At holiday celebrations, adults and children tend to congregate in the same spaces. Where there are parents and children commingling, parenting styles inevitably come out on full display — especially when parents have to manage their child in an environment that may be more chaotic, exciting and stimulating than their day-to-day.
All this can breed hostility among the adults. Each adult will have their own opinions about what kids should or shouldn’t be doing at a holiday gathering, and some will choose to voice those opinions. Whenever someone does or says something that signals their disapproval of another adult’s parenting decision or their child’s behavior, it can lead to conflict.
Parents will need to decide how they will manage these situations in a way that diffuses tension and supports their children. A little preparation ahead of these gatherings can be valuable.
Below, family therapists share the six things you can do before the holidays that will ensure a more peaceful celebration.
1. Hold a meeting with the other adults to discuss what parenting will look like over the holidays.
“If you could make a game plan that gets you in sync with the adults who are in charge, it is a wonderful thing to do,” said Lisa Spiegel, a therapist who specializes in parenting and one of the directors of New York-based Soho Parenting therapy center.
Before the day of the gathering, invite all the parents and grandparents who will be there to talk it through. You could discuss whether each parent will discipline their own child, how you will do bedtime and bath time, and so on. This can be done at an in-person family meeting, on a group call or on a group message chat.
2. Prepare your child beforehand for what they should do in any sticky situations.
If you can anticipate situations in which your child will have different rules to follow than their cousins, or if they will have to abide by the rules of the host, make time to prepare them for these before attending the gathering, said Donna Novak, a licensed psychologist and owner of Simi Psychological Group in California.
If you have a specific scenario in mind, talk through this with your child. For example, explain that Aunt Sara does not want anyone to eat with the television on, even at Christmas time. Explain what they can expect to see, and how the rules for them may differ from the rules for other kids.
Ask them to share their feelings about this. Brainstorm ideas about how they could respond. Assure them that there is always an “exit route” if they ever feel really frustrated or upset, and remind them they can ask to go for a walk or to talk through their frustrations, Novak suggested.
3. Schedule breaks away from other kids.
“Kids need breaks from each other,” said Novak. “We need breaks to be able to recharge and to give ourselves enough fuel to deal with difficult moments, and kids are no different. For kids, what it can do is give them a break to come in with a new perspective.”
Break up the time that your child is around other children with a family walk outside or a drive around the neighborhood. During this time, check in with how they are. “For a verbal child, it can give them a moment to express and vent, to have a listening ear in the midst of all that’s happening, so they feel listened to for a few minutes,” said Novak. When kids do not feel heard, that can lead to meltdowns, she added.
If your child is not a verbal processor, a break allows them to bond with somebody they feel safe with and feel calmer again.
4. Make a conscious decision not to parent other people’s kids or comment on other people’s parenting choices.
Spiegel’s rule of thumb is to stay in your own lane and be in charge of your own kids. “Don’t step in and try to discipline other people’s kids — that’s where adults get into conflict,” she advised. (Unless it’s a behavior that could seriously harm another person.)
If you notice a child throwing a Lego block that hits your child and are itching to take some form of action, go to your child and comfort them. Acknowledge that they’ve been hurt, then help them advocate for themselves, Spiegel advised. Encourage them to say to their cousin, “I don’t like it when you throw things at me,” or to even just to say, “Ouch, that hurt me.”
5. Figure out how you would respond to someone else reprimanding your child.
Say your sister doles out discipline to your child for grabbing the toy that her son was playing with. In the heat of the moment, Spiegel advises choosing the route of de-escalation.
“Kids will end up feeling bad about themselves and responsible, particularly if they ignite some sort of adult conflict. So the first move is to protect your kid by taking them out of there and talk to them in the way you would want to,” she said. Take your child to a separate, calmer room or head outside.
Novak agreed. “It doesn’t feel very conflictual, but it does communicate the message of, ‘I’m the one that’s going to come in here and protect my child, and what we need is space.’”
Later on, once the gathering has ended, you can choose to take your sister aside to calmly let her know to find you or your partner to deal with your child’s behavior, said Spiegel.
6. Mentally run through how you would respond to judgmental comments about your parenting choices or your child.
“It’s a boundary violation, really, to comment on somebody’s parenting,” Spiegel said.
Say a grandparent makes a remark about how you’re not disciplining your child’s behavior appropriately. Criticisms from your child’s grandparent often stem from the grandparent feeling judged if you have chosen to parent your own kids differently than how you were raised, Spiegel noted. They might wonder if you believe they handled things wrongly as you were growing up, and it hits a delicate spot for them.
“Keeping calm is really hard. It’s our most sensitive nerve, for parents, when somebody is saying something directly to judge them. We’re such hard judges on ourselves, so it’s really sensitive if somebody criticizes your parenting,” she said. If this is true for you, it might be worth preparing a handful of statements that you can repeat to yourself in these tense moments.
Those statements might include:
- I recognize that what they say is not a message about me
- They’re entitled to their opinion but it doesn’t mean their opinion is right
- There’s nothing that I can do in this moment to change that person’s mind
- I allow myself to be kind even when people around me are not kind to themselves or me
- I don’t have to join every fight I’m invited to.
Spiegel is a believer in making a very deliberate choice not to engage with the criticism or judgmental comment. Remove yourself from the area and say that prepared statement to yourself, either out loud or by typing or writing it out. You may find it helpful to focus your mind on a new task like washing the dishes or tidying up a room.
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After the holidays have ended, you can always have a calm chat with the person who remarked on your parenting and share how you felt.