouses and our children well.

We haven’t been able to plan for all of the changes COVID-19 has produced in our lives. It has stripped away many of the supports we have relied upon to uphold our family structures (e.g., school, sports, friends, extended family, church). It has upended our routines. Such changes have left many of us as parents feeling the need to, like the Greek mythological figure Atlas, support the weight of the world all by ourselves to keep it from crushing us and our families.

Unfortunately, no one knows for certain if and when we will be able to resume our “normal” lives and make use of our old family supports and routines once more. Thus, we must ask how we can transition our families to adapt to life in a world of social distancing, quarantine, and self-isolation. I believe that one of the founders of the field of family therapy, Dr. Salvador (“Sal”) Minuchin, can assist us in this endeavor.

During his lifetime, Sal helped families to make sense of the way they organized themselves as a unit. He paid particular attention to the structure of the family (e.g., the roles played by each member ...