How do I parent my child in the midst of chaos?

The start to my 2026 season has been far from perfect. When the fireworks lit up the sky at midnight, I sat there ready to conquer my goals. The world however had far different plans. The world decided, let’s shake things up a little to humble her.

January was the month that I had to block out anything that didn’t align with me which meant rejecting jobs I needed but I knew were toxic and saying no. I hate saying no to strangers. But I knew if I wanted to move forward, I had to shed my old skin and embrace a new mindset. I’ve experienced toxic workplaces before, and we are not doing that again.

February, I read files that I wish didn’t exist. It numbed me and made me rethink everything about people in this world. I started to find myself in a daze trying to process how people could think and do unimaginable things without any shame… and get away with it. How do I parent in that kind of world?

I entered Ramadan feeling heavy and drained. Then the drones hit and suddenly we became a target in the middle of a war. That world I was wondering how to parent in, suddenly turned into how do I parent children during a war?

We didn’t witness soldiers, guns or anything close to the experience of other countries but, I wasn’t prepared for the mental load. For ages I didn’t even want to call it a war because in a way, I felt bad to victimise the situation. I was still living my daily life with my daily luxuries, yet in the background of that was drones hitting different places. I still had the luxury to live my every day life. The situation was completely different for everyone though. Some lost their jobs, some lost their families, some lost their homes, some left the country, everybody rode this period differently. Everything was so out of your control that you just helped where you could.

What was also mentally draining though, was the online discourse. The fear mongering content. The videos from influencers documenting their evacuations, acting overly dramatic and making content out of it. The famous ‘this isn’t supposed to happen here’ video went viral, and it just made every perspective of the country worse. Because the truth is war can happen anywhere. We were all just trying to help each other out and those videos angered me, the fake narratives being put out on the internet. It didn't help. It created panic. Being on the other side of the news was truly eye opening to how much of the news is not true and that altered my brain chemistry completely. The reality was so far from everything the news was writing. It truly woke me up. I lost a lot of respect for so many news agencies I had been reading about other parts of the world and it made me question everything. I warned the children to not believe everything they read or watched and that they can ask me about anything. I had been honest with them about everything so far and it was important to me that I was honest so they didn't seek answers from unreliable sources and easily believe them.

For the most part, we were able to go out and about without seeing panic. Our supermarkets were stocked with essentials. Our children could still play outside. We adapted. We were informed and updated on the data and we were alerted on our phones whenever there were interceptions of drones or missiles in our area, so we knew the protocol. We were explained to that the videos we record, and post were being used and altered. We were warned that a lot of the ‘news’ were posting they heard explosions and saw this and that, but their location tags weren’t even in the country. They were fear mongering, trying to create chaos to make the situation worse. Trying to plant bad seeds. The truth behind this all later revealed itself.

There was always a sense of uncertainty, and I think that’s the worst part. It was the uncertainty of what will happen today. You think everything is fine and go about your day or your night and then BANG. The house shakes and you sit there in shock for a little bit trying to calm your heart down. But your mind is thinking, where was that? It was close, I need to check in on everyone. Your toddler is sitting there asking what’s that sound? But you must play it off like it's thunder in the skies. The older kids know. The airplanes are fighting. But they also somehow know they’re safe. They just need to stay inside. And then you get the alert on your phone assuring you that the threats have been dealt with, and we can resume our normal activities. And we do. We just keep going. That’s what they don’t tell you about war too. That the world doesn't stop and you just keep going about your life with smoke in the background. I understand now that that’s what makes those who have been and are going through war ridden countries so resilient and strong. The ability to just keep at their responsibilities despite their surroundings.

The worst night for me was when the storm hit. I’m home alone with 3 children and there’s tremendous amount of rain and strong winds and the front room starts flooding, the windows are leaking and then when it passes and you manage to clear up the leaks and manage the flood, you get an alert on your phone that there are missiles in the air that the air force are tackling. It felt like there wasn't time to breathe. I think that was the point that I just mentally shut off. I unfollowed the fake narratives and news, I turned off my notifications, I changed my algorithm to arts and literature, almost like a Pinterest board. I muted the WhatsApp groups, and I just focused on myself and the children. Because if I didn’t, I was going to go crazy, and the kids don’t need that. They need their mum.

The ceasefire was announced and then it just stopped. Silence. Suddenly we had to train our mindsets back to the loud noises just being construction, the drone noise is just a bike driving past, the airplane is just a commercial airplane. Slowly the children went back to school. We learnt that we must keep moving forward. We learnt not to let the bad stop us from living. Once again, we adapted and so did the children.

My mind isn’t in panic mode anymore. I’ve learnt to live with uncertainty, to be prepared for anything and the need for faith in yourself. So did the children. They learnt from following us as their parents. My biggest lesson learnt so far though is to focus only on what you can control. Leave everything else and focus on your space. This is the biggest takeaway as a parent that I want to continue to embody for the rest of the year. This means that I shouldn’t put my energy so far out into things that are not my place and can’t even reach. My focus needs to be what’s in my space, and that is where I need to put my energy into, that is my responsibility. I cannot teach my children to be better in this mad world if I don’t provide them with a healthy space to grow up in. I also wouldn’t have been able to support them and make them feel so safe during that period if I hadn’t had focused on doing the best I can in my own space. I realised how much my energy affected them. The dream is that the energy from our space spreads and continues to spread until bit by bit the world becomes a better place. To plant good seeds. But I’ve learnt that it starts at home, and it starts with yourself.