Reducing Holiday Stress in Children

The holidays are a stressful time. You're running2. Help your child do their Christmas shopping.
around last minute trying to find the perfect gifts,Once your kids reach a certain age, they are
you're planning out parties and you're cooking up aexpected to give gifts and cards to their friends
storm. While the holidays are certainly stressfuland family. This can add a lot pressure and stress
for most adults, they can also be incrediblyto their lives. So help them do the planning and
stressful for children. There is a lot of pressure onthink of present ideas.
them and they can often sense your frustration3. Try to stick to your normal routine and
and stress as well. As a result, your children mayactivities. Your lives and schedules shouldn't be
act up and have more temper tantrums. If youturned upside-down for the holidays. Try to keep
want to reduce this kind of behavior during thethings as normal as possible and if your child's
holiday season, follow my tips and suggestionsschedule is going to deviate from the norm for
below.holiday activities, make sure that he or she know
1. Convince your children to stop watchingin advance. This will reduce the stress related with
television during the holiday season. Oncethe activity.
November hits, it seems as though every show4. Keep travel light. Traveling around a lot can also
and every commercial is dedicated to the holidays.add stress to the holidays. A few quick trips to
This can add stress and remind children of thevisit grandparents is okay, but long trips can be
holiday when they are trying to relax and getexhausting, so keep them to a minimum.
away from it all.