My dining room is now a classroom. My phone screen transports me to fitness studios and ballet classes. My family gatherings now happen on my laptop. My kitchen has transformed into an industrial dining room where customers eat all day. My day is saturated with an absurd number of messages, memes, informative videos of dubious origin and jokes, for which I feel immensely grateful. And something as simple as going to the supermarket has become a titanic feat of survival where my only armor is a face mask and a pair of gloves.

It all comes down to one word: uncertainty; a global uncertainty that overwhelms us all.

A very similar feeling to what we lived through the terrible floods of Hurricane Harvey in Houston. The big difference is that this time we are not being displaced from our homes but tied to them.

What seems most impressive to me about this whole situation is how the entire planet is at risk of contagion from a crown-shaped virus that surprised us all and swiped us off our feet. Talking about what we're going through with friends or family doesn’t require long and detailed explanations or even context. Parents, grandparents, kids, neighbors, siblings, friends, bosses, coworkers, teachers, students, employees, we are all in this together, regardless of the country in which we live. We all empathize with each other's situation, well, or at least we all should since we are all exposed in the same way. We all understand it, we are all living it and trying to overcome it the best way we can.

However, in the midst of this storm, in the distance, I see the intense glance of my three kids who watch me closely all day. Three emotional thermometers that measure my mood hour by hour, minute by minute to try to make sense of the world and give meaning to this new way of living.

They listen to my conversations, observe my gestures and try to deduce the meaning of my reactions. They look impatiently for a leader to show them the way on a misty path, unaware that their leader is also lost and hides her fears behind a smile.

We are all experiencing a pandemic for the first time and as parents, it puts us in a very difficult situation by not having answers to seemingly simple questions such as: How much longer are we going to have to stay home? When are we going to go back to school? Am I going to have my dance recital? Are we going to the beach in the summer? Are our grandparents going to be all right in Mexico? When can we see them? Am I going to have graduation? Are people we know going to die?

In the face of such uncertainty, last week I had the wonderful opportunity to have a Zoom conversation with Dr. Ben Nordstrom, the Addiction Psychiatrist and Executive Director of Responsibility.org.

Responsibility.org is a national not-for-profit organization who’s mission is to eliminate underage drinking, avoid drunk driving, which we know causes thousands of deaths a year, and to empower adults to drink alcohol responsibly and as part of a healthy lifestyle. This organization is funded by companies such as Bacardi USA, Beam Suntory Inc., Brown-Forman, Diageo, Edrington, Mast-Jägermeister US, Moet Hennessy USA, and Pernod Ricard USA.

Responsibility.org runs an awareness campaign every year that starts in April, as it is Alcohol Responsibility Month. This year I am very excited to be part of the team of Influencers #TeamResponsibility who are going to help spread their very important messages throughout the year.

As part of the campaign launch, Dr. Nordstrom shared with us valuable recommendations on how to help our children, and ourselves, to cope during these difficult times.

Today I share with you Dr. Nordstrom’s tips which I hope help you all as much as they've helped me:

Recommendations for children:

During extreme circumstances, it's very important to make sense of the world and the situation we are in, and for children, it is even more so. We must be aware that they listen to our conversations and phone calls, thus open, clear and constant communication with them is more important than ever. When this doesn't happen and children have incomplete information, they fill in those gaps with wrong assumptions.
As parents, try to help them manage their boredom and frustration. During these weeks a routine will be our best friend since children will look forward to these predictable moments as safety ports where they can anchor during the day.
Kids take emotional cues from us. We set the tone. If children see us sad, they will feel sad, if they see us nervous and restless all day, they will feel nervous and restless as well, so trying to stay calm and transmit that sense of calmness to the rest of the family is key.
Although we do not have answers to most of their questions right now, it is very important not to promise them something we can't deliver. The important thing is to reinforce them that we don't know exactly when, but that everything will return back to normal and that everything will be fine. We must also be careful to give them age-appropriate answers to their questions.
In a world where we have lost all control, it is recommended to allow kids to choose from different options in easy tasks so they can regain a sense of control during these uncertain times.
If social distancing is hard for us as adults, imagine how hard it's for kids to not be able to play with their friends or visit their grandparents. It is time to make sure that they feel proud that with this sacrifice they are making, they are protecting older people and their entire community of family and friends. They are little heroes and heroines!
Let's give them a space to talk about negative feelings. It's ok to feel sad, frustrated, or angry. Let's give them the opportunity to talk to us about it, let off steam with us without feeling judged.

Recommendations for teens and young adults:

Teenagers find themselves in a much more complicated situation. Many college students, after living by themselves for many months or even years, now find themselves in their parents' living room, some of them behaving like toddlers again, not wanting to abide by rules and schedules. We also have middle and high school students frustrated by not knowing if they will be able to celebrate their graduations and end of the year parties, however at the same time, they’re feeling overwhelmed with homework and responsibilities so as not to fall behind academically.
All of these situations are real losses for them and as such, we must give them a safe space to mourn and express their sadness and their frustration without feeling judged, rejected, or misunderstood. They just want to feel listened to, and as parents we have to learn the big lesson that it's not personal.
The great advantage of having older kids is that we can have much more sophisticated conversations with them and everyone can enrich the family’s vision with diverse and interesting points of view.
Now more than ever we must recommend them a rigorous "information diet". Like us, their phones are saturated with memes, videos, messages, emails, and generally dubious news. If they were not doing it before, now it’s a good time for them to learn how to check the sources of their information and identify whether it’s true or not. Mental breaks from this informative saturation on the topic are essential.
Self-care is very important. Eating well, taking a shower, being active, going outdoors when they can, and enjoying healthy entertainment and hobbies, is more important than ever to cope during these uncertain times.
Now is the perfect time to have a serious conversation with them about responsible alcohol consumption. It is important that they understand that in adverse moments like this one we should not consume alcohol as a coping mechanism. Alcohol is counterproductive because although it may temporarily make us feel better, as it numbs our bad feelings, it chemically down regulates our bodies and leaves us feeling worse than when we started. That does not mean that alcohol is prohibited or bad for us, on the contrary, as adults to enjoy a delicious cocktail on your terrace at sunset is perfectly normal and responsible, the difference is to consume the cocktail because we want to and not because we need to. This message is very powerful and they must understand the difference. Remember that conversations do work.
An interesting fact is that excess consumption of alcohol lowers the immune system and I think that's the last thing we need for ourselves and for our children

Now more than ever our children are observing us and the way in which we emotionally cope with this pandemic will give them a great set of tools to overcome any other adverse situations in the future.

Many thanks to Responsibility.org and Dr. Nordstrom for these very valuable recommendations. These tools will be extremely useful for me and my family, not only during this situation but during any other challenge in the future.

On a personal note, I'd like to share with all of you that during these quarantine weeks I've had very good days and very bad ones. I have implemented these recommendations with my kids to the best of my ability. Some were easier to apply than others, however, I think that acknowledging the situations that are not working very well, serve me as great opportunities for improvement. By simply being able to identify my mistakes puts me ahead of the game and on the right path to a better way of coping and parenting.

To all the moms and dads who live in Houston, in Mexico, in the United States and in any other city around the world, I send you all a very strong virtual hug from the bottom of my heart filled with support and affection. We can do this! We can cope with this and more, we are so much stronger than we think we are. Let us endure this race with good spirits because we are all in this together and we all can support each other. Of course we will have days in which we will be proud of how we handled this complicated situation and others in which we won’t. But the important thing is that we will always remember the 2020 COVID19 pandemic and who we decided to be during it.

Click here to learn more about how to talk to your kids about alcohol:

Responsibility.org