Parenting When the World Feels Unsafe: Helping Children Stay Regulated During Collective Stress

When the world feels like it’s stopping again, children don’t just watch—they feel it in their nervous systems because it is happening again.

Not a pandemic—at least not the same kind. But that feeling. That pit-in-your-stomach, world-tilting-sideways feeling that parents know too well. The one where you wake up, check the news, and think, "How do I possibly explain this to my children today?"

We're six years past March 2020, and our bodies remember. Our children's bodies remember. And right now, in early 2026, we're facing something our kids have learned all too well: the world can change overnight, adults can't always protect them from everything, and sometimes the people in charge make choices that don't make sense.

Only this time, there's an extra layer of crazy-making: we're being told not to believe what we're seeing.

The Gaslighting Is Real

Let me name what many parents are experiencing right now, even if it feels too big or too political to say out loud

You're watching events unfold that feel chaotic, destabilizing, and frankly unbelievable. And then you're being told—by officials, by the media, by people in your own community—that what you're witnessing isn't really happening. That your concerns aren't valid. That you're overreacting, being dramatic, or "making it political."

This is gaslighting on a collective scale.

When you see policies that directly contradict your family's values, that threaten the safety or dignity of people you love, that fundamentally change what you thought was possible in this country—and then you're told you're wrong to be upset about it—that's not a difference of opinion. That's being asked to deny reality.

And here's what makes it exponentially harder: you're trying to parent through it.

What Our Children Learned in 2020

March 2020 taught our children something we can never un-teach them: the world can stop.

School can close. Friends can disappear. Grandparents can become dangerous to hug. Birthday parties can be canceled indefinitely. Parents can look scared. The future can become unknowable.

Before 2020, most children in this country lived with a background assumption of stability. Even if their individual lives were hard, even if their families faced struggles, there was a broader sense that the world kept turning, that systems kept working, that tomorrow would come and look roughly like today.

COVID shattered that assumption.

Our children learned—in their bodies, in their developing brains, in their nervous systems—that chaos can arrive without warning and adults cannot always fix it.

They learned that sometimes grown-ups don't know what to do.

They learned that uncertainty is real.

And now, as we face cultural upheaval, political extremism, values wars, and daily news cycles that feel like bad fiction, our children's bodies are doing what bodies do when faced with familiar patterns: they're preparing for the world to stop again.

The Lived Experience of Uncertainty

Here's what I'm seeing in my therapy practice and hearing from parents everywhere:

Kids are struggling. Anxiety is up. Emotional regulation is down. Behaviors that had settled are resurging. Sleep is disrupted. Clinginess has returned. Or the opposite—withdrawal, numbness, "I don't care" attitudes that feel like protective armor.

Parents often interpret this as their child being difficult, regressing, or "not handling things well." But what if we understood it differently?

What if our children are responding perfectly normally to an abnormal situation?

Their lived experience tells them: when the adult world descends into chaos, when voices get loud and scary, when people start fighting about big things, when nothing makes sense anymore—that's when the world stops.

They don't have enough life experience to know that political chaos is different from pandemic chaos. They just know chaos. And, in their experience, chaos means everything can fall apart.

We cannot tell them "it won't happen again."

They know it can. They've lived it.

The Parent's Impossible Position

And where does that leave you, the parent trying to hold it all together?

You're trying to:

• Process your own fear, anger, grief, and disbelief about what's happening in the world

• Manage your children's big emotions when they sense something is wrong

• Maintain some semblance of normal routine while nothing feels normal

• Decide what to tell your kids and what to shield them from, with no clear roadmap

• Navigate relationships with people who see the world completely differently from you do

• Keep showing up to work, making meals, helping with homework, while your nervous system is screaming

• Hold space for others when you're barely holding yourself together

Oh, and do all of this while being told that what you're experiencing isn't real, isn't that bad, or is your own fault for paying attention.

No wonder you're exhausted.

This isn't regular parenting stress. 

This is parenting through collective trauma while being gaslit about whether the trauma is even happening.

When You Can't Promise "It Won't Happen Again"

One of the hardest parts of parenting post-2020 is the loss of easy reassurance.

Before, when kids worried about scary things, we could say, "That won't happen," or "You're safe," or "Everything will be okay" with relative confidence. We could kiss the boo-boo, turn on the nightlight, and promise that tomorrow would come.

We can't do that anymore. Not honestly.

Because our children know—from lived experience—that sometimes tomorrow doesn't come the way we expect it to. 

Sometimes schools do close.  Sometimes the world does stop.  Sometimes scary things do happen, even when adults say they won't.

So what do we say instead?

We tell the truth, age-appropriately:

• "I don't know what will happen, but I'm here with you."

• "Things feel uncertain right now. That's hard. We'll figure it out together."

• "Yes, the grown-ups are disagreeing about important things. It's okay to feel worried about that."

• "Our family's job is to take care of each other, even when the outside world feels messy."

• "You're safe right now, at this moment. And I'm going to do everything I can to keep it that way."

This isn't about scaring children. It's about honoring their intelligence and lived experience rather than asking them to deny reality.

The Culture War Comes Home

And then there's the other layer: the values war.

Many families right now are navigating the reality that the cultural battles aren't just happening "out there" in politics or media. They're happening at the family dinner table, in school board meetings, at friend gatherings, and in your own community.

You might be trying to raise children who value kindness, inclusion, and human dignity—while watching public figures model cruelty, exclusion, and dehumanization.

You might be teaching your children that everyone deserves respect—while navigating family members who express hateful views about people your children love.

You might be parenting LGBTQ+ kids, kids of color, immigrant kids, neurodivergent kids, or kids with disabilities—while their very existence is being debated as a political issue.

This is not abstract stress. This is your child's lived reality being treated as a battlefield.

And when you speak up about it, when you name the harm, when you set boundaries or make different choices for your family, you're often met with accusations of being "too sensitive," "making everything political," or "dividing the family."

More gaslighting.

Your Body Remembers March 2020

Here's something many people aren't talking about: we're in the anniversary season.

Six years ago this month, the world changed. Schools closed on a Friday "for two weeks." Those two weeks became months. Became years. Became forever-changed.

Even if you're not consciously thinking about it, your body remembers.

Anniversary responses are a real phenomenon in trauma psychology. Our bodies and brains encode traumatic memories not just as events, but as sensory experiences tied to the time of year, weather, smells, sounds—even the quality of light in early spring.

So when March rolls around, when the days start getting longer, when you catch that particular smell in the air, your nervous system might activate, even if you don't know why.

Add current chaos on top of anniversary stress, and you've got a perfect storm of dysregulation.

This is why you might be feeling:

• More irritable than usual

• Difficulty concentrating or remembering things

• Sleep disruption

• Physical tension or unexplained aches

• Emotional flooding or numbness

• A sense of dread you can't quite name

• Feeling off, maybe even irrational

  
  

You're not losing it. Your body is responding to patterns it recognizes as dangerous.

And your children's bodies are doing the same thing.

What Helps (Even When Nothing Feels Like Enough)

I'm not going to give you a listicle of "10 Tips to Stay Calm" because that would be insulting to what you're actually facing. But here's what I know helps, from both professional expertise and personal experience parenting neurodivergent kids through these exact challenges:

1. Name it to tame it—for yourself and your kids

When you're feeling overwhelmed, name it: "I'm feeling really stressed about what's happening in the world right now." When your child is struggling, help them name it: "Your body seems really worried. I wonder if all the grown-up chaos feels scary."

Naming doesn't fix it, but it makes it less scary than the unnamed dread.

2. Lower the bar drastically

Survival-level parenting is appropriate right now. If everyone is fed, safe, and you mostly stayed kind to each other, you parented well today. Let go of enrichment activities, elaborate meals, and perfect bedtime routines. Focus on connection and being good enough.

3. Limit news consumption (yours and theirs)

You need to stay informed, but you don't need to mainline trauma all day. Set specific times to check the news, then step away. For kids, be very intentional about what information they're exposed to and when. Remember, they are listening- ALWAYS.

4. Find your people

You need spaces where you don't have to pretend everything is fine, where you don't have to defend your reality, where people get it. Online communities, local parent groups, therapy, trusted friends—find the people who see what you see.

5. Anchor in your body

When your mind is spinning, come back to your body. Move, breathe, touch something textured, drink cold water, step outside. Help your kids do the same—wrestling, jumping, squeezing playdough, blowing bubbles. Go for a walk, a run, be outside, and watch the clouds move by. 

6. Tell age-appropriate truth

Don't lie to protect them from reality; they're already sensing. Give them information matched to their developmental level, answer their questions honestly, and let them know it's okay to have feelings about hard things.

7. Protect your values fiercely, kindly

You get to decide what values your family lives by. You get to set boundaries with people who violate those values, even if they're family. Model for your children that kindness doesn't mean accepting harm. Boundaries are healthy and necessary for healthy living. 

8. Accept that you can't fix their fear

Your job isn't to make your children feel no fear. It's to be present with them in their fear, to teach them that fear can be survived, and to help them find agency where possible. 

Fear is information, not failure.

Here We Are Again

So yes. Here we are again. Not in the same crisis, but in the same feeling. The world-tilting, ground-shifting, everything-might-fall-apart feeling.

And you're trying to parent through it.

• You're trying to keep small humans emotionally regulated while you're barely regulated yourself.

• You're trying to model calm while your nervous system is screaming.

• You're trying to maintain hope while being realistic about the threat.

• You're trying to honor your children's intelligence while protecting their innocence.

• You're trying to survive today while building toward a future that feels increasingly uncertain.

This is not regular parenting. This is parenting through collective trauma during a gaslighting campaign.

And you're doing it.

Some days barely, some days messily, some days by the skin of your teeth—but you're doing it.

Your children will remember that when the world felt like it was stopping again, you stayed. You showed up. You told them the truth. You held them through the fear. You kept going even when everything was hard.

That's not nothing. That's everything.

If you're reading this and thinking, "Yes, this is exactly what I'm experiencing"—please know you're not alone. Thousands of parents are navigating this same impossible terrain right now.

And if you're reading this and thinking, "This feels over-dramatic" or "It's not that bad"—I'm genuinely glad your experience is different. But I'd invite you to consider that for many families, especially those directly impacted by current policies and cultural battles, this IS their lived reality.

Telling people their reality isn't real doesn't make them less afraid. It just makes them more alone.

So to the parents who are afraid: I see you. Your fear is rational. Your exhaustion is justified. Your struggle is real.

Keep going.

We'll figure it out together.

Cary Hamilton, LMHC-S, RPT-S, is a play therapy supervisor, parenting educator, and owner of Olympia Therapy in Olympia, WA. She specializes in neurodiversity-affirming approaches and trauma-informed care. Learn more at www.playfulwisdom.net.