Children can feel stressed during Christmas, leading to acting out, accidents, and regression. The American Psychiatric Association recommends involving children in vacation planning, maintaining regular bedtime and physical activity, and not overcompensating with gifts. It is also important to help children eat healthily, avoid inducing anxiety with Santa Claus, and tailor traditions to suit their needs.
Children, as well as adults, are likely to feel stressed around Christmas and before the holidays begin. Children can show stress during Christmas by acting out, looking worried or just being very hyperactive. Other children may show signs of stress around Christmas by being more accident prone or regressing in maturity. A potty-trained child, for example, might start having accidents around Christmas time.
While the ideal picture of Christmas is one of happiness, peace, and joy, parents often find that Christmas isn’t peaceful and children don’t seem particularly happy or joyful due to stress. Minimizing stress during Christmas can help produce a happier Christmas for both children and their caregivers.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) shares several tips for minimizing stress this Christmas. They recommend not making promises you can’t keep, such as promising that an absent parent will be home for the holidays when that’s not certain. The APA also suggests involving children in vacation planning. This gives children some control over how the holiday will differ from normal days and can reduce uncertainty.
The APA stresses that children should keep a bedtime as regular as possible and that watching TV or playing video games, especially alone, should be minimal. Providing opportunities for physical activity for children is extremely helpful in minimizing stress during Christmas, as a more overactive mindset can often be calmed by physical exertion.
The APA also recommends that parents not overcompensate for shortcomings by guiltily buying extra gifts. For example, children who are going through a divorce or who have lost a parent do not experience less stress during Christmas by getting a few extra gifts. Instead, children need the presence and attention of the remaining caregiver.
If a parent is absent, try to maintain family traditions. Children often worry that an absent parent means the end of Christmas as they know it. Maintaining some traditions is helpful in maintaining the continuity of Christmas and helping children realize that some things haven’t changed.
The APA guidelines are excellent, but a few more things could be added to minimize vacation stress. One of the biggest is helping children continue to eat healthily. Even if occasional treatment is fine, it should still remain occasional. A child who continues to eat right as the holidays approach is likely to have less stress during the Christmas season.
Also, if children believe in Santa Claus, it is extremely unfair to induce anxiety in a child by using Santa Claus as a threat. Don’t tell children that Santa Claus won’t come if they’re naughty, unless one really wants to. Children can actually suffer quite a bit thinking that they might not get any presents if they misbehaved due to stress during Christmas.
Finally, for children who experience stress on Christmas Eve and cannot sleep, it may be helpful not to spend much time “counting the days” until Christmas. As Christmas Day approaches, anxiety and stress can escalate, affecting eating and sleeping. For some families, it makes more sense to give presents on Christmas Eve so that children and parents can sleep that night in preparation for the next day’s plans. If a child is very genuinely stressed about Santa Claus and Christmas Day, she can help tailor traditions to suit the child’s needs.
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