If COVID Happened Tomorrow, Would Your Child Be Okay? An Honest Parent's Checklist

 I have to be honest with you: in 2019, my answer would have been no.

 

I thought we were a close family. We had dinner together most nights, we talked about our days, and I genuinely knew my kids. But when the pandemic hit and our world collapsed into four walls, I discovered how many invisible supports had been holding us up — and how quickly they disappeared.

School routines. Playdates. Sports practice. The neighbor kids. The school counselor my daughter saw twice a month without me fully realizing how much she needed it. Gone, almost overnight.

What I didn't have — what most of us didn't have — was a mental health foundation built to survive that kind of disruption. And we are all still feeling the effects. A 2025 systematic review of 21 studies involving 87,486 children across 10 countries confirmed what many parents already sense: the long-term decline in children's psychological wellbeing didn't end when restrictions lifted. For many kids, it is still going.

So here is the question I now ask myself regularly, and the one I want to put to you today: if it happened again tomorrow — another pandemic, another lockdown, another prolonged crisis — would your child be okay?

This checklist will help you find out. And more importantly, it will show you exactly where to start building.

 

First, A Word About What "Okay" Actually Means

I am not asking whether your child would be happy during a crisis. No child — no person — sails through a pandemic feeling great. That is not the goal.

What I am asking is whether your child has the internal resources to cope: to feel scared and name it, to miss their friends and reach out, to lose their routine and still find a foothold somewhere. That is what psychologists call resilience — and the good news is that it is entirely buildable. It is not a personality trait your child either has or doesn't. It is a set of skills, habits, and relationship patterns that parents can actively cultivate right now, in ordinary everyday life, before the next extraordinary thing happens.

 

The Checklist: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself Right Now

Go through each question honestly. For every "Not Yet," don't panic — just note it. Those are the areas we will focus on below.

 

#	Preparedness Question	Yes	Not Yet
1	Does your child have daily routines they can rely on — even when life is disrupted?	Strong foundation	Needs work
2	Can your child name and express what they are feeling without shutting down or acting out?	Strong foundation	Needs work
3	Does your child have at least one friendship that could survive physical distance?	Strong foundation	Needs work
4	Have you talked openly with your child about what to expect during scary or uncertain times?	Strong foundation	Needs work
5	Does your child have at least one healthy way to self-soothe when overwhelmed?	Strong foundation	Needs work
6	Can your child recall a hard time they got through, and feel proud of that?	Strong foundation	Needs work
7	Does your household handle stress in ways your child can safely observe and learn from?	Strong foundation	Needs work

 

What Your Results Mean

5–7 "Yes" answers: Your family has built a genuinely strong foundation. Keep reinforcing these habits — and pay attention to the gaps, because even one weak spot can become a pressure point in a real crisis.

3–4 "Yes" answers: You have a solid starting point. Focus on the two or three "Not Yet" items that feel most urgent — typically emotional expression and peer connection — and build from there.

Fewer than 3 "Yes" answers: This is not a judgment — it is information. Most families were in exactly this position in early 2020, through no fault of their own. The opportunity is in front of you right now. Start with question one.

 

Where to Start: The Four Highest-Impact Moves

1. Build the routine before you need it.

Consistent daily structure — mealtimes, bedtimes, a predictable rhythm — is the single most protective factor for children's mental health during disruption. When everything else falls apart, routine tells a child's nervous system: this part is still safe. You do not need a rigid timetable. You need a handful of anchors that hold, even on hard days.

 

2. Teach emotional vocabulary, starting now.

Children who can name what they are feeling are measurably more resilient than those who cannot. This is not a therapy tool — it is a dinner-table habit. Ask "what was the hardest part of your day?" instead of "how was school?" Model naming your own emotions out loud. Children learn from what they live with, and what they see you do under pressure is the most powerful lesson you will ever teach them.

 

3. Crisis-proof at least one friendship.

One of the most striking findings from pandemic research is how much a single sustained peer connection protected children's mental health — not a group, just one friend. Help your child cultivate a friendship that exists beyond school walls: a regular call, a shared online game, a standing video chat. That thread can hold a child together when everything else feels uncertain.

 

4. Talk about hard things before they happen.

Children who had open, age-appropriate conversations with their parents about COVID — what it was, why the rules existed, what the family would do — showed significantly lower anxiety than those kept in the dark. You do not need to frighten your child with hypotheticals. But normalizing conversations about change, uncertainty, and "what we would do if" builds exactly the cognitive flexibility children need when real disruption arrives.

 

The Honest Part

When I look at that checklist now — with everything I have learned since 2020 — I can say my family is in a genuinely better position. Not because we had some dramatic overhaul, but because small, consistent habits compound over time. The nightly check-in that felt awkward at first. The feelings vocabulary that my youngest rolled her eyes at for two weeks and then quietly started using. The standing Saturday morning call my older daughter has with her best friend two states away.

None of it is complicated. All of it required intention.

The next pandemic, the next crisis, the next prolonged stressor — whatever form it takes — will find every family somewhere on this spectrum. The question is simply where it finds yours. And the time to answer that question is right now, when life is ordinary enough to do something about it.

 

-----

Want to go deeper?

In Positive Minds: AStep-By-Step Guide to Mental Wellness for Children, I walk through every item on this checklist in detail — with real-life case studies, practical scripts, and step-by-step strategies for building each skill at every age. It is the book I wish had existed before 2020.

-----

 

References

1. Frentzen, E., Fegert, J. M., Martin, A., & Witt, A. (2025). Child and adolescent mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic: an overview of key findings from a thematic series. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 19, 57. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-025-00910-8

2. Thiha, N., Soe, P. P., Win, H. H., et al. (2025). Exploring the psychological impact on children and adolescents during the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic — a systematic review. BMC Psychology, 13, 842. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03165-2

3. Felix, E., & Green, J. G. (2025). Changes in child and youth mental health following the return to in-person learning post-COVID-19 pandemic. Current Psychiatry Reports, 27(12), 704–710. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-025-01642-4

4. American Psychological Association. (2012). Building your resilience. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience

5. Stevenson, J. L. (2022). Positive Minds: A Step-By-Step Guide to Mental Wellness for Children. LazyDay Creations. ISBN: 978-981-18-3754-8