Rob: Next question is from Carolina. Carolina asks, “How do you you manage your own anxiety and keep older kids (ages 10 and up) calm?

John:  Yes, Carolina, it’s difficult. I think one thing we tend to do at times like this, and it’s totally understandable, is we end up staring at our phones — at CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and inundating ourselves with information.

It’s important to be well-informed, but if you’re like most of us, we are overplaying that and are probably stressing ourselves out.

I’m working with a lot of people who are in very much a crisis mode, which is also understandable, but at some point, we do have to find a new temporary normal for ourselves so that we can be calm.

So if you can kind of think that way and start to structure your days so that you feel like, “Okay. It’s going to be like this for a while. We’re not going to be in crisis mode all day long.

We’re not going to survive that very well with cortisol flowing through our systems, so we’re going to approach our days with some sense of calm and some sense of structure.

That way I, mom or dad, will be able to breathe, and if I can breathe, then I can bring that to my parenting.

And there even may be some familial upside to a situation that has seemingly nothing but downside, in that we are going to be able to spend some time together.

We might be able to get some things done around the house that we would normally not be able to do.

We might be able to create inside jokes, or to play a board game, so that this isn’t just bad news.

Rob: How about talking to your kids about it?

We have younger kids here, seven, five and two, so they’re a little easier to talk about it with, but I’m imagining 10, 13-year-olds that are consuming this.

How would you talk to them to quell their anxiety, and also keep them informed?

John: Yeah, that’s a good question.  So first you want to ask them what they know, because by the time kids get to even 10, 11, 12, they know an awful lot of what’s going on. They have access on whatever screen is in front of them or through friends or other siblings.

So, don’t assume your kids don’t know.

Ask them how they feel.

Ask them what they know.

Ask them what they’re thinking.

Let them talk about their fears and their anxieties.

And do not, I really encourage parents on this point, do not dismiss them or minimize their fears because your kids know to be anxious and fearful.

And if you, minimize the fear or the situation, that will actually spike their anxiety. It will not bring it down.

So the first thing you want to do is acknowledge what they’re feeling.

And then you want to bring reason to it.  So we want to look at this as a family more as a situation than a crisis.

So what can we do? Kids like action steps. So if the action step is we’re going to hole up, we’re going to stay home.

And we’re going to make sure that we kind of create that social distancing that’s going to be a part of what we do as a family.

Or when we go to the grocery store, we’re going to pick some stuff up for the neighbors.

But to have some action plan as a family for what we’re going to do to help mitigate the situation.

Kids do well with that too. At the very least, we want to make sure you’re available to all your kids to talk about any of this stuff, anytime. 

Including your kids who seem fine or are quiet about this.

Don’t assume that because they’re not talking about it, that it’s not on their minds.