Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Surviving the Christmas Meltdown Season

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Surviving the Christmas Meltdown Season · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. Oh my goodness,
0:08
Speaker 1: it's the first of December.
0:10
Speaker 2: Marry Christmas.
0:11
Speaker 1: You have felt the animal Christmas. It's just I feel like
0:15
Speaker 1: minutes away. I mean it's a couple of weeks to
0:17
Speaker 1: go yet, but the energy is ramping up. The Christmas
0:21
Speaker 1: spirit is building and that also means that there's a
0:24
Speaker 1: whole lot of Christmas emotions. Today we address the reality
0:29
Speaker 1: that Christmas is not always joyful. Sometimes the kids aren't
0:32
Speaker 1: able to navigate disappointment, over stimulation, exhaustion, grief and anxiety
0:38
Speaker 1: and changes in routine. Oh sorry, that was the kids,
0:41
Speaker 1: and then there's the parents as well. Today on the
0:44
Speaker 1: Happy Families Podcast, we help you to navigate big Christmas
0:47
Speaker 1: emotions the whole spectrum and share two massive Christmas blow
0:53
Speaker 1: ups that we've experienced so that you can learn not
0:56
Speaker 1: to do what we've done. Stay with us. It's The
1:07
Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions. Every single day on
1:10
Speaker 1: Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, we are justin and Kylie
1:13
Speaker 1: full Some Christmas is here. The Christmas spirit is alive
1:16
Speaker 1: and well. The Christmas energy is booming, and Kylie, it's
1:21
Speaker 1: time to talk about Christmas and the big emotions that
1:23
Speaker 1: come along with it.
1:25
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about big emotions and I had
1:28
Speaker 2: a doozy. A couple of years ago, we had just
1:32
Speaker 2: moved into a new house and we thought it would
1:33
Speaker 2: be great to put on a neighborhood Christmas party. And
1:37
Speaker 2: when we looked at the dates available, we kind of
1:40
Speaker 2: with a few neighbours input decided that the twenty third
1:44
Speaker 2: was perfect. Everyone would be, you know, finished with their year,
1:47
Speaker 2: everyone's around. Let's do it on the twenty third because
1:50
Speaker 2: we'll get everybody there. And we pretty much.
1:51
Speaker 1: Had the whole neighbor streets.
1:54
Speaker 2: In our backyard and it was fantastic. It was real.
1:57
Speaker 2: It was such a beautiful night. It was and I
1:59
Speaker 2: would have to do it again. But it took me
2:02
Speaker 2: about a week to get over it. And come Christmas Day,
2:06
Speaker 2: there was nothing left. There was nothing left in the tank.
2:10
Speaker 2: And I literally looked at the family and I said,
2:12
Speaker 2: there's leftovers in the fridge from two nights ago. That's
2:14
Speaker 2: what we're eating. Like, I am not cooking. I'm not
2:17
Speaker 2: even getting out of my pajamas today.
2:20
Speaker 1: So it's nothing that there was a lot of emotion.
2:22
Speaker 1: It was that there was just an inability to function.
2:24
Speaker 1: There was just the exhaustion that happens to some of
2:27
Speaker 1: us at that Christmas season because we'd tried it so.
2:29
Speaker 2: Much so I'm getting old.
2:31
Speaker 1: There's that happening as well. I know, the kids.
2:34
Speaker 2: Jump on our bed at two early o'clock and like,
2:37
Speaker 2: can you just let us have another hour sleep?
2:40
Speaker 1: There was another one that comes to mind for me.
2:41
Speaker 1: It's been an unfortunate one. We were a big Christmas gathering.
2:44
Speaker 1: A family member lost the plot. There was lots of swearing,
2:47
Speaker 1: there was lots of abusive language thrown towards plenty of
2:51
Speaker 1: adults and specifically the children, specifically a couple of our children. Big, big,
2:56
Speaker 1: big emotions. So today we want to talk about what
2:59
Speaker 1: to do when the are either not there at all,
3:01
Speaker 1: or when the emotions are too big, or incidentally, when
3:03
Speaker 1: that sort of thing happens, you just get out of
3:06
Speaker 1: the way. There's no point trying high emotions all intelligence.
3:08
Speaker 1: Like when somebody is that angry and that upset, you're
3:12
Speaker 1: not going to be able to say, hey, you know what,
3:13
Speaker 1: it's Christmas, why don't we sing a song, let's talk
3:16
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for Yeah, that's not going to happen. We
3:18
Speaker 1: wish you marry Christmas, and we're all leaving right now.
3:21
Speaker 1: But I've dotted down a bunch of notes and we
3:24
Speaker 1: thought we'd flip the script today. You don't even know what.
3:27
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can read my writing, but
3:28
Speaker 1: you're going to interview me about my best ideas for
3:31
Speaker 1: how to navigate the big emotions that can come with Christmas.
3:34
Speaker 1: Or you can throw my notes away and talk about
3:36
Speaker 1: whatever you want. But I figured that I've got good notes,
3:38
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be helpful.
3:40
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you think you've got good notes, because
3:42
Speaker 2: I cannot read them.
3:43
Speaker 1: I'm a doctor. No one can read doctors.
3:45
Speaker 2: Okay, let's see you've got no one's born knowing.
3:48
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so no one's born knowing how to regulate emotions.
3:51
Speaker 1: And so we need to remember that, especially when the
3:53
Speaker 1: kids are losing it, Especially when the kids have had
3:55
Speaker 1: a lack of sleep. They've been hyped up because this
3:56
Speaker 1: is the most exciting day of the year. They know,
3:58
Speaker 1: they're seeing their cousins, their grandparents, they're they're friends there
4:01
Speaker 1: whoever it is that they're going to be spending time
4:03
Speaker 1: with emotion regulation, the ability to either turn up or
4:06
Speaker 1: turn down your emotions appropriately for the context, in harmony
4:09
Speaker 1: with your long term goals. Well, kids don't have long
4:11
Speaker 1: term goals. It's Christmas. Christmas is the goal, full stop,
4:14
Speaker 1: end of story, and enjoying every moment of it is
4:17
Speaker 1: what this sort of their goal is. So the idea
4:21
Speaker 1: that our children are going to be emotionally regulated, really
4:24
Speaker 1: well regulated on Christmas Day in some ways it's kind
4:26
Speaker 1: of a developmentally inappropriate expectation, but.
4:30
Speaker 2: It's not also about the development. It's the acknowledgment that
4:34
Speaker 2: we let them stay up really late on Christmas sugar
4:38
Speaker 2: they have sugar first thing in the morning because that's
4:40
Speaker 2: in their stockings. And then they've just got this day
4:43
Speaker 2: of indulgence, and we wonder why they fall apart and
4:47
Speaker 2: lose the plot. We don't set them up for success.
4:50
Speaker 1: In fact, you've just reminded me. You know the marshmallow experiment.
4:54
Speaker 1: Walter Michelle, just down the road from Stanford, at the
4:57
Speaker 1: little preschool there back in the I think it was
4:58
Speaker 1: the I think it was the seventies, Walt to Michelle
5:02
Speaker 1: did this experiment that became world famous, and basically he
5:04
Speaker 1: stuck a marshmallow in front of some kids and said, hey,
5:06
Speaker 1: you can have this now or in ten minutes time
5:09
Speaker 1: when I come back from my little walk because I've
5:10
Speaker 1: got to go and do something. You can have two.
5:12
Speaker 1: He didn't tell them how long it would be, but
5:14
Speaker 1: he was gone for about ten or twelve minutes. And
5:16
Speaker 1: what he found, or what most people say, is that
5:18
Speaker 1: the kids who had the highest levels of self control,
5:21
Speaker 1: they got the extra marshmallow, but they also did better
5:23
Speaker 1: later in life. And so a lot of people are like, well,
5:25
Speaker 1: we've just got to teach kids to be controlled, like
5:28
Speaker 1: kids need to learn self control, and that's partly true.
5:30
Speaker 2: Like this, how many adults do you know have absolute
5:33
Speaker 2: control over theirselves?
5:35
Speaker 1: It's a really big jake, especially on Christmas Day when
5:38
Speaker 1: they're stressed out and they've been cooking all day, or
5:40
Speaker 1: maybe they've had a few too many wines or whatever,
5:42
Speaker 1: and all I've had to deal.
5:44
Speaker 2: With that person that they just really struggling hard with.
5:47
Speaker 1: So the science here is that what Michelle really found
5:50
Speaker 1: was that it wasn't about the kids and their individual
5:52
Speaker 1: characteristics and attributes. What it was is what they did
5:56
Speaker 1: to make the situation tolerable and bearable. So some of
5:59
Speaker 1: them started to play games. They played games in their mind,
6:01
Speaker 1: or they sang themselves songs, or they did other things,
6:03
Speaker 1: which meant that the environment was much more amenable to
6:07
Speaker 1: passing the time, not focusing on the marshmallow, and therefore
6:10
Speaker 1: being more quote unquote self controlled. If we want our
6:14
Speaker 1: children to be able to regulate themselves, well then we've
6:16
Speaker 1: got to create environments that are conducive to regulation.
6:19
Speaker 2: So a hand well, it's not even a handful of
6:21
Speaker 2: years ago. Now we're talking maybe fifteen again.
6:25
Speaker 1: You make me sound very ill, you're dating this. Thank
6:27
Speaker 1: you for that. So fifteen years ago, when.
6:30
Speaker 2: Our kids were much younger, we realized that this was
6:33
Speaker 2: a really big struggle staying up super late and then
6:36
Speaker 2: waking up first thing in the morning, and our days
6:39
Speaker 2: were just ratty.
6:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, Christmas was horrible.
6:42
Speaker 2: And you had actually read about this.
6:45
Speaker 1: Jack a book of flood. I don't know how to
6:46
Speaker 1: say it properly, and I probably mispronounced it right then.
6:49
Speaker 1: But it's a North European I think it was Finish
6:52
Speaker 1: or a Scandinavian. It's a Nordic. I don't know, it's ours.
6:57
Speaker 2: That's all I know. We do now tradition. But we
7:01
Speaker 2: started gifting the kids one book and a block of
7:05
Speaker 2: chocolate on Christmas Eve, and the excitement for them was
7:09
Speaker 2: there were no rules about how long they could stay
7:12
Speaker 2: up reading and so that was their late night. But inevitably,
7:15
Speaker 2: you're lying in bed, you're reading a book, and for
7:18
Speaker 2: the most part, it's a really quiet night. Even if
7:21
Speaker 2: they do stay up, it's a really quiet, subdued night
7:24
Speaker 2: for them, and more times than not they actually fall
7:27
Speaker 2: asleep way earlier than they would had you have said
7:30
Speaker 2: you have to go to bed.
7:31
Speaker 1: Set the kids off for successmorre find you. It has
7:33
Speaker 1: its disadvantages, right, I mean, it's really fun on Christmas
7:35
Speaker 1: Eve to stay up late and wrap presents and play
7:37
Speaker 1: games and talk. And we're not saying.
7:39
Speaker 2: That he's doing that.
7:40
Speaker 1: Well, maybe we could do that this year. I'm just
7:42
Speaker 1: saying anyway, my first whole, my first point that you've
7:47
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, like we've spent four hours talking about
7:49
Speaker 1: it already, is that no one is born knowing how
7:52
Speaker 1: to regulate their emotions, and this is something that develops
7:55
Speaker 1: over time. We've got to give our children, we.
7:57
Speaker 2: Actually just need to set them up for success. Talked
8:00
Speaker 2: and talked and talked to a sample. Simple fact.
8:03
Speaker 1: Let them be kids, and let them be dysregulated because
8:05
Speaker 1: it's the most exciting day of the year for most kids.
8:08
Speaker 2: That's the worst advice ever.
8:10
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with it. We're getting the
8:13
Speaker 1: more I'm into that, and I wish we hadn't. Ye,
8:15
Speaker 1: it's because it's not yours. It's worried out of stuff
8:18
Speaker 1: going on. I know, it's so much fun.
8:20
Speaker 2: You get to send them home. You're the worst. Okay.
8:23
Speaker 2: It says you're not a therapist.
8:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't any order. No, I just so
8:29
Speaker 1: you're not a therapist. What I mean about that? We've
8:31
Speaker 1: made emotions king in twenty twenty five. We just treat
8:35
Speaker 1: our children's emotions like the most important things ever. Emotions
8:38
Speaker 1: give us some data. They give our kids some data.
8:40
Speaker 1: But emotions are pretty big liars. Emotions are really myopic.
8:43
Speaker 1: We just focused on what's right in front of us.
8:45
Speaker 1: That's what emotions do. They really shrink and narrow a
8:49
Speaker 1: field of vision, so all we can do is think
8:51
Speaker 1: about the thing that's right in front of us. That's
8:53
Speaker 1: what happens when.
8:54
Speaker 2: Your next note there, you've actually said they're real, but
8:55
Speaker 2: they're not always right.
8:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, So we kind of let's say
9:00
Speaker 1: we're getting upset about something we don't see the full picture.
9:03
Speaker 1: We become rigid and inflexible in our thinking. That pushes
9:07
Speaker 1: our emotions up even higher. We start to think faster,
9:10
Speaker 1: which means we don't process as effectively, and therefore what
9:13
Speaker 1: ends up happening is we have these massive explosions because
9:16
Speaker 1: we are so convinced that we are right. What was
9:20
Speaker 1: the thing that I wrote? Again, emotions are king? Is
9:21
Speaker 1: that what I wrote?
9:22
Speaker 2: Yeah?
9:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, emotions, So we make emotions king. Oh, and you're
9:25
Speaker 1: not a therapist. But then parents see their kids having
9:27
Speaker 1: a big emotion, and parents have become increasingly uncomfortable with
9:30
Speaker 1: their children having emotions because everyone's supposed to be happy
9:32
Speaker 1: all the time. Apparently not true, but that's what we
9:34
Speaker 1: seem to believe in society today. So when our kids
9:37
Speaker 1: are getting upset because we want to be wonderful gentle
9:39
Speaker 1: parents or attachment parents or whatever parents we're supposed to
9:41
Speaker 1: be according to the latest bad, what we do is
9:43
Speaker 1: we start to get very uncomfortable those emotions because it
9:45
Speaker 1: means that our child isn't doing well. We just want
9:47
Speaker 1: them to do well, especially on Christmas Day because it's
9:49
Speaker 1: such a special day and Therefore, we step in and
9:51
Speaker 1: start to therapeutically respond to our children's emotions. We sit
9:54
Speaker 1: down and say, oh, it looks like you're feeling so awful,
9:56
Speaker 1: and why don't you tell me all about it? And
9:58
Speaker 1: we make the emotions even bigger by stepping into that. Now,
10:00
Speaker 1: sometimes it will work, but often it won't. What we
10:02
Speaker 1: usually do is we end up pandering to our children.
10:04
Speaker 1: We end up making ourselves and everyone else around us
10:06
Speaker 1: miserable as well, because we've elevated emotions to a level
10:10
Speaker 1: that they don't deserve. So what I would generally say is, well,
10:14
Speaker 1: emotions are important, and they do matter. They are not king,
10:18
Speaker 1: and we are not therapists. And by the way, if
10:19
Speaker 1: you are listening to this podcast and you are a therapist,
10:22
Speaker 1: you're not your child's therapist. And they don't want you
10:24
Speaker 1: to be that, right, They want you to be their parent.
10:26
Speaker 1: So usually when child's having a really big emotion on
10:29
Speaker 1: Christmas Day.
10:30
Speaker 2: We use the timeout theory all the time in our house.
10:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead, because everyone knows that I'm anti timeout,
10:36
Speaker 1: So you're making me nervous the fact that you've even
10:37
Speaker 1: said that.
10:38
Speaker 2: We put ourselves in time out. The kids do it
10:41
Speaker 2: as well, they're having a meltdown and they're just like,
10:44
Speaker 2: I need some space, I need some time. And it's
10:46
Speaker 2: amazing what a handful of minutes in your own space
10:49
Speaker 2: to just self selectricy, self regulate makes all the difference.
10:55
Speaker 1: So I guess that's my second piece of advice is
10:57
Speaker 1: don't make a big deal about your kids emotions. Don't
10:59
Speaker 1: try to be therapist. Just say, oh, yeah, I know,
11:01
Speaker 1: it's really hard, isn't it. And every now and again
11:03
Speaker 1: you want to say what do you want me to do?
11:05
Speaker 1: Like when the kids come to you and they're really
11:06
Speaker 1: upset because my brother this or my sister that. Instead
11:09
Speaker 1: of saying, well that's fine, I'll go and fix it,
11:11
Speaker 1: just look them and say, I know that's really rough.
11:13
Speaker 1: That's really tough, isn't it. What do you want me
11:16
Speaker 1: to do?
11:18
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking what it must have been like to
11:20
Speaker 2: be a teacher before computers were invented. Because you're scribble here,
11:25
Speaker 2: it looks like a triangle.
11:27
Speaker 1: That's just high E motions, low intelligence. So that's the
11:29
Speaker 1: way that I write high motions low intelligence. Right, So
11:32
Speaker 1: there's the X and Y axis and the horizontal negative line,
11:37
Speaker 1: sorry not horizontal, the sloping negative line. It just means
11:39
Speaker 1: that when your emotions are higher, intelligence is low.
11:41
Speaker 2: What's the glitteragen, the glitiger?
11:43
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm going to tell you that right after break
11:53
Speaker 1: Welcome Back, it's the Happy Families podcast. What's the glitterger?
11:56
Speaker 1: So I got this brilliant metaphor from doctor Lisa de Moore.
11:58
Speaker 1: We were doing an Instagram together one time and it
12:01
Speaker 1: just was like, oh, we need to talk about this
12:02
Speaker 1: emotional thing, and she said, emotions. Your brain on emotions
12:08
Speaker 1: is like a snow globe or a glitter jar that's
12:12
Speaker 1: just been shaken up. You know, when you shake up
12:14
Speaker 1: the snow globe, you can't see everything clearly. You try
12:17
Speaker 1: to look through it, but there's all the snow buzzing
12:19
Speaker 1: around or the glitter settling, And if you give it
12:23
Speaker 1: enough time, it starts to settle and you can see
12:24
Speaker 1: more clearly. And if you give it long enough, then
12:26
Speaker 1: everything settles and you can see the entire panorama, diorama
12:30
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it. You can see everything.
12:32
Speaker 1: And so I wrote the glitter jar down just as
12:33
Speaker 1: a reminder that if your children are having a big
12:35
Speaker 1: emotion right now, that's fine. Their brain's pretty fizzy and
12:39
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to see clearly, and
12:40
Speaker 1: neither a day. But if you give it a little
12:42
Speaker 1: bit of time, give it five minutes, give it ten minutes.
12:44
Speaker 1: Not as a punishment, not as a time out, but
12:45
Speaker 1: just everyone's pretty emotional right now, let's just take a
12:47
Speaker 1: little breather. In five or ten minutes, all the glitter
12:50
Speaker 1: starts to settle in the bottom of the jar, or
12:52
Speaker 1: all the snow starts to settle at the bottom of
12:54
Speaker 1: Santa's runway, or whatever it is that you're looking at.
12:57
Speaker 1: Now you can see the problem a little bit better.
12:59
Speaker 1: You can say, we've got a bit of a problem
13:00
Speaker 1: to solve, so let's work this out, get the kids
13:02
Speaker 1: to figure out an answer, and then they're on their way.
13:04
Speaker 1: Like usually, big emotions on Christmas Day, especially, they don't
13:08
Speaker 1: last for more than five minutes. They don't last longer.
13:11
Speaker 2: There's a lot of distraction that works in our favor.
13:14
Speaker 1: Massive benefit. Like people underplay the benefit of distraction when people,
13:20
Speaker 1: especially young kids, when they're emotional, disess.
13:23
Speaker 2: The trick is recognizing and understanding that emotions are contagious
13:27
Speaker 2: and that if we can keep our calm when our
13:31
Speaker 2: kids are having a meltdown, that we've got a better
13:33
Speaker 2: chance of actually helping by coregulating.
13:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so this gets tricky as well. You and
13:39
Speaker 1: I are not drinkers. We don't really have alcohol at
13:41
Speaker 1: all on our well, I mean we don't have alcohol
13:43
Speaker 1: in our family, but even in our extended family it
13:45
Speaker 1: barely exists. Right, But I've heard so many horror stories
13:48
Speaker 1: and alcohol and emotions can be very, very tricky. So
13:53
Speaker 1: you may be feeling a little bit tipsy, or maybe
13:56
Speaker 1: Uncle Frank's had a few too many, and then somebody
13:59
Speaker 1: says something of somebody does something, and there's that myopia again,
14:03
Speaker 1: there's that short, sharp instant reaction and somebody says something
14:08
Speaker 1: in response, and all of a sudden it starts to escalate.
14:11
Speaker 1: The emotions are contagious. Alcohol makes them even more so,
14:16
Speaker 1: So I guess just a quick reminder. I'm not going
14:18
Speaker 1: to get all preaching and beyond a soapbox here, but
14:20
Speaker 1: being mindful of alcohol consumption intake and who's drinking what
14:23
Speaker 1: and where and where the kids are and where the
14:25
Speaker 1: conversation is going, making sure that there's at least one
14:28
Speaker 1: or two people who are able to redirect either people
14:32
Speaker 1: or conversations where necessary that can definitely help to keep
14:35
Speaker 1: emotions in check.
14:37
Speaker 2: Okay, we've almost run out of time, but you've said
14:39
Speaker 2: you don't need to fix it. There's fantasy and time
14:43
Speaker 2: to process and problem solve.
14:45
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so you don't need to fix it.
14:47
Speaker 1: This is probably my favorite emotion tip. When our kids
14:52
Speaker 1: have emotions, we feel as parents, and I kind of
14:54
Speaker 1: touched on this with the therapy idea, we feel like
14:56
Speaker 1: we need to help our kids to process their emotions
14:58
Speaker 1: and fix their emotions and deal with their emotional state
15:00
Speaker 1: the time.
15:01
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about the times where the kids get
15:04
Speaker 2: cranky at me. More times than not, it's me coming
15:08
Speaker 2: in to defend one of their siblings who they've had
15:10
Speaker 2: a falling out with.
15:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, or trying to just fix things.
15:14
Speaker 2: And the crazy thing is that if we just take
15:17
Speaker 2: a step back, more times than not, the storm either
15:20
Speaker 2: blows over or the kids actually work it out. Yeah.
15:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's kind of what I'm getting at here.
15:26
Speaker 1: You don't need to fix it, you just need to
15:27
Speaker 1: give it time. I mean, kids go from being mortal
15:31
Speaker 1: enemies to best friends in ninety seconds. Sometimes they're playing
15:35
Speaker 1: a game at the dining table, they're swimming in the pool,
15:37
Speaker 1: they're riding their bikes, well, only gets upset at the
15:39
Speaker 1: other one. They blow up and I'm like, three minutes
15:43
Speaker 1: later they're playing again. They're fine. So you don't have
15:47
Speaker 1: to fix everything. You just have to let things settle,
15:50
Speaker 1: and sometimes you might have to solve help the kids
15:52
Speaker 1: to solve their own problems briefly, and then let it go.
15:54
Speaker 1: So that's the first one. The second one, give them
15:57
Speaker 1: in fantasy what they can't have in reality. I love
15:59
Speaker 1: talking about this. It's really simple. You just say to
16:01
Speaker 1: the kids when they're upset, don't you just wish that.
16:04
Speaker 2: Santa had God and use some rollerskates.
16:07
Speaker 1: Or wouldn't it be great if and then you finish
16:12
Speaker 1: the sentence with whatever it is that they're upset about,
16:14
Speaker 1: and what you're really saying is not going to happen.
16:16
Speaker 1: There's a clear boundary here. But also I get how
16:18
Speaker 1: hard this is, and that little bit of empathy, that
16:20
Speaker 1: little bit of compassion, it's incredible for acknowledging the emotion
16:24
Speaker 1: without having to be a therapist and without making it king.
16:29
Speaker 1: Could you imagine if Santa did do that? Wouldn't it
16:31
Speaker 1: be amazing if this was able to happen? Could you
16:34
Speaker 1: imagine how much fun we could have, Like if you.
16:36
Speaker 2: Ate all the marshmallows.
16:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, we get to have this conversation about it, and
16:40
Speaker 1: the kids just sort of get caught up in and
16:42
Speaker 1: it feels nice. And then you say, I wish you
16:44
Speaker 1: could as well, and then you move on with the
16:47
Speaker 1: day and guess what, Every now and again, the kid's
16:49
Speaker 1: gonna have a little tanty and that's okay, it's not
16:51
Speaker 1: going to ruin Christmas.
16:52
Speaker 2: I guess the last one that you've got on your
16:54
Speaker 2: list is low expectations.
16:56
Speaker 1: This is mye I just wrote that down to be funny.
17:00
Speaker 2: I think so often, especially as parents, we kind of
17:03
Speaker 2: create in our head the ideal perfect day, and the
17:08
Speaker 2: reality is family life is fluid and it's changing all
17:12
Speaker 2: the time, and there are so many moving parts and
17:15
Speaker 2: so many different people to kind of navigate and deal
17:18
Speaker 2: with that. The thought that we could actually control the
17:22
Speaker 2: day is a bit stupid, isn't it.
17:25
Speaker 1: Just I mean, we're still we're still a couple of
17:28
Speaker 1: weeks away from Christmas, but just to make Christmas go well,
17:33
Speaker 1: low key, don't do too much, have low expectations.
17:36
Speaker 2: Well, as we were prepping for this, I was just
17:38
Speaker 2: kind of thinking about it, and I'm like, we we
17:41
Speaker 2: have such a nice Christmas Day because there we actually
17:45
Speaker 2: just live in the moment. We're not we don't we
17:49
Speaker 2: don't put on a big crazy meal. We don't. We
17:53
Speaker 2: don't get out of our pajamas. If we want to
17:55
Speaker 2: go for a swim, we go for a swim. If
17:56
Speaker 2: we want to go to the beach, we go to
17:57
Speaker 2: the beach. But it's just however the day feeds.
18:00
Speaker 1: We've started doing Christmas with my family at the start
18:02
Speaker 1: of December and with your family, I don't know, sort
18:05
Speaker 1: of mid December, and so it's just made life so
18:09
Speaker 1: easy on Christmas Day because we're literally at home.
18:12
Speaker 2: And get to do what we want to do.
18:14
Speaker 1: We get to do whatever we want to do.
18:15
Speaker 2: And the kids, the kids are crazy. They just like
18:18
Speaker 2: they just want to come and jump on our bed
18:19
Speaker 2: first in the morning so they can open their stockings together. Yeah,
18:22
Speaker 2: and just spend time playing games.
18:25
Speaker 1: So you've got me looking forward to it.
18:26
Speaker 2: I can't wait.
18:27
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited. Hey, we hope this helps you to
18:29
Speaker 1: have an emotionally stable.
18:33
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say an emotionally free.
18:37
Speaker 1: An emotion free Christmas. No, we want you to have
18:39
Speaker 1: emotions on Christmas. That will be important. You're so funny.
18:42
Speaker 1: We hope that it helps you to have an emotionally
18:44
Speaker 1: stable Christmas Day. You're so funny and we can't wait
18:49
Speaker 1: to be with you again tomorrow as we unpacked. See
18:52
Speaker 1: what I did that unpack unpack like unwrapped, we can
18:56
Speaker 1: unwrap our last tricky question of the year. This one's
18:59
Speaker 1: got a certain Christmas Us flavor to it. Actually wants
19:01
Speaker 1: to know what to do when cousins are coming over.
19:04
Speaker 1: But there's different values in the family and there's a
19:05
Speaker 1: little bit of a clash there. How do you navigate
19:08
Speaker 1: the conflict and contention around that? That's on the podcast tomorrow.
19:12
Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
19:15
Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Mim Hammons provides research, admin and a whole
19:18
Speaker 1: lot of other support and if you would like more
19:21
Speaker 1: information or resources to make your family happier, you'll find
19:24
Speaker 1: it all at happy families dot com doda you