If there’s one thing we worry about as parents, it’s that our kids are not sufficiently scared of COVID-19. If our children don’t spend every waking hour fearful that they’ll get killed by a virus, they might accidentally let their masks slip down from their noses for a few seconds. And then we’re all dead.
So here are some tips to make sure your kids are sufficiently scared of COVID.
1) Buy a loud alarm and do COVID drills: “We saw someone on the street without a mask! Everyone hide under your beds!”
2) Tell them the COVID monster is hiding in their closet waiting to eat them up if they take off their mask: If there's one thing kids are terrified of, it's monsters. This is because they are dumb. Use that dumbness to your advantage and manipulate their trust and fear to slow the spread!
3) Constantly talk about "long COVID": If your child ever encounters another child who has recovered from COVID, that might convince them not to be scared. So tell them all those people now have "long COVID" and are secretly disfigured and maimed for life.
4) Tell them Elmo died from COVID: Kids love Elmo. And he’d still be around if everyone had gotten the vaccine and worn their masks properly.
5) Get them a pretend vaccine card: They can practice showing it to everyone before interacting with people to know how important that is. But make sure they know they’re still a deadly danger to everyone around them since they’re not really vaccinated.
6) Tell them they’re not going back to school because all their teachers and classmates died from COVID: It’s only a white lie. They’re most likely never going to see a regular classroom again anyway.
7) In addition to wearing a mask outside, also have your kids wear blindfolds: Tell them it’s to protect them from seeing all the horrors of the COVID-ravaged land.
8) Hire a psychopath to dismember one of your pets and tell them COVID did that: It will be a striking reminder about the dangers of COVID. Plus, local psychopaths are always looking for work.
9) Tell them Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is hiding in their closet: All that man wants to do is kill people with COVID!
10) Cut all power and water to your house and claim society has completely collapsed from nearly everyone dying of COVID: You’re just preparing them for next year.
Follow these tips, and your kids should spend most of their days curled up in a ball and shaking in fear of the virus coming to get them — and scientists say being curled up on the floor really reduces the chance of spread. Now that’s some good parenting!