Tips for Holiday Stress

With so many errands, activities and outings it is easy to become stressed during the Holidays. Unfortunately when we are stressed, our children likely feel it too. Here are a few tips to help families manage this time of year.

• Start early and spread it out - Start your lists now if you haven't already. Space out your errands and responsibilities.
• Help children plan their purchases or creations - Children may need guidance on gift selection. Brainstorm ideas with them, help them consider the person receiving the gift. If they are making gifts, build in and help them structure their time.
• Focus on experience and time rather than spending and things - Plan to bake cookies together rather than buy them for class parties. Arrange outings and experiences together rather than buy presents.
• Focus on your family's true meaning of the Holidays - Be it religion, faith, family or tradition, think about what is truly important to you about the Holidays and share this with your children. strive to keep the focus throughout this time.
• Stick to routines as much as possible - Routines help most children to cope with stress. Strive to make meal times regular and bedtimes as normal as possible.
• Include them in the Holiday planning - Give them what choices you can. This can be as small as picking which tights they wear with their holiday dress or as big as which party to attend first. Children given choices have a sense of control which can go a long way in managing stress.
• Remember downtime - Children benefit from having unstructured downtime for play every day. This is especially true when life is busy and chaotic.
• Remember fun - Build in time for sledding and hot cocoa after bath.
• Discuss what makes us thankful, grateful and happy - Take time to reflect with your children. Discuss what is important to you and find out what is important to them.

Sibling Peace & Holidays

Tips for Managing Siblings, Cousins and Friends over the Holidays

If your house is anything like our house over the holidays there are children coming and going at all times and many may overstay their initial warm and friendly welcome. Children stuck in the house together who have been used to the elbow room of school and regular schedules can be a lot to handle on top of the rush of the holidays.

• Plan for the downtime - A few years ago the was a huge snowstorm that kept the girls and I in the house for five straight snowdays. By the end of the first day I wised up. I made a list of every possible activity that was fun and available in our house. This included regular things like play with groovy girls but also much bigger things like make a pillow fort, take a bubble bath and bake cookies from scratch. It was a long list that we almost exhausted by the end of the week.


• Make them busy - Contribution is a practice in positive discipline that follows the idea "children who are engaged with positive behaviors have little time for negative behaviors." This proactive technique is simple - make them busy. Children who are buttering rolls and drawing placemats aren't resisting the table and argueing about what's for dinner. Children who are picking towels, bath toys and testing the water temperature and level aren't running amok and avoiding the bath.


• Pit them in cooperative efforts - All the better if the efforts are done together. See if they can both clean the playroom to beat the clock, challenge them to both set the table before the end of the next song on the radio.


• Have a back-up plan or two - Set aside a few fun activities that will work well in a crunch. When kids start bickering and can't seem to get back in a friendly groove, be ready to pull out Hallabaloo, the cake decorating kit and a cupcake mix, play-doh with all the supplies, big coloring books with crayons for all, the bounce house or a good video that all might enjoy.


• Divide and conquer - Two kids are more likely to get along easily than six. If you are overwhelmed by the numbers then divide them. Two or three kids in each area or at each activity is plenty.


• Take a walk - When all else fails, bundle them up and take them out.

Bickering

There are several things to do to put an end to bickering.

The first answer is to ignore the bicker. If you can stay out of it, completely out of it, the bickering tends to end. Children find better ways to problem solve, they lose interest and move on. If you involve yourself, try to sort things out and take sides you reinforce the bicker. Getting involved adds fuel to the fire.

If you truely can't ignore the bicker, the second answer is to be the blanket, come down on both. You might say, "Wow, this is too loud. I need you both to quiet down," or "This is too much. Both of you find another place to play." Here you are ending the bicker but without getting involved.

In either case, start spending more time coaching the positive behaviors. Talk to your children about how to speak nicely and what they can say when they are mad. Role play how to manage when things aren't going well with their brother or sister. teach them how and when to ask for your help.

Social Competence

Social Competence is defined as the ability to achieve personal goals while maintaining positive relationships. For children all this jargon means is, can they play while keeping friends. If your child's play is often ending in upset, aggression or rejection, it is time to look at their social skills.

Two year olds should be able to work around each other physically, play without hurting each other and start to manage turn-taking. Three year olds should start to notice other's emotions, set common goals in play and realize personal space issues. Four year olds should be improving in social entry (getting into on-going play), able to handle sharing and have solid emotion language (at least able to accurately label emotions).

If your child is having significant difficulty with social skills, there are several good books such as Raising Your Child's Social IQ. In many areas, social skills groups are also available both privately (through psychologist, social work, speech/language or OT offices) and publicly through your guidance counselor at their school. Be proactive - Start teaching!