It’s common knowledge that the holidays can be stressful for adults, but we sometimes fail to realize that children and adolescents may also find this time of year challenging. Disrupted routines, loud gatherings, and unmet expectations are just a few of the experiences that can leave young people feeling stressed about the holidays. At Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health, in Leland, North Carolina, we think it’s important for families to develop strategies for how they will manage difficult situations in order to ensure that the season brings as much joy as possible to each person in the household.
Big Feelings, Few Coping Skills
Although teenagers can have similar difficult emotions to adults, around the holidays and everything they entail, due to having less life experience and incomplete brain development, they often have fewer coping skills to manage these feelings and may lack the vocabulary to express everything that is going on inside of them. This can lead to them using some counterproductive techniques to navigate their emotions.
Mental Health and Neurodivergence and Mental Health
If a child has a mental health disorder, falls on the autism spectrum, or has ADHD, they may be more susceptible to disruptions in their routines and may need parents to start preparing them days or weeks before changes are coming, so they have time to ask questions and adjust their expectations.
How Caregivers Can Help
Adults can help young people to manage stress in many different ways. Some examples include:
- Modeling your own healthy self-care practices for them and openly discussing the importance of such habits. This may include setting healthy boundaries, limiting alcohol intake, and prioritizing sleep.
- Maintain realistic expectations by resisting the urge to overfill your calendar. Focus on the things that really matter and let go of the rest. Always ask for help when you need it.
- Maintaining as much of their normal routine as possible, by offering meals at the same times, keeping a reasonable bedtime schedule, and building some structure into their time off school, so they aren’t left sitting around the house. This could include visits to museums, baking goodies, having a family game or movie night, seeing a show in a theater, or volunteering to help others.
- Preparing children and teens for triggers they may experience, such as loud gatherings, large numbers of people, or gifts that aren’t exactly what they wanted, and discussing how they can choose to handle these situations.
- Limiting social media time. Young people are especially prone to comparing their lives to the fictional show put on by influencers and assuming there is something wrong with them when their own life does not measure up to the fantasy they see online.
- Setting aside time for your children to see their friends in person during the break, if at all possible.
- Teaching them grounding techniques they can use when they start to feel distressed.
- If the holidays are a time of grief for your child or your whole family, acknowledge that pain and allow room for it in your holiday activities.
- Keep moving. Exercise helps children and adults to process stress, and it’s good for their physical health. Even a walk around the neighborhood can be a big help.
- Help your child make a list of people they can talk to if they start feeling stressed during the holidays.
- Consider hosting holiday events at home, where the child will feel comfortable and have access to their full range of coping skills.
- Practice the social skills you want them to use in advance of a big event. Have a quiet spot set aside for your child to take breaks.
We Are Here to Help
At Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health, we want you and your children to have a wonderful and memorable holiday season. Our team of caring professionals offers support to adolescents with mental health concerns and their families year-round. This includes medical management, therapy, medication management, group and individual therapy, art therapy, and occupational therapy, among other services.
Before, during, and after a patient participates in our residential mental health services, we work with their support systems to ensure that they will have a smooth transition back to their families, schools, and broader communities, once they complete programming with us.
