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Click on the link below to read published articles written by or featuring Nadine Rosen: Take Control of Pre-Teen Anger Moving On: How To Deal with a Family Uproot Divorce and the Holidays |
From the My School Rocks publication November, 2010:
Divorce and the Holidays by Nadine Rosen
The holiday season invokes various images and emotions in all of us, depending on our experiences. But, make no mistake, even under the best of circumstances, the holiday season can be stressful. For many families, the season is joyous and filled with family, love, warmth, and anticipation. For others, the holiday season can be downright sad, painful, and elicit high anxiety. But for sure, most of us tend to feel tremendous pressure whether financially, because of time constraints, or due to high and often unrealistic expectations. Emotions tend to run high as we become nostalgic, perhaps from happy childhood memories or we become full of dread because of painful ones. Yet, we all get through the season year after year after year and through the years have developed family routines, rituals, and traditions. Until, one year and we find ourselves either in the midst of a divorce or divorced. Divorce, like the death of a loved one, is considered a major life stressor and like death, there is grief work that needs to be done in order to recover, move on, and live a happy and fulfilling life. Part of that grief work is negotiating the holidays for yourself and your children. A first holiday season apart from your former spouse will undoubtedly be the most difficult. Where it may have been once implicit in how the holidays will be spent and with whose family, it no longer is. Therefore, new routines, rituals, and traditions need to be created and there are no set recipes. For the sake of your children, unless there is a good reason and that reason is outlined in a custody agreement, the holidays will need to and should be shared between both parents. It may be a good idea (unless both spouses have been amicable or at the very least respectful and reasonable) to put down the holiday arrangements in the custody agreement. Too many children are used as pawns and weapons between angry, embittered, and hostile spouses. Additional turmoil and chaos during the holidays leave children (and their parents) sad, confused, and resentful. Sharing the holidays with an ex-spouse doesn’t necessarily mean shifting and carting your children from dinner at one home to dessert at another. It may be more reasonable and realistic, for some families, to have your children be with one parent on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and then spend time with the other one on Christmas and New Years, while agreeing to switch the following year. Should you and your ex-spouse live in the same town, and you agree to share a particular holiday, emphasizing how lucky your child is to be able to enjoy two celebrations will help minimize any resistance he or she has in leaving one home (in the midst of rejoicing) to go to another. In creating new traditions and rituals, feel free to be creative. Some parents, for example, may find it less painful to have dinner at a restaurant on Thanksgiving rather than at home, which may only highlight the absence of the other parent. There are many options and possibilities for divorcing and divorced families to minimize the stress for themselves and their children during the holiday season, providing both spouses are considering the best interests of their children and not being uncooperative due to their own angry or hurt feelings and resentment. Children are incredibly perceptive and will often internalize a parent’s feelings. It is, therefore, important to keep your own feelings in check; confiding in a friend or supporter and doing some reality-testing would prove useful so that you are not making a decision based on strong negative emotions. Asking children where they would prefer to spend the holidays is also not a good idea, unless they offer their opinion freely and unprompted. Doing so may only contribute to guilt feelings as they may believe they are being disloyal or hurtful to the missing parent. By asking, you may also get an answer that you prefer not to hear, so it is best not to ask. Most likely, your children were not given the responsibility to make the holiday plans in the past, and likewise they should not be given that responsibility just because you and their other parent have divorced. Gift-giving can be another trap in which parents may act out their negative feelings, as many parents feel they are contending for their children’s love, loyalty, and favoritism. Trying to outdo your former spouse with larger and more expensive gifts, while financially burdensome, will only set your child up with future unreasonable expectations and a weapon with which to manipulate you and their other parent. If you are attempting to overcompensate for time not spent with you (e.g., if you are the non-custodial parent), you might want to reconsider. Your children will know this and it may become a source of resentment. Equating love with money and gifts or worse, substituting money and gifts for love can be very damaging. Instead, plan time to be with your children and buy the kind of gifts you were buying prior to your divorce. Consistency and familiarity will foster their sense of routine, security, and safety. The holiday season can be a family time of joy and celebration, and all families come in different shapes, sizes, and structures. Focusing on your children’s needs while not neglecting your own will encourage a sense of balance, wellness, and peace, regardless of how many parents are in the home and where the holidays are being celebrated. Spending time together with friends, relatives, and other loved ones is what really gives the holidays meaning and purpose. Happy Holidays. Nadine Rosen is a Licensed Professional Counselor and psychotherapist in private practice in the Cotswold area. She is also the mother of two teenagers. Her website is nadinerosentherapy.com. She can be reached at 704-280-9458 or rosentherapy@gmail.com.
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