Helping Children and Teens Cope in Difficult Times
You can’t protect your kids from everything happening in the world right now, and trying to do so comes at a cost to you all. What you can do is help your kids feel safe, heard, and less alone as they take in what they’re hearing.
What makes this moment different from previous difficult news cycles isn’t any single event; it’s the relentlessness and cumulative nature of it all. The news arrives in group chats, on social feeds, and in the background of every room with a screen. Your child may know about events you haven’t even heard of yet. Your teenager is likely processing things with peers and from influencers in ways that are shaping how they understand the world, whether you might approve of these perspectives or not.
The good news is that children and teenagers are more resilient than we sometimes give them credit for. They take their cues from the adults around them. Your steadiness, willingness to talk, and ability to tolerate not having all the answers are among the most protective things you can offer them right now.
Five Practices You Can Do Now To Support Your Kids
The five practices below are grounded in what works across age groups — from young children just starting to notice the weight in the room, to teenagers who are more plugged in than their parents and carrying more than they let on.
1. Limit exposure — yours and theirs
Even children who seem absorbed in play are often tracking the ambient noise of news, adult conversations, and background screens. Repeated exposure to distressing images and sounds, especially the looping, algorithmically amplified kind, doesn’t inform children. It overwhelms them.
This applies to you, too. Your children are watching how you respond to the news cycle at least as closely as they’re watching the news itself. When parents are visibly anxious, hypervigilant, or unable to step away from their phones, children internalize that the situation is more threatening than they can manage. You don’t need to pretend everything is fine, but modeling that you can put the phone down, be present, and go about daily life is itself a form of reassurance.
Practical steps: Designate news-free times and spaces, especially around meals and in the hour before bed. For younger children, keep news out of shared spaces entirely. For teenagers, a direct conversation about algorithmic feeds and how they’re designed to keep us anxious and engaged can be surprisingly effective. Teenagers respond well to being treated as intelligent enough to understand the mechanics of their own media consumption.
2. Open the door — and let them walk through it at their own pace
Children and teenagers need to know that their parents are available to talk about hard things. They don’t always need to take you up on it immediately. Knowing the door is open matters most.
Start by finding out what they already know. Social media makes it nearly impossible to control what your child has been exposed to, and assuming they haven’t heard something is likely naive. “I’ve been thinking about some of the things in the news lately. Would it help to talk about any of it?” is a better opener than a prepared explanation, because it meets them where they actually are rather than where you assume they are.
From there, take your cues from them. Younger children often need simple, honest, age-appropriate language and plenty of reassurance. School-age children may have specific questions or worries they’ve been sitting with. Teenagers may push back, minimize, or deflect. That’s often a sign that something has landed harder than they want to show. Don’t force it, but don’t drop it either. A follow-up conversation later, such as in the car, on a walk, or in a place where direct eye contact is not demanded, often works better than a face-to-face check-in for adolescents.
It’s okay to say “I don’t know.” It’s okay to say, “That worries me too, and I’m working on figuring it out.” Modeling that adults can tolerate uncertainty without falling apart is one of the most important things you can do. Try to avoid these conversations close to bedtime, when children are already tired and less able to regulate difficult emotions.
3. Validate feelings without amplifying fear
Children and teenagers are allowed to feel sad, scared, angry, or confused about what’s happening in the world. Those feelings make sense. Your job isn’t to talk them out of difficult emotions; it’s to help them feel less alone in having them.
“It makes sense that you feel scared about that” lands very differently than “Don’t worry, everything is fine.” The second response, however well-intentioned, signals that their feelings are wrong or inconvenient and teaches them to keep their worries to themselves.
At the same time, there’s a meaningful difference between validating feelings and joining in catastrophizing. You can acknowledge that something is genuinely hard without implying that things will never be okay. Children and teenagers need adults who can hold both truths at once: yes, this is hard, and there are things we can do in response, and we are going to be okay.
Watch for signs that a child is carrying more than a brief conversation can address. Sleep disturbances, changes in appetite, physical complaints without medical cause (headaches, stomachaches), withdrawal, irritability, difficulty concentrating, clinginess, or regression to earlier behaviors can all be signs that a child needs more support than family conversation alone can provide. These reactions are normal in the short term, but if they persist for more than a few weeks, it’s worth consulting a professional.
4. Hold the structure
Routines are not just convenient. For children and teenagers, they are neurologically regulating. Regular mealtimes, consistent bedtimes, expected rhythms of school, homework, and activities send a quiet but powerful signal that life is still predictable and that, although the world outside may be uncertain, this family, this home, these rules are stable.
This is not the time to lower expectations in the name of understanding. Paradoxically, children feel less safe when structure disappears. Maintaining ordinary expectations such as chores, homework, curfews, and the usual family agreements, while also making space for harder conversations, is not a contradiction. It is good parenting.
Physical affection matters here, too. Hugs, proximity, and physical comfort are regulating for children of all ages (and for parents). Don’t underestimate what sitting together on a couch, sharing a meal without devices, or a brief shoulder squeeze in passing can do for a child who is quietly carrying something heavy.
5. Direct their attention to the helpers — and help them become one
This point, popularized by Fred Rogers and supported by decades of research on children and adversity, remains as true as ever: when the world feels overwhelming, finding helpers restores a sense of agency and hope.
For younger children, this might simply mean pointing out the people who are working to make things better, like doctors, teachers, community organizers, neighbors, or volunteers, and reminding them that most people, most of the time, are trying to do good.
For older children and teenagers, you can take this further. Young people who feel powerless in the face of large events often do better when they have a concrete way to contribute, such as a cause to support, a community to show up for, or a small act of service that reminds them they are not just passive observers. Channeling anxiety into action, even modest action, is one of the most effective coping strategies we know.
When to reach out for professional support
Most children will move through periods of heightened stress with the support of caring adults in their lives. But some will need more. If your child or teenager is showing signs of persistent anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, significant behavioral changes, or withdrawal that isn’t lifting after a few weeks, or if you simply aren’t sure and want to talk it through, we’re here.
Our child and adolescent therapists work with children of all ages and their families, and we are experienced in helping young people build the resilience and coping skills they need to navigate a world that is sometimes genuinely hard.
A note for parents who are also struggling
The most important thing you can do for your children during stressful times is take care of yourself. Children are exquisitely sensitive to parental distress. If you are finding the current moment difficult to manage — and many adults are — that is not a weakness. It is a signal worth paying attention to. You can learn more about support for adults on our Support During Uncertain Times page.
Questions about whether your child might benefit from support? We’re glad to help you think it through.
Or call our office — our Client Care Coordinators are available to answer your questions.
Written by the Kentlands Psychotherapy Child and Adolescent Therapy Team. Updated 2026.
Finally, here are some additional suggestions for talking with your kids about the news from the APA.
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