No, it’s not just you. And yes, it feels like these kids have gone crazy since the day before Halloween! Every parent and caregiver can relate to the hectic, chaotic feeling of extreme behaviors, sugared-up little bodies, and general chaos during the holiday season. You aren’t alone – in fact, it’s common for families to struggle with challenging behaviors during the holidays.
7 Tips for Handling the Holidays
While these behavior challenges can apply to all children, they’re especially intense for the kids in our foster, adoptive, and kinship community who have experienced a break in attachment, multiple placements, or other trauma.
You might see tantrums, defiance, ungratefulness, hyperactivity, paranoia, hypersensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and what honestly feels like chaos. These tips can help calm the chaos and create a more enjoyable holiday season for your entire family.
1. Adjust your expectations.
The media and our society, in general, have created an image of holidays that is sweetly, perfectly curated, with attention to every detail. Ads and pictures are front and center long before the holidays arrive, making it hard not to feel pressured to live up to the standards of the most current lifestyle influencers. Not only are these vignettes unrealistic to achieve and sustain, but they may not be what’s best for your family.
Ask yourself what about your plans and expectations are for you and what are for your child. Then ask if they are reasonable and appropriate for the child that you are parenting right now.
If your expectations trigger your child, you may want to consider how to let go of some of your cherished holiday traditions. We understand that it’s not easy letting go and adjusting to realistic expectations, so please allow space for your feelings of sadness and grief. Consider sharing them with a trusted loved one, friend, or counselor.
Recognize that, for right now, this child needs something different from you. You may be able to revisit these traditions later, but being responsive to your children’s abilities and needs is the more peaceful path for this year. You can make new, cherished memories if you are willing to adjust your expectations.
Navigating Challenging Behaviors
2. Anticipate stressors and triggers.
Have you observed activities, events, noise, or transitions that trigger your child outside of the holiday season? If so, incorporate your observations into planning for the holiday events you participate in.
- Does your child get super-irritable without enough sleep? Stick to a routine whenever a holiday activity doesn’t require a late night.
- Do large family gatherings cause your child to feel overwhelmed and anxious? Could you arrange smaller gatherings across a longer stretch of the season?
- Do frustrations bubble when your tween or teen is being asked a lot of questions? Consider speaking to Grandma or Aunt Sally to limit their questions to three, for example, at the annual holiday family reunion.
- How did your foster child experience holidays before joining your family? Talk together about how to include their treasured traditions or favorite foods in your family’s celebrations. Reach out to birth family if you can, and ask them for ideas or recipes.
The holidays might feel different this year. But if you can use these conversations as opportunities for responsiveness and connection, you can tell this child that you are on their team and that you care about their experience this season.
3. Understand the reasons for their challenging behaviors.
When you see behaviors ramping up or going off the rails, pause and consider the reasons they may be acting as they are. You are looking for an unmet need or undeveloped skill that might be driving this behavior. Ask yourself a few questions, such as:
- Do they need more attention? Less attention?
- Are they uncertain of the expectations or events they’re facing?
- Are they uncomfortable because they don’t have the skills to carry on conversations with extended family they don’t often see?
- Are they missing their birth family?
Once you assess the situation, remember not to take their behaviors personally. Your child or youth is not intentionally trying to sabotage the holidays. They don’t want to make themselves, you, or your entire family, miserable. Put another way, this child is not giving you a hard time. They are having a hard time.
4. Hold onto daily and weekly routines.
Yay! No school! Make that, ugh, no school. Can you relate?
The holiday season brings so many changes: weekday routines, mealtimes, bedtimes, new people, traveling out of town, special foods, new experiences, and more. The tricky thing is that kids in our community tend to thrive when they experience consistent routines. These schedules create predictability and a sense of safety. So, whenever you can, maintain your family’s routines, whether it be meals, bedtimes, or family rules.
And if you can, consider streamlining your calendar on the days that holiday extras aren’t a priority. Teaching our kids the value of downtime and rest is a significant tool for managing their internal stress.
5. Be alert to the risks of sensory overload.
Many of us look forward to our favorite holiday music, lights all around town, neighbors’ yard decorations, and cozy smells from the kitchen. However, many of our adopted, foster, or relative children struggle with strong sensory aversions to these same things. Sensory overload can be a significant challenge to navigate this time of year, especially if your child spends most of their day at school, where all these sensory stimuli are bigger, brighter, and louder from October through January.
Supporting Your Child With Sensory Processing Challenges
Consider what you know about your child and choose to be intentional about how you decorate, what events you attend, and how your home feels when they walk in after a long day at school. To best support them right now, ask yourself, “Will less be more for this child, this year?”
Offer your child time to take breaks from the holiday hustle and bustle. Give them permission and space to retreat when they are overwhelmed. Try designating a quiet place for them to recharge.
6. Prepare your child and your extended family.
It’s crucial to advocate for your child before you get into the thick of the season. Let friends and family know what your child experiences and how best to support them during family events or gatherings with friends.
You should also talk with your child before the season gets too challenging. Ask them what they love the most about the holidays, and what is most difficult for them. Show them pictures of the friends or family you may be gathering with, especially if they are not people you see frequently. Offer a little “tutorial” on who is who, and how they are connected to your family. Some kids might benefit from role-playing how to handle grown-up interactions or questions from well-meaning relatives.
During the family or community gatherings, allow them to retreat to another room or play on their devices when you see signs that their anxiety is increasing. Let the adults know your plans in advance so they don’t take it personally (or judge your parenting skills in the heat of the moment).
7. Maintain the connection with your child.
We all know how easy it is to miss daily moments of connection when we are distracted by busyness. However, the holidays add significant layers of busyness and distraction that can heighten those missed connections into fear, confusion, or other dysregulation for our kids.
Sometimes, the quality of connection time is more meaningful than the quantity, so look for moments you can maximize. You may need to ignore your phone for a few hours, shorten your traditional visit to Great Aunt Jane, or invite your child to run out with you for milk and eggs. Sneaking in an extra twenty minutes of one-on-one time to check in with your child can be just what you both need to feel connected and anchored again.
The Season Doesn’t Last Forever
For many families, the holiday season feels magical, memorable, and joyful. And for others, especially those of us who have kids who struggle with challenging behaviors and sensory overload, it feels like we are walking through a field of land mines. When you pause to adjust your expectations, learn your child’s triggers, and prepare a plan or two to support them, your holidays can be a healthier balance of creating happy memories and navigating any challenging behaviors. And the good news is that the holiday season doesn’t last forever – neither do all those days off from school!
Image Credits: RDNE Stock project: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-laptop-notebook-school-6517195/; nd3000: https://elements.envato.com/family-arguments-and-fights-make-children-stressfu-86AK8KV; Imagesourcecurated: https://elements.envato.com/two-boys-wrapped-in-blanket-together-RZBFEL4
Add Your Comment