surviving the holidays
Some of us face the holiday period with dread while others of us look forward to the holidays with pleasure. “Great, no more worrying about getting them off to sleep early enough so I don’t have to force them awake in the morning. No getting children ready in time for an eight o’clock deadline. No time pressures.”
Holidays can be a great opportunity to pay attention to some of the behaviours that we have been too tired or too stretched to deal with during the school term-time.
plan ahead
Make lists. For instance, plan which games and activities your children will enjoy, which friends may like to come and play, places to visit etc.
stop the bickering
Then there is the bickering over who goes first, over who has the biggest slice of cake, who gets the favoured seat in the car, or who chooses the TV programme. Sort this out from the first day of the holidays. Put one child’s name on the fridge. That child gets to select first for any ‘choosing’ situation that arises until you change names. The changeover may occur through the day, or at the end of each day. As long as you have a system that is transparent and more-or-less fair, most children will accept it. For shorter turnaround periods, such as sharing toys, an egg-timer is a very handy tool.
food
Holidays are a great excuse to allow meal times to be appetite-driven, and you should consider letting some mealtimes (and the types of meals) be determined by when hunger sets in, rather than by the clock.
Although don’t feel obliged to run an all day smorgasbord. Your job is to make food available five times a day. Put out healthy food when you feel like it. Put out treat food when you feel like it. But regardless of whether at the table, at the beach, or at the park, make food a sitting-down event, and keep any leftovers for grazing until the next meal.
rest periods
From day one, insist everyone has a quiet rest time (or if you’re lucky, a sleep time) for an hour during the middle of the day. This is good for your children’s well-being as they learn to occupy themselves with quiet, solitary activities, and during summer it keeps them out of the sun during the hottest part of the day. An hour’s rest for exhausted parents is also an excellent idea!
sharing
If your children are fighting over toys, books or coloured pencils, say, “That toy/book/pencil is really annoying you. Let me help.” Then put it away and bring it out again, without any fuss, 10 minutes later.
compliance
Just because it's the holidays, don't let your children become comfortable with not doing what you ask of them, when you ask it. It's a slippery slope so make sure compliance with your requests remains as important as ever.
aggression
Simply forbid all acts of aggression and unkind words. If they occur, scoop the offender into a Time Out spot, saying strongly, “You know you’re not allowed to hit/bite/spit/shove/swear/say unkind words.” Come back a little while later to see if your child is ready to behave like a civilised human being. No further discussion is required. Be prepared to repeat this until your child has got the message.
upsets
If someone comes rushing to you upset, don’t waste too much effort on sorting out whose fault it is. Focus on the crying one. Put an arm around her and say, “How awful for you. Would a cuddle help?” Hold still, provide soothing noises, listen to what happened and wait until she is ready to move off. Unless there is blood or teeth marks involved, don’t go and growl at the offender as you don’t want to put the crying one in the position of tell-tale instead of aggrieved.
If your children are bickering, get in early. If you wait for it to go away, it won’t. Odds are very high that it will wind up with someone being hurt and then you will have to intervene anyway, so you might as well get up now!
You may like to use diversion like, “Let’s all have afternoon tea.” Or you may prefer to say, “This isn’t working! Both of you go to your room. I’ll set the timer.” Set the timer for 10 minutes, and at the end of it, call out, “Time’s up. You can come out when you are ready,” and leave it to each child to decide when they are ready.
Diane Levy, Family Therapist
