Everybody’s freaking out.
School districts are closing. Large events are cancelling. Heck, even Disney World is temporarily shut down!
In the words of Bill Murray and crew in the classic movie Ghostbusters, “Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”
And teenagers are especially freaking out (I know because I have two of them.) Social media is fueling a hysteria with “news” that predicts millions of people dying to the shut down of the government to a potential zombie apocalypse.
Obviously the Coronavirus is a real threat and people need to take precautions, but fear-mongering are the words of the day. And this is especially true among Generation Z who often have no filter to discern fake news, real news and flat out crazy.
So how do we help teenagers deal with the threat of the Coronavirus? How do we help them wrestle their fears to the ground? Here are 4 action steps you, as a youth leader or parent, can take right away.
How to Address Coronavirus Fear With Teens
1. Talk about it.
It’s probably not the time to do business as usual. At Dare 2 Share we have a training philosophy called ALTernative teaching. It stands for: Ask, Listen, Teach.
Ask teens how they are feeling about the pandemic. Ask them to be open about their thoughts and fears.
Listen to what they are saying. Listen deeply and try to fully understand and empathize with how they are feeling.
Then Teach what God’s Word has to say.
Maybe, it’s time for a Corona-series. You could do a Faith Not Fear series. Heck, years ago, I wrote a book called Outbreak…Creating a Contagious Youth Ministry Through Viral Evangelism. You could order a copy of that and do a series on viral evangelism.
