Talking to children about coronavirus

[Theresnoroomonmybroom]

DD is three so most of this has passed her by so far. However today we saw several people wearing masks and she asked why. I told her they were worried about germs and after the inevitable why, why, why questions, I said that the people wearing masks might have germs and they were worried about other people catching them. The man we were passing (wearing a mask) looked incredulous but I didn’t know what to say in the moment and didn’t want to frighten her or think she had to wear a mask. Any suggestions?

My child's seen someone on the news wearing one a few weeks ago. I've just told her it's because of a bad illness going round. I've told her she should be washing her hands more and properly.
And that's it because quite frankly I don't want to frighten her and I'm quite frightened myself

If you have Netflix, watch the Story it's episode about how people catch colds. Explains viruses, how they spread and how your body fights them so you get better. Not Coronavirus related at all but I think that's helpful.

My 6 and 3 year olds found it great.

It's not scary then?

Thanks both, some good suggestions to try

My DD is 5 we just told her that there are lots of germs at the moment making people poorly so she has to make sure she washes her hands lots and showed her again (and again and again) how to do it right.

She totally knows the way to do it but I still have to check every time to make sure she hasn't just stuck her fingers briefly under the water.

We also explained that the germs make people have a temperature and cough and some people get very poorly, others just a bit and some people get so poorly the doctor can't fix them, so we all need to do our bit by keeping clean and covering our mouths when we cough.

She has a pack of tissues in her pocket and hand sanitiser in her book bag as her school have run out of soap

No @purpleme12 not scary at all. Like I said, the episode is about common colds so kids are used to having them come and go in their lives already! For my 3 year old he took it at face value. For my 6 year old, we then used it to talk about Coronavirus. He seemed reassured by knowing his body can fight viruses off etc. Storybots do this stuff really well.

Ok might look at this.
Getting quite anxious myself to be honest and I'm not used to it

Watch it yourself first to make sure but it's really very gentle.

Just realised my first post autocorrected. It's Storybots