Why I lie to my daughter

AS a parent the role of protecting and nurturing your children is one you take on fearlessly. You never want them to feel sad, scared, or confused.

It comes with the territory that there are times when you find yourself lying to make it sound not so frightening, and make it easier on yourself.

Let’s face it, we all want to wrap our kids up, and keep them safe, in the hope they believe in all the lovely things like Santa and unicorns a little longer and we can keep the dark side of this world a secret from them for as a long as possible.

But as they become older they become more inquisitive and curious, so when we are facing a world pandemic is it wrong to think we can shield them from it entirely? With my three-year-old naturally I can but I underestimated my daughter.

She is one of the lucky ones who still attend school. Some of her school friends have been talking more about Covid which of course leads to Q&A time when she gets home.

One friend told her that an eight-year-old had died from Covid so she asked me repeatedly if she would I die if she caught it.

I can’t tell you how much I would rather have been doing anything other than having that conversation, I was so uncomfortable and all I kept thinking was “OK, so how do I get her to forget what she’s been told?”. I bumbled my way through it using the classic parent phrases like “Don’t be silly, it doesn’t affect you”, “Honestly there is nothing to worry about” and “Just ignore it when people tell you stuff like that”.

And yes I probably am one of the world’s worst parents who undoubtedly took the easy way out but I’m frightened by the whole thing so if that’s me how on Earth can I expect a sevenyear-old to feel any differently?

Later on that evening, I got angry. I think it was at myself for not really knowing how to handle it but to make myself feel better I decided to blame the other girl’s parents!

Yep, the good old blame game, it always make you feel better... until your husband points out that it’s no-one’s fault really and telling my daughter’s teacher about it won’t help because as “they have enough on their plates right now and they can’t police their pupil’s parents, Kelly”.

So as we enter week two of lockdown number three…here’s to a safe one for us all and fingers crossed the Q&A part of being a parent won’t include the subject of Covid this week.

■ Kelly Pegg is a journalist, broadcaster and mum of two who lived in Nottinghamshire with her family. She hosts the podcast The Hot Mess Mums’ club with TV Presenter Jenny Powell.