By Sheryl Pidgeon | Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

Like you, I am struggling to comprehend the enormity of the Coronavirus pandemic. I keep using the word “surreal” to describe my feelings. But it is all too real.

While we as adults are attempting to wrap our arms around our continued plight, donning masks and gloves, scrubbing ourselves and our groceries down, canceling summer trips and coping with an abundance of uncertainties, our children, too, are filled with angst and grief. While they are coming to accept their new reality, and we’ve taught them that health trumps everything else, the things they once took for granted are now in their rearview mirror. Perhaps the worst part isn’t the loss of those experiences but the loss of camaraderie, the joy of sharing the experiences with our extended families, friends and community.

Optimists like myself will discover the silver lining: more time with the kids, long walks, slowing down, a re-evaluation of what really matters. But many experts think that the best way to help our children is to simply listen and to acknowledge their feelings, without trying to fix anything.

We as parents are coping with our own issues — job insecurity or loss, the inability to care for or even see our aging parents, homeschooling, scouring our homes, securing and preparing healthy meals for our families, fear of losing those we love, and a myriad of other feelings you all know too well. We are charged with the need to help our children through this, to find the bright side, and to persevere.  Like the airlines say in the case of an in-air emergency, “Put your mask on first and then assist those around you.” We simply must keep it together, for the sake of our children. Even if we want to fall apart, we do not have that luxury if we are to help our families get to the other side of these uncharted waters stronger, wiser, better — or at least OK.

Here at Good Life Family Magazine we’ve reached out to a wide array of experts with questions, and they’ve jumped in to answer. While you look to your main news sources for day-to-day details, we hope our content will continue to be a source of information that helps you get through the day.

We’ve had to make some big changes here, including altering the way we deliver our content to you. We closed the door on our print edition in March, but we’ve opened the window on our website for daily updates, timely tips and sage advice in our weekly e-newsletter. Another exciting addition is a GLF podcast launching in July where you can hear from our experts. And, while we have made the cutbacks needed to keep our doors open, our content will remain 100% FREE to the public, so we can help be an amplifier for news and information that will benefit our readers, viewers and soon, listeners, as we huddle together VIRTUALLY and navigate this incredibly crazy journey.

Please share your expertise, thoughts, inspirations, and comments with us. We want to hear from you! And if you have a product, service, or expertise that helps “sandwich generation” parents, consider joining us as an advertiser or sponsor. It’s a win-win since we will be your megaphone, and you will help us continue to deliver on our promise to help families make life better.

LIVE. LEARN. LAUGH. REPEAT.