How to talk to your kids in times of crisis

Yahoo Lifestyle sat down with the world-renowned clinical psychologist and wisdom teacher to gain insight on how parents can best connect with their children, while also alleviating the fear and panic surrounding the coronavirus.

Video transcript

SHEFALI TSABARY: Well, the first place parents have to start is by talking to themselves and understand their own fears and their own anxieties and what this means for them-- and talk to a coach, talk to a friend, figure out where their energy is, and then really understand that there's a difference between rational fears and irrational fears and make sure that they can discern the difference for their own self. If the parent is not self aware about how their own energy is, they're going to botch this up, even though they may see it the right words. It's all about energy with which you talk to your children.

At school, you have your structure, rules, where to go, and same here. So try to normalize what they're going through, but also let them know, yes, I'm sure you're going to feel fear. And I'm here to hold the space for you and to acknowledge it. But let's also not go irrational. By irrational, I mean spending a lot of time on future-based thoughts, and thoughts that haven't yet shown up in reality.

And I teach meditation, and I'm a mindfulness teacher. So what I do with that is help parents come into the present moment and into gratitude and power, resilience, courage in the present moment. And as long as we can do that for ourselves, we can teach our children. I know it's scary out there. I'm here to help you with your fears. It's human and normal to feel fear and sadness right now. Your routines are disrupted. You miss your friends. I acknowledge. I honor.

But we are adapters. We adapt in life. This is our power-- a superpower. Another superpower we have is that we are alchemizers. We can convert this into something positive and constructive. And the third thing we need to do in this moment is become people of altruistic service. We need to give others. And if they see us do these three things every day, they will understand, OK, this is a difficult time. I can be afraid. I can fall apart. But my mom and dad have got it together.

We match our message to the audience, and we match it to the developmental maturity of your child. As the child becomes more mature, you can give them more hard facts. Part of this now is also not watching the news 24/7. Don't have the news on 24/7, because it escalates anxiety and the sense of being out of control. Watch it late at night when you can, especially if you have young children, because they don't need to absorb our anxiety right now. They need to be comfortable, confident, resilient, and anxiety free.

Kids, for the most part, are pretty resilient-- for the most part. If your kid was already veering towards depression, you have to keep a special eye on those kids and be extra proactive to get them to express their feelings, share their feelings, and feel like they are-- they have a safe space to emote. So pay attention for signs. They will be nonchalant or complacent. But on the other hand, also preempt some anxiety in your children and talk about it.

Don't let them feel like they're strange and alien to feel it-- that they're normal and human. But this is how I transform my anxiety into resilience, right? In fact, I have a book here called "Superpowered." It's coming out in September. We've been giving away free teachings of this book. It's called "Transform Anxiety into Confidence, Courage, and Resilience." So this is exactly what I teach parents how to do on a daily basis.

The ideal medication if you're feeling low is to meditate and not rely on any outside medication, because those are typically transient and temporary. So the reason we're feeling low right now is because we are facing a never before seen type of uncertainty. Even though life was always uncertain, it was never uncertain like this. So my job as a psychologist is to help people normalize their anxiety, let their anxiety be a part of their existence-- not to be afraid of anxiety, but I give them techniques to cope through the anxiety.

You see, we were always living on the edge. It just that we were dulled to it by our comfort. You know, we human beings are capable of living in reality no matter how painful it is. We don't have to run away. And marijuana, alcohol, drugs, substances makes us run away from reality. There are many, many mental health angels out there right now-- teachers like me giving our free services. This is the time. The internet is our friend, and we should use virtual connection right now to raise our vibration.