Five Tips to Handle Child Holiday Meltdowns
It’s the holiday season and, for many, the holidays bring expectations for a joyous time with friends and family.
Kids play, while visiting friends and relatives catch up, and a festive meal is prepared. It’s the scene you imagined and have been looking forward to. Until it isn’t. Suddenly, the kids, seemingly out of nowhere, begin fighting or burst into tears and have a holiday meltdown.
Adults, who are not used to being around children, might send meaningful glances to each other. Or maybe they share an opinion or two with you about “helpful” discipline techniques.
How did things go sideways with the kids, in the blink of an eye, when everything seemed so peaceful just a few moments ago?
What seems like a sudden change is due to children losing their sense of emotional connection.
When this happens, their feelings overpower their ability to play, be reasonable, and let little things go. Kids may throw tantrums, refuse to eat, whine, or show a host of other behaviors.
Make child holiday meltdowns easier (and prevent them)
1. Reevaluate Your Expectations
It’s natural to expect children to feel overstimulated and lose connection during the holidays. Kids pick up on our stress around the holidays. They feel the pressure we can put on ourselves to make the season perfect. Their young brains absorb our energy, and when trying to find a way to let it out, their behavior can go off track.
It is not just our energy that leads to children’s challenging behavior though. During the holidays, regular routines are often disrupted. School is out and naps are canceled as we hustle to keep up traditions, attend social events, host company, or travel. With so much activity, we can pretty much bank on our children melting down. Kid may also be expected to play with cousins who they have little in common with or to stay out of their busy parents’ way as events or meals are organized. “Good behavior” may be also expected for extended periods of time, with kids getting little opportunity to blow off steam.
We may want to ask ourselves if the behavior we’re expecting our kids to follow is really age appropriate. It can be tough for a 3-year-old to sit at the dining table for more than their short attention span allows. Children want to behave but get overwhelmed by the activities of the season. By the time their good behavior fades, they have usually been trying to hold it together the best they can, and their feelings can’t help spilling over.
If we simply hope that our kids will somehow hold it together this year, and we don’t plan for inevitable upsets, we can get caught off guard and this can create even larger disruptions.
2. Increase Emotional Connection
Take time out to offer one-on-one time to your kids each day. Pour your positive attention into your children while participating in whatever activity they choose. You’re busy. I hear you. You probably have an endless list of tasks to accomplish, and you need to stay focused on getting things done. But spending time with your child, for as little as 5-10 minutes each day, will help your kids feel connected to you and increase their overall wellbeing and flexibility. If your child is moving into off track behavior, the sooner you can give them the emotional connection they are asking for, the sooner you can all get back to enjoying the festivities and avoid meltdowns.
3. Set Firm But Gentle Limits
When you see children’s behavior beginning to go off track, bring a limit right away. Bringing a limit involves pausing what you are doing, coming close to your child, and stopping the unwanted behavior. Unfortunately bringing limits doesn’t work when they are yelled across a room. So, while I totally get that you just want your child to to knock it off, they really need your full attention for limit setting to be effective.
Many of us don’t have a model for how to set a limit in a firm but gentle way. Think about stopping children’s behavior in a playful way or with a few warm but firm words to prevent their shame or embarrassment. Gentle limits don’t mean no limits though. It’s important that kids know you will continue to hold the limit and stop their behavior.
Keep in mind that, when kids are upset, it’s not really helpful to reason with them. Their decision making brains are offline. So, explaining your rationale might make you feel better, it will likely fall on deaf ears. It’s not that they’re trying to blow you off. It’s just how their (and our) brains work.
4. Listen to Upsets
Expectations tend to run high during the holidays, and that makes the chance for disappointment higher too. If kids are disappointed by a gift, the best thing we can do is listen to how unfair it feels to them. For your part, you may have gone to five different stores to buy them the toy they had to have, but you came up empty. You might feel disappointed too. Try not to take your child’s disappointment personally. Your efforts were still amazing and worthwhile, even though it may not feel that way in the moment.
If your child isn’t able to cooperate when you set a limit you may need to stay close and calmly insist that they stop the unwanted behavior. When you do this, your child will be able to clear out their upsets. They will complain about you, their siblings, and many things "wrong" with their world. And when they feel better (and they will), they will be more emotionally connected to you. And with connection comes the easygoing, flexible behavior you’re hoping for.
5. Consider Taking it Easy
Holiday expectations can add a heap of stress to families. It might be easier on both you and the kids if you decide which holiday traditions you want to keep this year, and which ones you think you could let go. You get to decide what works for you and your family. And if you miss a ritual or tradition too much this year, you can always bring it back next year.
If you need more tips on managing child holiday meltdowns, learn more about my parent-child relationship therapy offerings and see how I can help you.
