Preparing for Holiday Gatherings with Confident Parenting Techniques
Preparing Your Child for Holiday Gatherings With Confidence and Calm
Holiday gatherings can be beautiful and meaningful, but they can also be overwhelming for kids and parents. New environments, unfamiliar relatives, unpredictable routines, and big feelings tend to come together all at once. If you have ever walked into a family celebration hoping for magic and instead found yourself navigating meltdowns, sensory overload, or awkward commentary from well-meaning relatives, you are not alone.
As a psychologist, a mom, and someone who has navigated plenty of holiday gatherings with my own children, I know how stressful it can feel. You want your kids to feel safe and grounded. You want to show up with confident parenting that reflects your values. And you want tools that support child emotion regulation in moments when everything feels unfamiliar. This is exactly where thoughtful preparation and positive parenting tips become game-changing.
This blog post is designed to help you plan ahead so that your next holiday gatherings feel calmer, smoother, and more enjoyable for everyone involved.
Why Holiday Gatherings Can Be So Overwhelming for Kids
Before we talk strategy, it helps to remember why holiday gatherings often stretch a child’s capacity.
New environments disrupt regulation
Children rely on familiar routines to support child emotion regulation. When routines shift dramatically, regulation becomes harder. Kids may feel overexcited, overstimulated, or unsure of what to expect. The very things that make holiday gatherings special can also make them challenging.
Sensory experiences can be intense
Loud voices, crowded rooms, unfamiliar smells, excited cousins, barking dogs, and constant activity can overwhelm a sensitive nervous system. Child emotion regulation becomes harder when sensory input is high.
Kids feel pressure to perform socially
Adults often forget how intimidating it can be for children to interact with relatives they barely know. When grown ups expect kids to hug someone they have not seen since last December or behave perfectly in a challenging environment, tension grows quickly.
Parents feel pressure too
You are trying to parent your child with warmth and grounding, but you are also trying to navigate relatives who may not use or understand positive parenting tips. That tension impacts confident parenting, and it absolutely affects your child’s regulation as well.
This is why planning matters so much.
The Three-Part Plan That Makes Holiday Gatherings Feel Easier
Below is the framework I teach families at the Thriving Child Center and PCIT Experts. It is grounded in evidence-based practice, compassion, and the real emotional needs of both kids and parents.
Part One: Communicate With Family Members Before You Arrive
Preparation is your superpower. When people understand your child’s needs before the visit begins, the entire tone of the gathering shifts for the better.
Why this step is essential
Most relatives love your child deeply but simply do not see them often enough to understand their preferences, triggers, or developmental stage. Without context, they will likely assume your child operates exactly like their memory of you at that age or exactly like other children they know. This often leads to misunderstandings during holiday gatherings.
What to share ahead of time
Use this list as a guide for creating supportive communication:
• Sensory needs
If your child becomes overwhelmed by noise, say so. If they fear dogs, prepare the hosts. If they need movement breaks, mention it.
• Food preferences or limitations
This is not about catering to pickiness. It is about helping your child show up regulated enough to enjoy the event.
• Routines that anchor them
If ten minutes of quiet screen time before dinner helps with child emotion regulation, let relatives know so they can support it.
• Boundaries around physical affection
Explain that you are helping your child build confident parenting skills for their own body boundaries and that high-pressure greetings can overwhelm them.
A simple communication script
Here is a warm and non-confrontational way to do this:
“Hi Mom, we are so excited for the holiday visit. I wanted to give you a quick heads-up that Julia has been feeling very anxious around dogs lately. I know Sparky is gentle, but the noise can be scary for her. Can we come up with a plan together so she can ease in and have a positive experience?”
You are not criticizing. You are proactively supporting child emotion regulation. This is one of the most important positive parenting tips you can implement during holiday gatherings.
Part Two: Create a Calm Down Kit to Support Child Emotion Regulation
Kids need tools that help them regulate in real time. When a child walks into an unfamiliar environment with nothing familiar to ground them, emotions escalate quickly.
What to include
A calm-down kit should feel personal and comforting. Here are ideas that support child emotion regulation during holiday gatherings:
• Familiar snacks
A predictable food item offers comfort and stability.
• Sensory supports
Noise-reducing headphones, a small fidget, or a weighted lap pad can make a massive difference.
• Comfort objects
A stuffed animal, a small blanket, or anything that brings safety.
• A favorite activity
Markers and paper, a coloring book, or a small puzzle can help a child self-regulate when stimulation becomes too high.
Let your child help build it
When children help choose their items, they feel more ownership. Making this process collaborative is one of the overlooked positive parenting tips that helps kids feel empowered. It also reinforces confident parenting because you are guiding them through emotional preparation.
Make the kit easy to access
During holiday gatherings, kids need quick access to regulation tools without extra stress. Keep the kit in your bag or in a central room where your child can find it easily.
Part Three: Support Your Own Emotional Regulation
Your calm is not just helpful. It is foundational. If a parent enters holiday gatherings dysregulated, overwhelmed, or emotionally activated by family dynamics, child emotion regulation becomes much harder.
Know your triggers ahead of time
Ask yourself:
• What comments tend to unsettle me
• What behaviors from relatives bring up childhood memories
• What situations feel draining rather than supportive
Awareness helps you approach these moments with confident parenting rather than reactive energy.
Decide on boundaries before you arrive
This may be one of the most important positive parenting tips of all. You cannot enforce boundaries you have not identified.
You might choose:
• No forced physical affection
• A quiet room or outdoor space to retreat with your child
• A specific time you plan to leave
• A script to redirect unsolicited parenting commentary
Here is an example:
“I appreciate your care. We are working on child emotion regulation at home, so we are responding in the way we know is best for him.”
This communicates warmth and boundary at the same time. It is confident parenting in action.
Create your own calm-down plan
Just as your child needs support, so do you.
Here are strategies that truly help during holiday gatherings:
• Take a short walk outside
• Step away and breathe before intervening
• Put on music that grounds you
• Ask a supportive partner or relative for help
• Plan for quiet recovery time after the event
Parents often forget that their nervous system sets the tone. When you care for yourself, you are directly supporting child emotion regulation and modeling emotional skills your child will use forever.
Putting It All Together
Holiday gatherings are full of emotion, unpredictability, and moments that stretch all of us. But when you prepare with intention, communicate openly, and support both your child and yourself, you create an environment where connection is more likely than chaos.
Using positive parenting tips does not mean you expect perfection. It means you understand your child’s needs and guide them toward emotional success. Practicing confident parenting does not mean you know exactly what to do every moment. It means you lead with clarity, compassion, and confidence in your values. And focusing on child emotion regulation does not eliminate big feelings. It simply gives your child a pathway to move through them.
If you want more support in strengthening child emotion regulation at home, Thriving Child Center offers evidence-based therapy to help your family thrive. Learn more at
https://educated-parent.captivate.fm/thrivingchildcenter
If your child needs more structured behavioral support, PCIT Experts can guide you with real-time, research-supported parenting strategies. Learn more at
https://educated-parent.captivate.fm/pcit-experts
And if you want weekly expert guidance on parenting, join our newsletter at
https://educated-parent.captivate.fm/newsletter
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[00:00:05] Leah Clionsky: Welcome to the Educated Parent Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Leah Clionsky, and today we're going to talk about how to help our kids prepare for a family gathering. We're about to hit the holidays. We're in December. Family gatherings are going on. Maybe your children are around caregivers. They don't usually see how are we gonna help them get through those times with family who love them, but may not fully understand them.
[00:00:36] Leah Clionsky: That's what this episode is all about. So here is another one of our chats, and this is actually an episode that was requested that I record from a listener. it was actually requested by
[00:00:48] Leah Clionsky 2: Foundation's pediatric therapy.
[00:00:50] Leah Clionsky: which is a wonderful occupational and physical therapy clinic that I recommend to many of our clients and actually use myself for my own family.
[00:00:59] Leah Clionsky: I was speaking with one of the therapists there and she mentioned to me that so many families she knows are struggling with. Being around family for the holidays and trying to figure out how to make this experience a little bit easier on their kids. And I hear you, because the holidays are one of those times when we are often suddenly around a lot of people we may not see regularly, and the stakes are high.
[00:01:30] Leah Clionsky: So let's say that you're going out of town to see grandparents, you only see a couple times a year. What is it like for you to go back as a parent and stay with your parents? It sometimes can be wonderful. It sometimes can be challenging. It sometimes can be a little bit of both experiences, right?
[00:01:51] Leah Clionsky: Because you have. All of those thoughts and feelings as an adult child of parents or of the adult member of a family whose dynamics you are now in, and that can be interesting for you. So you might have your own emotional reactions. You might suddenly feel like you're 15 years old again because you're back in the house where you were 15 years old.
[00:02:17] Leah Clionsky: Or maybe somebody says something to you in that tone of voice that they used when you were a teenager and you always resented it. So the roles are all kind of thrown off. So you're there processing your own feelings and your own reactions, or maybe your mix of reactions. Maybe some are very positive and some are less positive, and it sort of depends who's there.
[00:02:39] Leah Clionsky: You're also there with your own children and people who may or may not agree with the parenting strategies that you are using and other people who may or may not have very strong opinions. The strategies that you're using. So you're trying to navigate your own role. Who am I as the adult child in this situation or as the partner of an adult child in this situation?
[00:03:09] Leah Clionsky: Who am I as a parent to these kids who, by the way, are off schedule, maybe in a new place, maybe without the familiar things they're used to, maybe a little bit dysregulated, maybe a little bit overexcited. You know, they're having their own feelings. They're reacting to everybody in this situation. Maybe there's some cousins there that they don't always get to see.
[00:03:33] Leah Clionsky: So there's so many dynamics going on, and you're there. Just trying to make things go smoothly, trying to have a wonderful family holiday. So I'm just gonna jump in and I'm going to give you some really specific strategies for what you can do to prepare for this family gathering, because preparation is key.
[00:03:54] Leah Clionsky: You wanna walk in there with a plan, you wanna walk in there having already figured some things out. And so what I'm going to give you is a three part plan for preparing for this kind of situation, The first thing you want to do is communicate with family members in advance, so you don't wanna wait until it is.
[00:04:17] Leah Clionsky: The first day of Hanukkah or Christmas morning and walk in, and then suddenly there's chaos going on, and this is the first time you've talked to the other adults involved about your child and about the situation. Right. You haven't prepped them. So there's this understanding that family members may love your child but not see them often enough to know what they need and how they're likely to react to new things.
[00:04:44] Leah Clionsky: They may just assume that your children will react exactly like you did when you were a child or like their cousin over here. And so being able to have an open conversation with your family or your partner's family, or have them have that conversation before you even get there will help make things easier.
[00:05:03] Leah Clionsky: So, for example, if your child has strong sensory needs, like for example, if they get really overwhelmed with loud noise. That's a good thing to tell your family in advance, or what if they have really strong likes or dislikes about food or just about other preferences in the home? Like let's say they're terrified of dogs and you in your house growing up you had a very loud dog, and now your parents have that dog and you know your child's gonna react to it.
[00:05:34] Leah Clionsky: Talking to them in advance about your child's feelings about that dog is very helpful. Important routines can be really useful. You know, does your child always get 10 minutes of TV before dinner? And this is just deeply sacred to them. Good thing for your family to know. by going in advance and talking to your family or any family members that you think you'll have a lot of sway in explaining the intricacies of your child to them, you are so much more likely.
[00:06:08] Leah Clionsky: To prevent a problem that might happen just because somebody doesn't know, right? If for, if we're going to the dog example, and you know, your child is very afraid of large dogs and your family has large dogs. If your family doesn't know and you don't think about it, your child walks in, gets confronted with a large dog, and suddenly there's this huge reaction.
[00:06:29] Leah Clionsky: Whereas if your family knows this, maybe the dog is put away for when you show up and it's introduced gradually. For example, right? It gives you a chance to solve this because on the grandparent end of things or the extended family end of things, you feel terrible if you problem. So it's about really going in there in advance and preventing with good communication.
[00:06:53] Leah Clionsky: Again, this communication doesn't have to sound judgmental. So if you're looking for a simple script, you could say something like. Hey mom. We're so excited to visit over the holidays. Can't wait to see. You know, it's been a long time. I just wanted to give you a heads up that Julia is really afraid of dogs right now.
[00:07:13] Leah Clionsky: Just recently, she's become really scared of dogs, and I'm thinking about our dog, Sparky at home, and just the fact that even though he's very gentle, he's very loud. Can we problem solve some ways of making it easier for Julia to come over? I want her to have a good dog experience and not a negative one.
[00:07:33] Leah Clionsky: Cc. You're not coming in with an attack. You're just giving positive information. This could be hard if your family doesn't have a culture of communicating, but being able to do this again beforehand instead of in the moment when things aren't going well, is going to be a lot better. The second thing you may wanna think about doing is preparing a calm down kit for your kids.
[00:07:57] Leah Clionsky: So when your child is in a new environment, what do they need to feel comfortable? If you create basically a coping kit that they can bring with them, you are going to greatly increase the chances that they have a positive experience. For example, you could help them pack a small snack or a food, you know, they like in case, for example, all of the food is holiday food and your child loves, Cheez-Its, and they don't have those.
[00:08:28] Leah Clionsky: There maybe a comfort object, activity that they enjoy. if you know that your child regulates by drawing, the drawing makes them feel really calm, you help them pack their favorite markers and their favorite sketch pad. You can bring your child in, you can say to them, Hey, we're going to grandma's house.
[00:08:47] Leah Clionsky: Let's bring some special things there so that you have a way of entertaining yourself and feeling good in that environment. This is actually something I did when I traveled with my kids for Thanksgiving. We knew that we were going to a house that was not for kids, right? Everyone living in that house is an adult, so we.
[00:09:05] Leah Clionsky: Intentionally packed activities and things that we knew that they liked, so that we were setting them up for success so that they were going in with familiar items and ways of calming themselves. So that planning ahead component is really good. The last thing you need to plan for is your own emotion regulation.
[00:09:27] Leah Clionsky: You know how I just talked about that? We as adults. Can get triggered being in certain family environments. if you have that insight, that insight I talked about in the last episode, that awareness that this environment is stressful to you in some ways it is good to plan ahead or yourself.
[00:09:48] Leah Clionsky: You are important. Your regulation is important, and your ability to regulate your emotions, understand what's going on, engage in coping strategies and not shove it back, ignore it, and then lose it. That will make things so much easier on everyone else. So think about it in advance. Do a little bit of planning.
[00:10:08] Leah Clionsky: Think about the things that could happen that might upset you and make a plan, like how will you handle it? If a family member criticizes you or your parenting, what are they likely to say and what are you going to do? Knowing in advance, having a plan, maybe even involving your partner in that plan.
[00:10:26] Leah Clionsky: That'll be really helpful. Are you gonna ignore it or do you have a planned, like a calm thing you're gonna say? You know, are there situations where you leave? Like, how are you gonna plan for this? What boundaries are you going to need to enforce? So let's pretend you have this conversation with your mom about the dog and she agrees and you show up and the dog's at the front door.
[00:10:49] Leah Clionsky: You may be saying, calling her and saying, I see that the dog's at the front door, we're gonna drive around the block. When the dog is put away, we'll come into the house. So you may be setting some boundaries around certain things yourself, like what can and can't you deal with? What are you and are you not okay with?
[00:11:09] Leah Clionsky: Now? How will you calm yourself down if you start feeling strong emotions? I mentioned this a little bit about having kind of a calm down kit for kids, but what about you? What are you gonna do? Do you need to bring to make sure you have some good music where you can walk out and just listen to your AirPods and regulate?
[00:11:30] Leah Clionsky: Is there a walk that people need to take after dinner so that you know you're gonna get a break and being outside, are there certain supportive family members? Are there certain things that are just gonna be painful for you to see? For example, a family member maybe who's sick or aging and you know you're gonna need extra support around that.
[00:11:50] Leah Clionsky: Really just thinking how am I gonna feel and what are the things that are gonna help me feel good to the best of my ability in this situation? Those things are really important too when you're planning for family gatherings. So just to recap, first, you are communicating with your family members in advance so they have enough time to make plans and adjust things on their own.
[00:12:15] Leah Clionsky: And you're preparing for your own self-regulation, you're taking care of yourself because taking care of yourself is taking care of your kids. It's modeling emotion regulation, and it's being able to be calm enough where you're able to support them.
[00:12:32] Leah Clionsky: So I hope that this plan is helpful to you. If you join our newsletter, you will get a PDF of these strategies that you can use yourself. But I really hope that. Using these strategies, making a plan makes you feel more comfortable, more stable, more prepared for these family gatherings that are sometimes this mix of like beautiful family situation and huge stressor for you and everyone else.
[00:13:01] Leah Clionsky: And just give yourself a lot of grace, right? You're doing your best. Your kids are doing their best. Your family's probably doing their best. Everyone is trying. It's hard when we all come together in these times with all the pressure to quote unquote, not ruin Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever holiday it is.
[00:13:21] Leah Clionsky: I hope this has been useful. Did you know that you can tell me episodes you would like to have? If there's a specific thing you really wish I would talk about? You can dM me through Instagram Educated Parent podcast. You can email the clinic info@thrivingchildcenter.com. You can make a comment on one of the YouTube videos, but I would love, I would love suggestions of things you would like me to talk about.
[00:13:47] Leah Clionsky: I come up with ideas that I think are good, but I'm very open to hearing from you so. Tell me and I'll do my best to accommodate. Thank you so much. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful holiday and I will talk to you next time.