Dreading Christmas with Certain Family Members?

Psychologists offer three coping strategies to handle or better still avoid family arguments.

• The most obvious, but possibly hardest to follow, is to manage your own expectations. Accept that your relatives’ behavior will not change. This makes you less likely to feel disappointed and lose your temper with them.
• Prepare yourself to feel frustrated and plan a response. The response isn’t to what the relative said or did but to your feelings about it.
• Accept the situation. Either calmly inform the offensive person that what they have said bothers you or simply let their statements go. You can gain  a feeling of control when you take away the power of their words to annoy you.