Holiday Survival Guide for Parents of Spirited Children
As much as the holiday season can involve rich opportunities to connect with loved ones and to celebrate relished traditions, it can also bring behavior mayhem.
It’s common to feel daunted by extra errands, travel, inclement weather, and challenging dynamics with extended family. Families with spirited children can become especially strained by behavior challenges, which may spike during the holiday break.
Spirited children can be prone to irritability and low frustration tolerance. Many show emotional reactivity if something unexpected happens or does not go how they envision. Families might anticipate the holidays as a time for warmth and enjoyment. The reality is that more family togetherness can mean more arguments, more sibling squabbles, and more emotional outbursts. Our clinic typically sees an uptick in calls right after the holidays as families emerge from rough waters.
There are a few steps that families can take to help ease the stress of behavior chaos.
1. Self-care
This might sound obvious and even trite, but it may be the most important action that parents can take. We have control over only our own behavior. For any of us, we are much better equipped to skillfully respond to a difficult behavior moment if our own needs are being met relative to when we feel exhausted and frazzled. What does this mean at a practical level? Self-care looks different for everyone, although it’s safe to say that we all need sleep. For many parents, self-care may also involve keeping up with an exercise routine, savoring some alone time to recharge, and prioritizing time with those who support and nourish us.
2. Reduce demands
Unless your child does what you say the first time you ask, you might want to scale back the demands that you place on your child. Most parents tell me that they have to say things ten times, raise their voice, or threaten punishment before their child will listen. When we say things ten times, yell, or threaten to get a response, we are in essence training our children not to listen to our calm voice. We might as well be saying to our kids, “No need to take me seriously until I raise my voice.” Unfortunately, this communication cycle does not end peacefully with children happily unloading the dishwasher.
Temporarily reducing demands feels objectionable to most parents, at first. There are ways to teach your child to listen that work really well but most parents don’t have the bandwidth to implement new discipline strategies over the holidays. Until effective limit setting is achieved, you risk further entrenching your child’s belief that they don’t need to listen to you and suffering escalations that go nowhere.
Of course, there are limits and demands that are simply non-negotiable. The iPad has to be put away and bedtimes have to happen. If you would like more ideas now, you can read elsewhere about Tips for Screen Time Limits and Tips for Effective Commands.
3. Talk less
This might be my favorite tip. How often have you felt frustrated because no matter how much you explain things to your child, the problem persists? When children defy, most parents fall into the trap of explaining why the child should comply. It’s easy to default into reasoning, explaining, moralizing, and lecturing. Just as we may tune out the sound of the bus line down the street, children are adept at filtering out parental entreaties. When a child is less than receptive to parent sermons, most parents find themselves propelled to talk more and talk louder.
Despite that such exchanges commonly result in escalation and nothing accomplished, it’s hard to resist talking. Keep in mind that children are more likely to emotionally flood when their parents over talk and parents are more likely to unravel themselves when trying to talk sense into a non receptive audience. There is a time and place for reasoning, which you can read about in How to Reason with Your Child.
4. Prepare
Many children are hard-wired to need predictable routines. The holidays can be anything but predictable. For children who tend towards inflexibility, there are strategies that can help. Many children respond well to visual schedules, perhaps with a calendar, so that they know what to expect. In addition to advanced preparation, teach your child about what it means to have a “plan A” and a “plan B.” “Oh no, we won’t be driving to grandma’s house today because of icy roads. I guess we’re going to have to come up with a plan B.”
There are children who erupt dramatically at more minor unexpected plan changes. Some of these children respond well to being taught the concept of flexibility, and “flexibility stars.” When you find yourself at a difficult juncture with an inflexible child, you can coach your child that “this is a great chance to practice flexibility and earn a star.” Many children respond positively to this framework at least some of the time.
5. Accept
It’s understandable to feel devastated when a cherished holiday ends up wrought with tantrums, arguments, or even aggressive behavior and insults hurled at you. You put all of this effort into making this time special and instead the days feel like an act of survival. Allow yourself to feel grief. It is a genuine loss when a holiday goes sideways and the reality isn’t anywhere near your vision of a happy family holiday. Or, you might feel less concerned about the holidays themselves and more worried about the longer term implications of your child’s difficult behavior. You are not alone.
For the time being, your child is doing the best that they can. Many children with disruptive behaviors are struggling for identifiable reasons (read more about this in Why My Child?). There are effective resources to address behavior issues and to help family life run more smoothly. Reach out to your pediatrician or a mental health professional for support.
