Surviving Unemployment: Part One- The Kids

This is the first post in a series about our experience with unemployment. It was almost exactly a year ago (January 2, 2014) that Greg lost his job and we started a new chapter of our lives. It actually was the greatest experience of our lives, and I'm not just saying that after the fact. You know how people will look back and say "that was hard, but it wasn't that bad", they're probably forgetting the actual hell they went through. I wrote in my journal pretty regularly during that time so I'm not just remembering things through rose colored glasses. But on to the important stuff.

I didn't grow up in a financially secure home. I remember being scared and embarrassed and afraid that we were going to be without essentials and maybe even homeless. I worried a lot. There were so many unknowns. That doesn't mean that my parents weren't good people, they were and are really great, there were just a lot of challenges. So I know what it's like to be a scared child. When we found out that we were losing Greg's job I immediately knew that we had to be certain that our children felt secure. They needed to know that they were going to be cared for.

Here are a few of the things that we did to help our little ones (and ourselves) feel safe during a really uncertain time.

• Keep the kids informed. When I paid the mortgage I would tell them that the house was taken care of. We showed them the food in the fridge. I told them that the utilities were paid. We also told them that our family was cutting back so there wasn't room for extras in the budget. When they talked about wanting to go somewhere or do something that cost money we would say things like "we only have a small amount of money and it needs to go to food or utilities or...", that helped them to see that the choices we were making were important and that were weren't just trying to be mean.
• But not too informed. They didn't need to know how much was in our bank account (I could tell you to the penny) or exactly how many months we could have lived on our savings (5 months and 2 weeks). It was not important for our kids to know what the numbers were, only that they were being cared for.
• Do fun things together. It was really tempting to only focus on essentials but we felt that some things needed to continue to happen even though they didn't make exact financial sense. So we kept making chocolate chip cookies and sometimes we would go to the dollar store and let the kids pick out a treasure. We also went on adventures to the park and to the library (and anywhere else that was free). We didn't let the horror of being unemployed suck all of the fun out of our life.
• Tell them about the good things. We had a neighbor that took our Suburban to his shop to do safety and emissions but when he brought it back it had new tires, an oil change, a tune up, a full tank of gas, registration plus the safety and emissions. He also forgot to bring the bill home. We anonymously received a gift card in the mail with a very large balance. A friend handed me cash and walked away. Every time something like that would happen, we made sure to tell the kids. We constantly talked about how blessed we were.
• Be grateful. Greg and I were and still are very grateful for this change that was forced on us and we made sure to talk to the kids about all of the good things that were happening. We listed all of the good in our lives and we tried to focus on that instead of the fear.
• But let them be scared and then reassure them over and over that they will be cared for. Sometimes the uncertainty of it all would get to the kids (and us) and make them (and us) act out. There would be fits and tears and screaming. We tried really hard to stay calm and to let them be upset. We would then list all of the ways that they were being cared for. We told them that the bills were paid. We reminded them of family and friends that would care for us if we needed their help. We reviewed all of the good things that had happened. Sometimes just acknowledging the fear made it go away.

Greg and I are certain that it was Divine intervention that helped us help our children through a scary time. We are not naturally that smart, we had a lot of help and thankfully we were able to make a challenging time a very special period of our lives. That's pretty incredible no matter how you look at it.