108: How to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic

In this episode we discuss how to cope with parents’ and children’s fear and anxiety related to the Coronavirus pandemic, how to keep the children busy so you can get some work done (without resorting to hours of screen time), and how to use the time that you are focused on them to develop your family relationships as well as their learning, rather than you driving each other nuts. To download a FREE sample routine to help you organize your days, and also join a FREE one-week workshop to give you the tools you need to cope with this situation, please go to yourparentingmojo.com/coronavirus   Other episodes mentioned in this show Talk Sex Today Understanding the AAP’s new screen time guidelines Raising your child in a digital world   Resources List of video conferencing companies offering free services Geocaching website Nature journaling videos with John Muir Laws   Jump to highlights 00:58 Introduction of episode 04:16 Difference between fear, worry, anxiety, and panic and how they impact a person 07:23 Official diagnosis of anxiety 08:36 Official diagnosis of a panic attack 10:05 What can we do to be less afraid 16:33 Difference between routine and schedule 22:48 A learning exploration 29:49 Parents worry about loneliness 39:50 Realization during the pandemic   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast!  I know that listeners who have been with me for a while know that an episode is going to be different when I dispense with the music at the beginning – I think the last time I did this was six months ago when I announced that I was taking a break from the show.  But have no fear; I’m not going anywhere – I just did it today to indicate that this is not a normal show because these are not normal times.  I’m recording this on March 15 2020, four days after the World Health Organization declared that the coronavirus outbreak is a pandemic, which means it is dispersed across a very wide geographic area and affects many individuals at the same time.  Many, many things have been canceled in the last few days – most schools are canceled for at least the next few weeks; big events are canceled or postponed, and we’re being advised to practice ‘social distancing’ by remaining six feet apart from other people. This all seems really big and super stressful and I’m not going to go into the details of much of the epidemiological information because frankly that isn’t my specialty.  But I also know that a lot of you are struggling with issues that very much do fall into my wheelhouse – things like “what on earth am I going to do with my kids for the next six weeks when we usually start to get on each other’s nerves on day six of a vacation,” and “will my child get behind on school work,” and “how am I going to still get my own WORK work done so I can get paid and keep us afloat while we’re all cooped up in this tiny space?” So in this episode I’m going to cover two main things – firstly, resources for you, because you may well be feeling quite anxious and approaching the end of your rope already and unsure how you’re going to make it through the coming weeks. Then we’ll talk about issues that affect your children while we’re going through this and how to answer your children’s questions...