Ten Tips For Navigating Holiday Gatherings Show Notes -

Hi, Kathleen Guire here. Welcome to this episode of trauma-informed parenting. Today I am going to talk about navigating holiday gatherings during the holiday season. And I was just going to talk about extended family, but I was talking to my husband a little bit ago, and he started reminding me of some other holiday gatherings that we’ve attended and how we had to navigate those. But I am going to actually start today with something from my daughter Audrey. And I posted this on Instagram. And this is reduced Stress Christmas with Neurodivergent kids. As I said, you can find this on Instagram.

Surprises aren’t fun for everyone. Neurodivergent kids might struggle with regulating emotions, even positive ones when dealing with surprises. If there’s one big thing they’ve been asking for and they aren’t getting it, warn them ahead of time. Hey, I know you really wanted to switch, but we’re not getting one this year, okay? If you assume whatever you’re giving them will trump disappointment, you might be setting both of you up for heartbreak. Yeah, been there, done that. It’s better to let them know ahead of time so that they can begin to process it.

Consider fabric gift wrap or gift bags for presents, especially for kids with fine motor control issues or short frustration fuses. What looks like a beautifully wrapped present to an adult might be a patient draining nightmare for a kid caught in heightened emotional suspense. Repeat that four or five times. And even with great gifts, you’ve got a kid snowballing into sensory overload. And I would add to that if somebody else has wrapped the gift and it is beautiful and your child is struggling, then it’s okay to help them open the gift.

And I would add to that if somebody else has wrapped the gift and it is beautiful and your child is struggling, then it’s okay to help them open the gift. And I had to do that many times to sit there, and not only it was it co regulating, but it was helping them open the gift physically. Being able to have that dexterity was difficult for them. So helping them open the gift is fine, and I’m just preaching to the guire here. Don’t give into the pressure of the adult saying, let them do it. Like, no, you don’t need to. You know your child. You love your child. You know what they need.

Space out gifts. Give presents from family or sibling exchanges or friends ahead of Christmas and after, especially if you do a big present Christmas Day. And this is something that my daughter shared and typed up, and I shared it on Instagram, but she’s also doing many of the things that we did was we did the gift exchange for the siblings on one day. And then there was the name drawing with the extended family. Space it out. It can be way too overwhelming.

Preassemble the small stuff. Cut tape on box packaging, pry stuff out and charge it ahead of time. Install batteries, cut the dozen little trees, do all of those things ahead of time, and it’s funny because there was kind of I’m going to talk about my husband here for a minute. I have a lot of engineers in my family, but on Christmas Eve, it was the big thing that the adults would stay up and put things together and get everything charged and make sure so the engineers in my family would complain about, where do they get these instructions? Where is Jerry? Oh, he went upstairs to put the kids to bed, and he would fall asleep. Sorry, Jerry.

Give your kiddo noise reducing headphones, pack a weighted blanket, or a sensory swing (or all three). The truth is -as adults when we travel to visit family we bring what makes us feel more comfortable. Some of us bring coffee (raising my hand here). Some of us bring our special drinks, like sparkling water. So let’s make sure our kiddos have what they need to feel more comfortable!

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Give your kid an exit plan, especially if you do Christmas with extended family. Find a quiet place they can hide, and if they open something and immediately want to go play, let them. That was a biggie for our family. We did that. Like if a child would open a toy, like a Lego set or something, and they’re just like, okay, I want to go play with it, let them.

And we would let them no matter what the adults were doing. And sometimes my kiddos would be opening presents until five or six. Not because they had that many, just because they would open one and want to play with it. And that’s okay. Exempt them from the spend time with us or open another present rush. So you don’t have to give in to that. You are the adult, you’re the parent, you’re in charge.

Discipline for actions, but not emotions. If you’ve got a kid whining, disappointed, grumpy, etc. To give them some space away from noise and crowds to process. Some kids don’t know what they’re feeling or how to define it until it comes pouring out of them. Usually adults see this as in gratitude, when it could be a dozen other things.

If you’ve got a kid who is always snooping, consider just telling them what they’re getting. Sometimes the anticipation of the surprise can feel paralyzing and obsessive instead of exciting. Some kids have more fun looking forward to specific things. They know that they will be there for them.

We’re a big Lego family and now it’s kind of passed on to my grandchildren. Every year they know, okay, they can tell me exactly which Lego kit they would like for Christmas, and that’s fine with me. It’s fine if they know. In fact, my kiddos did that when they were younger. Here’s the Lego kit I want. Here’s the thing I want that’s. Okay. All right.

Do you have a fancy Christmas outfit for dinner or pictures? Great. Don’t make the kid wear it a second longer than they have to. Take pajamas with you or change into a change of comfy clothes if you don’t have clothing. Sensory issues, please believe me when I say that they can shut down your entire brain I’m an adult and I can’t think or function if I’m wearing something that feels wrong.

My husband and I were talking about this. The thing in our family has always been like, for Christmas dinner, my boys would wear their khakis in a Christmas sweater and the girls might wear their Christmas dress or something, you know, for Christmas dinner. And everybody extended family, everybody participated in that. But as soon as less than 2 seconds after dinner was over, my kids would change. And sometimes the adults would bulk at that like, well, wait a minute, why are they wearing their pajamas or the sweatpants or whatever? It’s fine. They needed that. They needed to go put comfy clothes on.

They showed up. How hard is it for us to show up and feel like we’re on stage for family events or Christmas events, parties, et cetera? How quickly do we get home from something and just like, where’s my sweatpants or where’s my yoga pants or where’s my comfy clothes?

In fact, one of my granddaughters was spending the night last weekend. It was for her birthday. She was texting me on her mom’s phone and she was like, can you send me a checklist of things to bring? And one of the things I put on there was comfy clothes. And we were going to go to this little town called Thomas, West Virginia, and it’s just such a cute little town and go to the Christmas store and some other little art galleries and get coffee at the Tiptop Cafe and do these sorts of things. She had brought an outfit to wear that was leggings and a little dress to wear when we were shopping.

When I was helping her that morning, we were getting ready to go. She pulled out her Cabella’s sweatshirt and some comfy sweatpants and she was like, help me, Nini. I need to know what to wear. Should I wear this? And I was like, well, we’re going to be riding in the car for a while and whatever. What do you feel comfortable in? So she picked the sweatpants in the sweatshirt, which was fine with me. Why do we put all this pressure? I mean, go to Walmart today and you’ll see people in their pajamas. I’m not going to do that. And yes, there is a certain time that you maybe wear your dress clothes for dinner. And that outing was a very casual outing. It wasn’t something that we needed to dress up for.

Make sure dinners and parties have safe foods. Few things are worse than trying to eat new, unfamiliar or disliked things when sensory and emotional states are so high that it’s already killed your appetite. True. And if you follow me on Instagram over Thanksgiving, you saw how I was sharing the dishes that I was making. The pumpkin pie with the walnut crust, gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, and carrot cake muffins.

Okay. They’re really cupcakes, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free. We do have a lot of food sensitivities. I have celiac disease. We have all of these things in our family. So bringing our own food or making special dishes or having exceptions for kids, that’s pretty normal for us. So sometimes I’m glad that she mentioned that in her list, because sometimes I don’t think about mentioning it.

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I go back to the one rule of writing that my mother always hammered into me is to assume the reader knows nothing. And I think that applies to this podcast as well, I can’t assume that you have my experience and that your family has my experience.

And listen, it is totally 100% okay that your children only eat one or two items from the buffet at Christmas, at your house, or with your extended family, wherever you go. They don’t need to eat at all. They need to eat what they are comfortable with eating. Do they need to eat just cookies? No. But if you know ahead of time, because this is one thing that I do everywhere I go, I bring my own food.

Maybe that sounds ridiculous to you to bring your own food to a holiday gathering, but if your child has food sensitivities, you already do that, right? And it’s okay to do that for the holidays, and it’s okay for neurotypical children as well. I will never forget this, because we always tease my brother about it. One Thanksgiving, all my brother ate, my younger brother, by ten years, all he ate was a whole can of cranberry sauce and a few pieces of turkey. That’s all. That’s all he ate.

So whenever you’re assembling your child’s plate, our family is so large, we kind of have to do a buffet style. And you’re assembling your child’s plate, get what they like and ask them to taste something, and if they don’t like it, don’t make them eat it. It’s very old school parenting to do clean the plate, you have to clean your plate. You don’t need to clean your plate. The child does not need to eat everything on the plate. That’s not serving anyone well. And not only that, but that can get into some eating disorders and all of those kinds of issues that we don’t want our kids to deal with been there done that. That is no fun.

Clean your plate is not the way to go. And my stepfather, Bud, always used to say, it looks better in the trash can than it does on me. And my mom was, the children are starving in other countries if you don’t clean your plate. But I remember very distinctly, and it always replays in my head, it looks better in the trash can than it does on me. Which means you don’t need to eat everything. You don’t need to make your children eat everything, even when the family is pressuring you, don’t give in to the pressure. Don’t give into the pressure.

Protect your children. Protect their needs so that they can actually enjoy it. They can actually enjoy the gathering.

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other gatherings

So now I wanted to talk a little bit about other gatherings. Like I said, my husband and I were chatting about that this morning. Like, when we would take our kiddos to, like, the holiday party at church, the Christmas party or whatever. We used to have for our home school group a December a talent show, and that was also our Christmas party. Kiddos who do not know how to read social cues when they get into a situation like that and other kids are maybe a little more wound up – then the neurodivergent kids may just think it’s a free for all. And then they get into trouble, and then the parents get called on the carpet.

co-regulate

So this is a great time to really co-regulate. Stay with your child. When they’re going through the line for cookies and sweets, then you go with them and make sure they don’t eat 20 cookies and co regulate with them so that they don’t get into trouble, because they’re not going to know this is okay to do or this is too far, or this is too much. And then you’ll also have the child, because we were talking about this, some of our kids would just go overboard and go ballistic and be like, oh, there are no rules because everybody’s acting out, so I can do whatever I want.

We had other children, especially my youngest, who would just everything was so overwhelming that he would just shut down and be really quiet. And I would have people tell me, oh, my goodness, he’s so well behaved. He’s doing he’s so well mannered. It’s like no, he’s not. He is overloaded. He is completely overloaded. So, yes, that you have to be watching for that. And that child who was completely overloaded, needed a quiet place to go to. He needed not to be so stimulated. And if I ask him later what was going on, did he enjoy it? He would not even remember anything that had happened. He wouldn’t remember the event or what was going on.

adoption day

Here’s another example of that. This is off-topic, kind of, but every year in February, we celebrate our adoption day. Okay? So it’s every year, and this is leading to a point, trust me. So on February 19 get that? Could you try again? No, sorry. For some reason, Siri thinks I’m talking to her on my other computer. So we would celebrate on February 19 and every single year, without fail, my youngest would say, why didn’t you tell me I was adopted?

And here’s the thing. It wasn’t something that we hid. It was something that was common knowledge and anybody could talk about it at any time. But for some reason, he would just get overwhelmed, overexcited, overstimulated, and that day would just be he would just forget. And then he would demand, why didn’t you tell me I was adopted? And that leads me to my next point.

Prepare your child in advance. Let them know what’s happening, what’s happening next, where you’re going, how long you’re about, how long you’re going to stay, who’s going to be there, what’s going to be expected of them. Now, keep your sentences short and be willing to reexplain over and over and over again when they ask you questions. But even if it’s exactly the same as what you did the year before, take the time to explain it.

Just because of the example I just shared. True story every single year. Why didn’t you? And I even made him a little book that shared his whole story. I drew cartoons. I’m not that great at that. But I did it for him. His origin story, how he came home in air quotes to us everything that had happened up to that point and why we celebrated Adoption Day, even with that book every year. Why didn’t you tell me I was adopted?

So I’m just going to reiterate some of the things that my daughter Audrey said because they were kind of stepping points for what I’m talking about is make sure your child has a safe place to escape to. Even if you’re hosting in your own home, make sure your kiddos have a place they can go to reboot. If they have to give up their bedroom for extended family, then make sure that they know they can go to your room or somewhere else if you have a library or study so that they can escape.

And it is okay for them to escape and reboot. It’s okay. I know my friend Lori talked about that over the holidays. She’ll message my daughters and I, and I’ve told you before, she’s like one of my daughters. So she’s in our group chat. But she was telling us last year her teenage daughter (she was hosting for the holiday) had to go back to her bedroom for a while, and then the other relatives were getting her back out here. She needs to participate. She can’t just hide away. Well, yes, they can. They’re allowed to. They need to reboot. And we would if we could, right? So we need to consider that it’s okay.

Don’t ask your kiddos to share their new toys. We are not communists. I am not a communist. I used to tell my children that all the time. Like, if it’s your toy, it’s yours, you don’t have to share it. I don’t know where we got this idea that everybody has to share everything all the time. That is just not the way that our society is built. Now, I do not mind my kids sharing, and I appreciate them sharing if they want to share.

we are not communists

Here’s a good adult example of that. If you show up in my house today right now, and you just walk in and you turn on the coffee maker and you start making yourself a cup of coffee, sitting on my couch, watching my TV, that is not okay, because we are not Communists. I might get some flack for saying that, but that’s okay. We shouldn’t expect our children to share their brand new toys on Christmas.

I have seen that escalate at extended family gatherings and other friends gatherings where the kid just eventually just melts down and shuts down and nobody’s having any fun. Nobody’s having any fun. Another thing I like to say, if it’s not fun for everyone, then it’s not fun.

Yes, you’re going to have some kids that say, well, I want to play with his new whatever, but you know what? It’s okay. They don’t get to do everything they want, just like we don’t get to do everything they want. Protect your child’s right to own that property and play with it and enjoy it without anybody else telling him how to handle it, and that will solve a lot of issues. Now, in our household, we’ve always had the community toys, like a train track and extra Legos that anybody can build with and art supplies, but there are certain things that our children each own themselves. Okay, I’m getting off on the tangent there, but

Play with the toys on Christmas Day or whatever holiday gathering you’re at right then, because I mentioned that before, and Audrey’s little list is that if the kids open something and they immediately want to play with it, that’s okay. That’s part of the joy is like, oh, my gosh, you got me this Lego set. I asked you for it, and I’m excited about it, and I want to put it together. Will you help me? Well, don’t ask me, but my sister-in-law Chris, she’s an engineer, and she was the go to person on Christmas Day or my husband, but she would sit there with a kiddo for an hour or so, however long it took, and go through the instructions methodically, put the thing together, help them do it. She is very patient with all of the kids, her kids, my kids, anybody’s kids, and it’s, oh, my gosh, my kids remember that so much, and your kids will, too.

That will be a joy to them. Remember when I got this Lego set? And now we’ve turned to buying, like, we buy the kids the Legos that they want, my grandkids now and then for the whole family, we buy one huge Lego set for people to put together. I can’t tell you what ours is this year. I’ll wait till after Christmas just in case somebody, one of my kids is listening to this, but we did a couple of years ago, we bought a giant Yoda, which took a long, long time. We didn’t finish it on Christmas Day. Well, when I say we, not me.

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traditional parenting expectations

All right, I’m going to finish up with a couple things- these are very traditional parenting based expectations. You should be respectful. You need to hug your aunt, your uncle, your cousin, whoever comes in the door. No, kids should not be required to hug unless they want to. Okay?

And respect goes both ways. If a child is overwhelmed and they can’t answer a question or they’re being quizzed about something, can you read? Do you have a job? All of those things that we get quizzed on. Do you know your multiplication tables for kiddos? Do you know your states? Do you know this well? When I was a child, we knew this by the time I was three years old. Step in. It’s okay to step in and protect your child and say, unless your child wants to. Some kiddos like to just sit there and talk about facts and that’s okay. But if they don’t want to and they feel uncomfortable and they feel cornered and they feel insecure.

If you listened to last week’s episode about attachment, you’re probably thinking about all the attachment styles right now, and you might even be at your next Christmas party. Caroling, whatever you do, you might be going through all of the attachment styles and being like, okay, that person is that way. That person is secure. That person is avoidant. That person is resistant, ambivalent. That person is disorganized. Just know, though, that the adult attachment styles are a little bit different, but not much. So you might be doing that.

So while you are being the detective and being like, oh, my gosh, I didn’t know I had all these attachment styles in my family. That’s why this person is this way and that’s why this person responds this way. Then at the same time that you’re internalizing that, thinking about it, think about having your child being securely attached to you. Be that safe base at whatever holiday event you are at for your child to return to that. They know you are their advocate. You are going to stand up for them. You are going to protect them. You’re going to make this a more pleasant, enjoyable experience for them. No matter what any adult is saying, no matter who is telling you you need to do it this way, this is the way we always did it. Well, the way that we always did it sometimes created people who were avoidant in attachment or ambivalent resistant in attachment.

So no, it’s okay to reevaluate your parenting and parent the way that you need to parent for that particular child. Not only during the holidays, but it’s always heightened during the holidays. Everything is heightened. Like, there’s expectations. Everybody’s got to behave perfectly. You have to be dressed in your Christmas outfit or you have to be dressed in this when you go to the Christmas party at church or the talent show or whatever you’re going to. So keep that in mind. Keep that in mind. And I already went over don’t require a child to eat everything.

I’m just looking through my notes one last time and I recorded a podcast on why traditional parenting doesn’t work. And this is not the time during the holidays to institute the old school parenting. And if you miss that one, go back and listen to it, and you can even get a free chapter of how to Have Peace when Your Kids Are in Chaos -”Why Traditional Parenting Doesn’t Work and what Does Work.” So if that’s something that you would like to review and keep in mind while you head into this last little stretch of the holiday season, including New Year’s and all of those things, that’s why I’m saying holiday, because I’m definitely 100% Christian Christmas. We’re celebrating Jesus’s birth. We are celebrating the fact that he came to Earth for us. I’m definitely 100% that. But I’m just trying to be really practical in these things right now. So I’m going to finish up for today so I don’t keep rambling.