When New York writer Nora Zelevansky learned her six-year-old daughter was playing “hotel restaurant,” the details surprised her. “She said that everyone needed to be laid off, that she was going to get fired too, that there wouldn’t be enough money, and that one of her stuffed animals was hoarding food,” Zelevansky says. “Usually her stuffies are donning capes to save the world or dressed up for birthday parties. They’re not getting fired from their jobs.”

Parents are understandably concerned about the impacts of COVID-19 on their children’s own mental health. They have good reason. Kids already have a hard enough time regulating feelings because the frontal lobe (the part of the brain that controls rational thought) develops through