AS the old saying goes, you never quite know what’s around the corner. Sometimes it can be an opportunity; at other times it can be adversity, and that’s been the case for us lately and for some of our friends.

In our case, my journalist husband lost his job somewhat out of the blue. He’s been pretty successful, but that didn’t stop him from becoming one of many victims of media job shedding with a consequent plunge in our family income.

Another of our friends has encountered a similar fate thanks to the Federal Government’s continuing cutbacks. Other friends are suddenly dealing with even more serious problems – debilitating and serious illness, marriage break up as well as children and teenagers with major behavioural and psychological issues.

When things turn bad it’s easy to get lost in your own circumstances and think the sky has fallen in on you while the rest of the world is getting on with life. But the reality is we are all part of a bigger picture and even in a wealthy and prosperous community such as Canberra a lot of people are regularly doing it pretty tough.

Many of us are pretty stoic. We take these blows on the chin, batten down the hatches and try to ride out life’s storms.

There is a rush of adrenalin when you’re hit with something unexpected. After the immediate shock, I want to rush and suddenly make all sorts of changes in an effort to bring things back under control.

But as I’ve got older (and maybe learned something from life’s experience), I’ve come round to a slightly more measured approach to life’s crises.

Sometimes it’s best to make a cup of tea, sit down with a notepad and break everything down into a list of little jobs and decisions that you have to work your way through.

Calm and methodical can be hard to achieve, but it does work.

One of the challenges I’ve been dealing with lately is how to help my children through tough times.

I’ve learnt the hard way that trying to keep things from the kids is a big mistake. I swear they have built-in lie detectors, are totally immune to attempts at distraction and are much better at reverse psychology than I will ever be.

So my approach has been to involve them fully in the process. In our case, this has involved telling them upfront about the big hit in revenue, talking about the savings required and the changes we need to make, and deciding as a family just what we’ll have to live without and what’s really important while we cut our cloth to meet our new circumstances.

One of the worst things for kids is uncertainty, not knowing what’s happening. Lots of discussion, planning and maintaining daily routines goes a long way to keep everyone on an even keel.

It’s also worth trying to keep things in perspective; there are certainly many worse things than one parent losing their job.

Support also comes from all sorts of quarters. My department was very helpful in immediately agreeing to let me shift back to full-time work. Friends have been hugely supportive.

Most importantly life keeps rolling on and a proactive approach helps. Already my husband has picked up some work with another newspaper. He isn’t earning a fraction of what he did, but things are looking modestly better.

As a great aunt of mine was inclined to say in times of trouble and strife, “all these things are passing”.