Despite the magic of seeing the West End lights, sipping hot chocolate at a Christmas market, or finding a really great hiding place for the Elf, the holiday season can very quickly get overwhelming.
One smart way to make family life easier during this time is to have a family meeting in advance of the main events — your kids will feel included, and might even feel excited to get involved (and learn new skills!) and everyone will be on the same page in terms of what the plans are, thereby reducing stress.
Family meetings are a sure-fire way to reduce chaos, avoid last-minute surprises and, best of all, manage your children’s expectations around gifts, planned activities and changes to regular school-time routines.
So, if you want a calmer, more cooperative and connected holiday season, get your family meeting on your calendar.
A clear agenda is great for a couple of reasons: it’s easy to see what needs to be covered, and it serves as a way of keeping track of the to-do list that will flow out of the meeting. When your children contribute an idea, or voice an opinion about something, and see that you’ve written it down, they feel heard, valued, and more motivated to follow through.
Start as you mean to go on! Perhaps with a question like “what are you all looking forward to over the holidays?” Depending on the ages of your kids, you’ll hear everything from ‘nothing’ to ’sleeping’ to ‘I don’t know’ to a whole list of interesting things that they’re hoping to have time to do outside of their heavily scheduled term times.
Make it as easy as possible for everyone to know what’s happening by creating a one-page calendar for the holiday period. Pre-write all the things you know are already in the diary: the Nativity play, the school concert, religious services, community service, Mum and Dad out, babysitter coming, dinner with grandparents, etc. And then encourage your kids to share ideas about things they’d like to do, either on their own, with a friend, or as a family, and (if appropriate) find places in the calendar for those things to happen. You can assign each child a different colour pen, which helps them to see where their chosen activities will be happening. The calendar helps to remind your kids what is happening and what needs to be done ... Who will help with what? Does someone love to help decorate shortbreads more than wrap gifts, or decorate the tree? The bonus for you ... way less nagging, and loads of opportunities to acknowledge your kids’ contributions.
Everyone in the house is excited for a longer break by the time December rolls around..... We hope we’ll have endless days to loll around, stay up late, sleep late in the mornings, no homework, extra screen time, and so on. So that everyone is on the same page in terms of expectations, it’s really helpful to include this as part of your conversation. Will you adjust screen time limits? If so, by how much, how often? Will bedtimes shift? How late? How might family rules shift when guests come to stay for a few days? What will be expected of your kids in terms of behaviour for things like a long car or plane ride or special events you may attend?
We call this setting up for success and it’s all about being on the front foot, planning things so they’re more likely to go more right, making it much easier for you to stay as calm as possible when things go awry.
Make the Family Meeting as enticing as possible – maybe with hot chocolate, and even some marshmallows and whipped cream … whatever will make your table an enticing, warm place to have a light conversation.
While children so love the idea of presents, the holiday season really is about being present - and taking the time to plan and manage expectations, the less stressed and more present you are able to be.