Are you wondering how you will get through Christmas with a deeply feeling child?
As much as we love our kids, as parents, we never wholeheartedly await the two-week Christmas break.
If you are like me, you dread being at home with the kids for two weeks: constant noise, bickering, whining, clutter, sibling rivalry, and endless interruptions while preparing the house for Christmas.
If you also have a deep-feeling child who gets easily overstimulated and has a hard time with transitions, it’s almost twice as hard.
And if you are deeply sensitive, too, then you might struggle with anxiety and toxic perfection. I know I am. Unfortunately, that makes you micromanage and fixate on details, which worsens things.
Have you ever thought, “A long trip away from everyone and everything would be the nicest present ever”? If your answer is yes, you must promise to stop feeling guilty about your thoughts this Christmas. Wishing to take a break during the most wonderful season does not make you a bad parent.
Here are our suggestions for enjoying, not just surviving, this holiday season:
1. Ditch the Christmas guilt
Despite our best efforts, theirs is a lot to do around Christmas: cooking, hosting guests, attending gatherings, sending cards, baking with the kids, and wrapping gifts. Sometimes, however, the solution is to do less. On top of that, we have our kids’ needs.
So, what can you do to make the Christmas holidays simpler?
Our first suggestion is to acknowledge that change begins with you. You can’t control what other families do for Christmas, and you can’t control the fact that your kid is more sensitive than others. However, you can set boundaries when you feel you have reached your capabilities. Setting boundaries is scary, for sure, but it is also freeing. So, think before any “yes.” Even if it can be difficult to decline some invitations and outings to buy gifts, it may be the best solution for you and your family.
Just relax and go with the flow, and try not to be too stressed up things don’t go according to plan. Otherwise, your deeply feeling child will absorb your stress, potentially ruining everyone’s fun. Nothing unsettles a deeply feeling child more than a nervous parent. That’s why imposing some boundaries to take care of yourself is not selfish. On the contrary, it’s the best decision for your family.
And while for many of us, it’s not possible to sip hot chocolate by the Christmas tree in a quaint and quiet Sardinia village, you can still find 15 minutes for recentering yourself through meditation, yoga, praying, journaling, or even a cardio workout.
2. Create unique, not perfect, traditions
Christmas is the best season to remember that overstimulation brings the worst in deeply feeling children. Not following daily routines, traveling, and large family gatherings are a lot to take in for a sensitive child. For this reason, holidays are an excellent time to recall a fundamental parenting tip that always works: empathize!
When we empathize with our children, we let them take the lead, so we pave the road for creating the most wonderful and funny memories and traditions.
If you are like me, you already know that the warmest memories are with our kids being funny without realizing it: saying jokes (sometimes even potty jokes), songs they sing loudly on funny lyrics invented by them, and odd questions kids ask about Santa and Christmas. And the most precious family heirlooms are Christmas ornaments our kids make with their tiny clumsy fingers.
Here are a handful of suggestions for imperfectly fun family traditions:
- Kids singing loudly and dancing to Christmas songs
- Children taking pictures of themselves running around the Christmas tree
- Have the kids take silly pictures of you
- Hide presents for everyone throughout the house instead of putting all of them under the Christmas tree (especially if you have a dog who likes to chew boxes)
- Prepare many gifts for your dog to unwrap
- Kids waking you up and jumping in your bed early on Christmas morning
- Keeping a journal with funny quotes your family said throughout the year, reading it on the holidays, and guessing who said what.
3. Kids like to get involved in Christmas decor
Small children like to be independent, and the holidays can belong to them, too, if we take our time and allow them to get involved in the Christmas preparations. That means keeping an eye out for what toddlers can do or try to do, allowing clumped ornaments at the base of the tree, and letting go of Christmas décor expectations.
Some parents are okay with young kids decorating the Christmas tree, while others aren’t, and that is okay. There is no wrong or right way of spending Christmas, just different ways. Some of us grew up with color-themed decorations and aesthetic Christmas trees, while some grew up with hodgepodge trees. Either way is fine. It’s always best to do what makes your family happy.
However, if the idea of your child decorating your house for Christmas gives you a headache, you might have them decorate a designated area in your home, indoor plants, or even a small felt tree.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure that your deeply feeling kiddo doesn’t get their feelings hurt. This is because sensitive kids feel easily rejected. So, even if your child doesn’t decorate the whole house, we suggest you pick your kid’s top three handmade ornaments and hang them wherever they like.
4. Your deeply feeling child’s self-control reaches historical lows at Christmas
Deeply feeling children have highly developed senses and are emotionally intense. On top of that, our brains develop the most in the first years of life. That’s why our senses work exceptionally well, whether deeply sensitive or not.
So, it’s understandable for your child’s impulse control to reach historical lows at Christmas, particularly if you have a hectic program.
Your deeply feeling child hasn’t yet developed filters, so they act like sponges, soaking up the stimulation around them. That means that outings and experiences that might be exciting for other kids can overwhelm a deeply feeling child.
5. Notice early signs of overwhelm
Your deeply feeling child processes more the implications of any situation, and as a result, they receive more stimulation and are more quickly overwhelmed in chaotic or unpredictable environments.
When a sensitive child gets cranky, bringing them back on track is challenging. So, it’s best to take the slightest unwelcome behavior as an early sign of trouble and remain alert and ready to take a short break. If leaving the event is not an option, see if you can take your little one to a quieter room so that they can recenter.
Here are some early signs of overwhelm that a deeply feeling child can show:
- Becoming more withdrawn than usual
- Whining
- Constantly complaining about other kids’ behavior
- Getting hyper.
6. Help your deeply feeling child handle gift disappointments
Disappointment around gifts is common among kids of all ages (“Why did she get a nicer toy,” “I wanted a Lego, not a car”). Yet the self-centeredness and the whining can be upsetting for you as a parent. Most of us take kids’ disappointment personally.
But if you think from your child’s perspective, their negative reaction makes sense: Santa Claus “sees you when you’re sleeping / And he knows when you’re awake/ He knows if you’ve been bad or good.” So, why doesn’t Santa bring the gifts we want?
Imagine you truly believe that there is a man out there who sees what you do and hears what you say 100% of the time. Fortunately, this person is not bad. He is the most generous old man on earth, and your parents encourage you to make a wish, and maybe Santa will make it come true. You will ignore the word “maybe” because you already dream of many presents under the Christmas tree. So, you make your wish, and it doesn’t come true. Of course, you’d be disappointed. You’d be disappointed at Santa, not your parents, for not giving you the gift you expected.
Kids have a different perception of time than adults. They live in the moment. So, when they feel disappointed, they won’t listen to reason and explanations that maybe next time Santa will know better. So, the best thing you can do is to acknowledge their feelings and not take their reaction personally. They are upset with Santa, not you.
As adults, we have learned to hide our displeasure and sadness, but small children can’t do that yet. Particularly deeply feeling kids who have more black-and-white thinking. Inflexible thinking is usually behind kids’ big emotions when things don’t go as planned (like when they receive the wrong gift from Santa).
Fortunately, there are some things you can do to minimize disappointment. We suggest that you try to make Christmas more about building traditions and spending time with family than material gifts. Deeply feeling children love this because they have a strong need for connection and are deeply empathetic.
Our society focuses so much on consumerism that kids mistake material things for happiness and love. Yet, contentment and inner peace often come from feeling close to someone and creating beautiful traditions together.
Here are our suggestions for traditions that foster closeness with loved ones:
- Outdoor Christmas photo shoots (so much easier for toddlers than studio shoots)
- Make a play and bring to life the story of St. Nicholas.
- Sing carols in the evening after supper or at bedtime.
7. Christmas is about giving without expecting anything in return
If you want your child to know the essence of Christmas, you need to tell him the story of St. Nicholas.
Here’s how it goes.
There once lived, in the Roman Empire, a poor man. He had three daughters. In those days, young women’s fathers needed to offer potential husbands something valuable called dowry. Women had little chance of getting married without a dowry back then. So, these poor man’s daughters didn’t have any money.
Mysteriously, three different times, a bag of gold appeared in their home, supplying the required dowries. A stranger had tossed the bags of gold through a window. The gold landed in shoes and stockings left before the fire to dry. That gave rise to the tradition of kids hanging their stockings or putting out their shoes, eagerly anticipating presents from Saint Nicholas.
The magical bringer of gifts was – you guessed – Nicholas. He was neither plump nor jolly, but he was a generous Christian bishop who did many kind deeds secretly without expecting anything in return.
St. Nicholas’ story can remind your children that Christmas is about giving and being kind without expecting anything.
Here are our ideas about how you can teach generosity to your kids:
- find ways to volunteer that includes your kids
- make cookies and offer them to senior homes and homeless shelters
- make a charity jar in your home and let your kids decide to which charity they want to give the money (like Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army)
- create a give-away box with toys and clothes that the kids have outgrown
- help your kids come up with gift ideas for people they know.
A Take-Home Message
Christmas is about giving without expecting anything in return. As a parent, I feel that I give my best to my sensitive child without expecting anything in return all year round (or at least without expecting much). I’m sure you feel the same way, too.
References
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Santa-Claus
- https://www.stnicholascenter.org/about-st-nicholas-center
- Dowry – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry
- LyricFind, Songwriters: Haven Gillespie / John Coots, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
