Holiday season can be challenging for parents, especially around Christmas and New Year.
Here are some of the biggest mistakes parents usually make during Christmas, according to some parenting experts.
1. Setting Unrealistic Expectations
Parents who create long Christmas lists of "essential" items are setting themselves up for a season of disappointment. Parents should lighten up and leave plenty of room for relaxation. Do not put the presents and gifts in the focus, instead teach your children what holidays are all about, family, friends and time spent together!
2. Using Christmas as a Bribe
Don't lower your parenting standards to bribery, especially around holiday season. Using Santa and Christmas as a bribe is easy for parents, but every medal has two sides. Using the message of "be good or else" as a parenting tactic before Santa comes down the chimney, or "Santa's little bird is listening and watching you" really works on kids, and on the other side lowers parenting standards.
This tactic and similar ones also do not bring transparency, accountability and trust, actually it creates a gap with you children and later you may find it hard to connect to your children...at that point you'll be asking yourself at what point this happened, where you made a mistake and you won't even realize it.
More about how to connect with you children before it's too late you can read in this post.
3. Becoming a "Holiday Martyr"
Do not forget yourself. Often people put everyone else ahead of themselves. Rushing to get everything done from to-do list, while the pressure is rising as the holidays come closer...everyone experience it.
Remember to take time for yourself and treat yourself, not with a present, gift can be a simple chill with a book, a nap, walk in a park...whatever makes you feel relaxed and happy.
4. Holiday Frustrations around kids
Kids under nine or ten years old, process information egocentrically, meaning if there's a problem, they see themselves as the cause.
Keeping this in mind, parents should avoid "processing" their holiday frustrations loudly around their kids. Instead, parents should stay calm, find reasons to be thankful and grateful...believe me, if you are a parent you have the reason, everything else is less important.
5. Neglecting the "Giving List"
Kids see holidays as a time for them to get a present, especially the little ones. While creating a wish list is fun for kids, you could think of creating a gift list.
In this way you will teach kids to think about others, not only about themselves.
Many parents make the mistake of teaching their kids that Christmas is a time to make a 'wish list' and get what they want. It's lots of fun but can often create a sense of entitlement in your children,Life is about balance. It's about receiving and giving.
