All three sit down and work on the puzzle
together, helping each other, laughing at the
words: sunflower (backward and diagonal!),
water bottle, Roborovski.

“Can we do another one?” they beg.

And so begins a new cognitive behavioral
therapy practice, inspired by far too much
time stuck at home and on iPads. I print
word searches for everything. My 13-year-
old’s cell biology unit? Everyone find the word
mitosis! My 11-year-old’s research project
on Albert Einstein? Equation, relativity,
science, invention.

I begin to make my own, quickly typing up
searches that might make a child smile when
they can’t stop crying or distract them in the
middle of a meltdown. I include holidays and
YouTube celebrities and silly facts about our
dogs. Anything that might interest them.

Panic eases into focus. When one of my
kids starts to circle the hidden words, to
announce “Ah ha!” and pump their fist, the
others run over to see what they’re doing,
pull up their own chairs and search, too.

This isn’t homework, even when it’s about
something they’re learning in school. The
paper gets recycled afterward, sometimes just
30 seconds later. And yet the act itself centers
and soothes. The puzzles give my kids what
coloring books and yoga never could — peace,
even pleasure, in the midst of distress.

Now we’re heading back into the classroom
but only two days a week and with the
constant threat of closing again. It’s a lack of
consistency that feels like torture for children
who need routine and physical proximity to
their teachers and peers to stay regulated.

So we find fun where we can. More
importantly, we find order in a time that
otherwise feels chaotic to all people — big and
little — right now.

If I had known these puzzles provided this
sense of purpose to my children, I would have
started making them when my son first began
school. I would have met him in the pickup
lane with a Black Hole word search in hand. I
would have given my daughter an Artists Who
Draw Horses word search when she woke up
far too early on a Saturday morning. I would
have researched every Minecraft phrase
and created a Mega Gamer word search
for all three kids, keeping them busy for
hours on those days we were stuck at home,
long before COVID-19, simply because we
struggled that day.

If nothing else, the pandemic has given our
family this gift. And I am grateful. n
Washington FAMILY.com 35