Holiday Survival Guide

Dr. Laura Markham’s (www.ahaparenting.com) “Holiday Survival Guide” helps families avoid the inevitable crash and burn that always seems to emerge out of the Christmas chaos. Here are three tips:

1. Fill kids’ real needs instead of promoting bottomless greed. Most children experience the holidays as a time to create lists of all the material goods they covet, and toy companies spend fortunes on TV ads designed to induce cravings for more, more, more in our children. Limit TV exposure, throw out the toy catalogs, and discourage the list-making. Instead ask your kids to sift through their desires and tell you one or two presents they really want that are within your means, one “together” present (such as your taking them ice skating or playing their favorite board game), and one present that it would make them happy to give to someone else (“Should we assemble a kit of your old dress-up clothes for your cousin? Fill kids’ gift stockings for a family shelter?”) Use family dinner discussions to refocus everyone on the true meaning of your December holiday. Instead of excessive presents – which always leave kids feeling unfulfilled -- fill your children’s deep longings with family connection and giving, and with traditions that leave them feeling good inside.

2. Keep to your usual schedule as much as possible. Give kids plenty of warning about travel and upcoming events so they feel less pushed around and taken by surprise. Kids thrive on predictable routines and feeling at home. They’re stressed by unfamiliar events and what feels to them like chaotic unpredictability. At the beginning of the holidays, you might use a calendar to show them what will happen each day. (“Then the day before Christmas we leave for Grandma’s, where you’ll get to play with all the cousins.”) Many kids love to make a little book, where each page represents a new day and they draw a picture of what will be happening. Sit down for a snuggle every morning and describe the day ahead.

3. Plan no more than one event per day. If you’re taking the kids to the Christmas pageant in the afternoon, don’t expect them to sit still for dinner at Grandma’s that night. If you’re visiting your inlaws, don’t plan the morning with the cousins and the afternoon at Aunt Betty’s. Kids need downtime, just to chill out, snuggle, and do whatever relaxes them. If they don’t get it, they can’t really be blamed for melting down when the over-stimulation gets to them.

To read the remaining seven stress-saving tips and get the most of this holiday season, go to: http://ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/traditions/Holiday-Survival-Guide

Dr. Laura Markham is both a mom and a Clinical Psychologist who helps parents find “Aha Moments” by translating proven science into practical solutions. Visit her website (www.ahaparenting.com) for parenting tools, workshops, ebooks, and to sign up for her daily tips and weekly newsletter.