Traumatized kids are famous for not being able to handle holidays. It's one of those things that makes NO SENSE to outsiders. The kid is getting all things kids love, right? Food, fun, no school, maybe even gifts and candy? What's not to love?
Well, the love is actually what's not to love. You see, traumatized kids often believe deep down that they are worthless. (On the surface they behave as arrogant, entitled, all-knowing, and all-powerful, but underneath they feel worthless.)
When they receive gifts of love like smiles, special food, gifts, candy, their worthlessness gets challenged and, to quote Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, "Neither can live while the other survives!" So, either Worthlessness has to die or Holiday Love has to die. Since humans are generally adverse to change, Holiday Love gets the boot.
Teaching a traumatized child to be able to handle really good things like Holiday Love is, strangely enough, a bit like teaching a baby to eat vegetables.
One big difference is that the baby hasn't spent years eating funnel cakes instead of vegetables, but your child has spent years destroying family fun and signs of love and acceptance so there's more to undo. Nonetheless, the process is essentially the same.
If you haven't had the "pleasure" of participating in this life stage or it was a long time ago, let me remind you of how this process looks.
When baby first tastes pureed or cooked broccoli the baby might grimace and spit it out. Everyone laughs at how funny the baby's disgust was! (If only that was still cute at age 12, this process would be easier.)
But if it's important to you that baby learn to like broccoli, then you will feed it to baby again periodically. The first time you really got zero bites in. The next time baby realizes what you're doing and purses her lips tight, turning her head as far ahead from you as possible. Again, no bites. One day you manage to sneak a bite of broccoli in between bites of peaches and she swallows some before she knows what's happening! Success - one bite! Ok, it was more of a half bite since half of it still spilled out her lips in disgust. You mix a little peaches with the broccoli and manage to get two more bites before she demands a "peaches only" bite. You conceded and return to peaches only but...woohoo! Now you're up to 2.5 bites!
"I'd rather be eating peaches."
Eventually you find ways to work up to a quarter of a jar, then half a jar, and one day baby can eat broccoli without much fuss. Anything with spinach is another matter, but broccoli has been conquered!
But how do you make "bites" out of, say, Thanksgiving? (No pun intended.)
While it's not as straight-forward as bites of broccoli, here are some guiding thoughts and questions as well as an example day.
Step 1. Re-define “Holiday Success”.
Choose to define “holiday success” as 1) your traumatize child staying fairly calm and self-controlled and 2) the rest of the family being able to have a nice time whether the traumatized child is calm or not. “Success” cannot be defined by tradition or decorations; it must be defined in terms of health and respectful relationships.
Step 2. Assess your child’s level of tolerance for “Holiday Love”.
Look back at the past year and figure out which situations went well and which were disastrous.
a. How did your child handle sharing a meal with friends and family?
b. How did your child handle having special desserts and candy?
c. How did your child handle gift giving/receiving?
d. Which activities did your child handle the best? (Remember to consider mundane things like a family walk as an activity, not just the big stuff.)
e. If you’d like to watch a holiday movie, how is your child handling screen time these days?
Use this information to decide what parts of the holiday your child has a shot at trying and what things are not worth the risk.
Step 3: Using the information from Step 2, break the day into “bites”.
Alternate between responsibilities and fun as well as between quiet/individual times and active/group times.
Throughout the day watch for Early Warning Signs. (You can learn more about recognizing and responding to early warning signs by doing parent coaching or purchasing SLP’s online curriculum.) Discern what the child needs to have a successful day, remembering that “success” means staying calm, not staying involved in everyone else’s fun.
4. Make a Rage Plan.
Make an agreed upon plan for if/when your traumatized child “loses it”. Who will take the child aside and where to? Will that same person supervise the child doing clean up and restitution?
If other family members are going to have trouble with the child being removed from the celebration, how will you handle those family members?
If you are a single parent, contact friends and family ahead of time to see if they’d be willing to come get your other children so they can keep enjoying the holiday while you attend to the traumatized child. And/or, set aside a few special treats, activities or movie that the other kids can enjoy independently while you attend to the traumatized kid.
Example of a Holiday in "Bites"
a. Start the day as normally as possible. Normal morning routine. If that goes well, proceed to Bite 2.
b. If possible & not already included in the morning routine, direct the child to complete their usual daily chore. If that goes well, proceed to Bite 3.
(The next bites are determined by you and your answers to the questions above. Here’s an example. More individualized information could be provided through private Parent Coaching sessions with Heidi Elmore.)
c. Child is assigned to do a fun but calm & quiet activity they usually handle well (e.g. draw, read, build with Legos) while parent prepares the holiday meal.
a. Have child help with a simple task like setting the table.
b. Have child to something more active like playing outside or playing a board game with family.
c. Big holiday meal with the child included at the table if possible
d. Child has quiet rest time in his bedroom. This can involve a quiet activity like reading.
e. If all is still going well, we will try doing a fun holiday activity like a family game (Guesstures, Sorry, Farkle), an outing, or a holiday movie.
f. Have leftovers for dinner, possibly having the child eat dinner as a quiet picnic in their bedroom in order to give the kid a little down time after the big fun.
g. Child re-joins the family for dessert.
h. Wind-down Time: Have child take an Epsom salt bath and/or draw their favorite part of the day and/or read the child a bed time story.
i. Start the bedtime routine & get to bed at the usual time (NOT later) if at all possible.
Come what may, I wish you peace
as you walk through each holiday
with your hurting son or daughter.
What you're doing matters.
There is nothing more important than
doing what you can to love, heal, and teach
another human being, especially a difficult one.
Thank you.