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Holiday behaviour boosters

Tension with the in-laws? Unappreciative preschooler? Here's how you can defuse holiday blow-ups and get on with the holiday cheer

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Originally published in Today's Parent December 2011

Illustration by Gemma Correll

It’s billed as the most wonderful time of the year. But with the late nights, lack of routine and all that family togetherness, it’s no wonder kids (and parents!) sometimes cave in or blow up sometime in December. Here’s how to deal with common holiday challenges.

Your children

Fighting: The teasing your kids started at breakfast on the first day of their school break escalates into a shouting match by lunch.
Solution: When kids are cooped up and out of their routine, they may annoy each other more than usual. “The lack of structure when kids are out of school can make them feel anxious or insecure, and from that comes grumpiness and irritability, and siblings become a handy target,” says Calgary family educator Judy Arnall, author of Discipline Without Distress. Try planning a daily diversion. Arrange (separate) playdates in advance, take the kids to an indoor play gym, or, if it’s a green December, shoot hoops at the local park.

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Sermonizing tween: Your newly vegetarian nine-year-old lectures your dinner guests on eating meat.
Solution: Before dinner, review the basics of good manners, says Arnall, the mother of two teenage vegetarians. “Teach your kids that it’s all right to advocate for their own needs, but not to step on other people’s. So it’s OK to say ‘No thanks, I’m a vegetarian’ when offered a slice of turkey, but it’s not polite to lecture people.” The same goes for saying grace. “We’re not churchgoing, so if our hosts or guests pray before a meal, our kids know they don’t have to pray, but they need to be respectful of others’ beliefs and quietly bow their heads,” says Arnall.

Unappreciative preschooler: Your three-year-old is expecting a toy and complains loudly when he unwraps a hand-knit sweater.
Solution: You may be mortified by your son’s candour, but a three-year-old doesn’t have the acting talent to pretend to like something he doesn’t, says Sara Dimerman, a child and family therapist in Thornhill, Ont. So don’t chastise or deny his feelings even if you’re concerned the gift giver will think he has bad manners. Instead, model what you might like to see from him in years to come by thanking the gift giver yourself and commenting on something positive and specific. “Something like, ‘Look at the beautiful red stripe,’ which points him in the direction of saying what he does like about the gift,” Dimerman suggests. If the gift giver appears offended, take her aside privately, ask her not to take it personally, and explain that he’s too young to understand the concept of white lies to spare feelings.

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