During the holidays’ many families with children can go from the feeling of close family bonding to yelling and screaming often in the course of the same day. This can occur for many reasons but knowing these reasons can help parents plan ahead to more easily manage the holidays and their children.
For many families with children the holiday school vacation represents a break in routine and the first time since a distant summer vacation that the family will spend considerable unstructured time together. This can occur whether children are home with a parent, home alone, or sent to vacation camps. The change in schedule caused by the holiday added to the excitement of the holidays can cause children and parents great stress. This stress can be magnified in children with disabilities, such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, etc.. and in their families.
Many of the conflicts in the holiday relate to unstructured time. If children are home during the day, it’s important to schedule parts of the day with specific activities. Not every moment needs to be filled, but interspersing scheduled activities during the day can head off stress, boredom, and arguments. Choosing active activities, like sledding, skiing, walks outside, games of snow football give the family structure but also help burn off excess energy and allow the family a chance to reconnect through shared activities.
Children today have very different childhoods than children from one or two generations ago. Today’s children are often isolated – both from peers because they often don’t get to know other children in their neighborhood very well. They are often in daycare or have non-traditional families (through a divorce, step-families), etc. Therefore when they are home for the holidays they may not have friends nearby who are readily available to go play with, which increases the demands on the family to take them places or arrange activities for them to do.
During the school vacation, it is helpful to give children daily responsibilities that can also help take some of the stress from parents and provide daily structure for children. Children, particularly adolescents, appreciate the chance to earn extra money by doing jobs around the house that they can spend over break with their friends. Some children will have school projects to work on during the holidays. It is best to try to get your child to do these in the first few days so that you do not find yourselves arguing about them all week or in a panic mood the day before school starts. Even if they don’t have homework, it is recommended that the family still keep up the homework routine on the nonholiday vacation days. This involves having your child spend a half-hour to an hour each day doing something quiet and thinking related, such as reading, crosswords, board games, or chess. This does not include electronic game time. Keeping the homework routine can help smooth the transition back to regularly scheduled homework once the vacation ends, and reinforce the importance of learning.
With children and adolescents, it’s easy to let them get out of their school sleep patterns. Just the excitement of the Holiday day, staying up late, and all the festivities can cause high emotions for the next few days. Particularly with adolescents, it’s important as the vacation week nears its end to start moving them back to the earlier bedtimes, and earlier waking times of the school day. This helps ease the transition back to school so you don’t end up creating a week of tired and cranky teens.
Many of us make New Year’s resolutions. For parents, New Year is often a missed opportunity. Just as we know the end of the year is the time to look over our financial picture, it is also the time to look over our parenting and our family life. As parents, we all make mistakes at times. The whole trick to good parenting is to not make the same mistake over and over. At New Year make a list of things that have worked very well for your family over the last year, and then a list of things that have not gone well. Then set some goals. Also, look at what arguments you have with your children. Often as parents, we have the same arguments over and over. So its time to look at those arguments and decide how to handle them. But be realistic and come up with a doable plan.
Encourage your child to be self-reflective. How was the year for them? What were the highs and what were the lows? What’s working at school and what’s not working? Then help your child set some goals for themselves.
General strategies for surviving and enjoying the Holidays with children
1) Keep a routine
2) Provide activities for children to do during the vacation week
3) Use the holidays to increase your child’s sense of connectedness to the family and community. Use the holiday to broaden connections for kids by:
visiting with relatives,
telling stories, and/or
talking about your family’s identity – what does it mean to be a member of the “DeMarle” family. What are your beliefs about gifts, holidays, etc?
4) Give kids responsibilities – often the holidays “happen to” kids – let them help to make the holiday happen for your family. When children create and participate in family events, it helps to build their self-esteem. Let children participate by:
baking cookies for neighbors
buying gifts for a needy child/children
helping to wrap gifts
doing a family project
5) Talk about the meaning behind the different holidays – Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza
6) Kids have a different sense of time and reality. Therefore, parents need to talk to them about things more than once since their understanding changes as they grow.
7) Set a goal to eat dinner together at least five times over the Holiday.
8) If your child believes in “Santa” and believes “that he knows if you’ve been good or bad,” use their Christmas gifts as an opportunity to reaffirm that they have been really good children.
9) Use your library. Libraries can be a lifesaver during the holidays. Prior to the vacation week make a trip to the library and choose several books for each child to