How To Make The Holidays OK For Your Child (And You!)🍁
I’m thankful for you, and I hope you feel deeply loved and appreciated this holiday season
Hello! I hope you and your family are doing well!
I love the holidays! But also … they can be stressful.
And while stress affects almost everyone during the holidays, families who have a child struggling with anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, body image and other issues often see the stress go through the roof.
If your child is already struggling with emotional regulation, the disruption of school breaks and chaotic holiday events can trigger and activate their symptoms. Meanwhile, you and others in the family probably just want a break from worrying about your child’s emotional state all the time and dream of a magical reversal of the symptoms for even one day.
Parents like you are already shouldering tremendous daily challenges. And you’re more likely to take on the emotional labor of worrying about how your child will cope with the holidays, how their dysregulation will affect you and your loved ones, and whether the people around your Thanksgiving table will trigger your child to melt down, sending everyone into a tailspin.
I get it!
These worries have been showing up in coaching sessions in the last few weeks. Thanksgiving is particularly stressful since it’s almost entirely a food-based holiday, which is especially triggering for anyone dealing with food and body image issues.
My clients have shared concerns like:
Will Aunt Sally comment on my child’s weight gain following eating disorder treatment?
How can I get others in the family to pick up some of the chores this year? Because it’s too much for me and I’m exhausted.
Will Grandpa mention my child’s heaping plate of food in a cutting, hurtful way?
Can we/should we cancel the holidays this year?
How should I respond when someone criticizes the way I’m feeding my child given their eating disorder?
Do I have to grin and bear it when family members start talking about diets and weight loss or is there a polite way to change the topic?
I know you’re going to do everything you can to make Thanksgiving as lovely as possible. But supporting your child during this season could get awkward and uncomfortable.
They may need you to step in to interrupt, change the subject, and set boundaries when family members resort to established patterns of criticizing your child and/or your parenting approach, commenting on other peoples’ weight and bodies, and sharing weight loss strategies, all served with a heaping side dish of the food police.
When Aunt Sallly and Grandpa do what they always do, you may need to intervene for your child’s sake (and yours!).
Trying to interrupt established family dynamics is incredibly hard. Thank you for caring so much and for thinking about your child’s needs.
This year may be unusually hard for you. So please consider delegating and outsourcing as much as possible. It’s a small example, but if you always make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, consider doing one of the following instead:
Buy the pumpkin pie
Ask someone else to buy or make the pie
Skip the pie this year, especially if you don’t love making and/or eating it
You can make a different choice next year, but perhaps this is the year to take something off your list.
Take a long look at your to-do list and scratch something … maybe several things … off the list this year.
In my work as a parent coach, I’m acutely aware of the prevalence and impact of burnout on parents. It’s everywhere because we’re simply not built to parent in these modern conditions.
If Aunt Sally and Grandpa get out of hand, do your best to intervene but it’s also OK if your best is imperfect. The beauty of parenting is that we don’t need to be perfect at anything—we just need to keep showing up and trying. I’m thinking of you and I’m here if you’d like some support.
Ginny Jones Parent Coach / More-Love.org
Coaching Notes
Here are some stories from the last few weeks of my work with parents who have kids with anxiety, eating, and body image issues:
I helped my clients prepare a schedule for Thanksgiving break given their youngest child’s eating disorder, their older child’s return from college, and competing desires and needs during this hectic time.
A couple I work with needed to find a way to support their child’s neurodivergence, which requires accommodations, while upholding treatment plans for an eating disorder. We came up with a strategy that is having positive effects after just one week.
If you’re looking for more ideas about handling Thanksgiving with an eating disorder, here’s an article: How To Make Thanksgiving Eating Disorder Safe.
How To Handle Thanksgiving Food + Body Talk
As an almost entirely food-based holiday, Thanksgiving can be extra challenging when you have a child with food and body image issues. Firmly entrenched family dynamics can unravel your visions of a loving gathering, especially if they involve talk of weight loss, dieting, and food policing. I’ve put together some scripts and ideas for happy, healthy family gatherings.
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