November 30, 2025 • 19 mins
Christmas is magic… until it isn’t. Big feelings, tired kids, sugar highs, family drama, and festive chaos can turn the “most wonderful time of the year” into a meltdown marathon. In this episode, Justin and Kylie break down how to handle the full spectrum of Christmas emotions — without overreacting, over-parenting, or overcooking yourself into exhaustion. Real stories, practical tools, and realistic expectations… so your day stays joyful, not stressful.
KEY POINTS
- Why emotional regulation is harder for kids (and adults!) at Christmas
- The real takeaway from the Marshmallow Experiment
- The biggest mistake parents make: becoming “at-home therapists”
- Why letting emotions settle works better than talking them down
- The glitter-jar brain: a simple metaphor to help kids reset
- How to use fantasy (“Wouldn’t it be great if…”) to soothe disappointment
- Why low expectations equal high connection
- How to stop family tension — especially when alcohol is involved
- When to step in… and when to step back
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
“Big emotions on Christmas Day aren’t a failure — they’re developmentally normal. Give them time to settle, and most storms blow over in minutes.”
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Set kids up for success: Protect sleep, reduce overstimulation, keep routines light.
- Stay calm: Emotions are contagious — yours sets the tone.
- Pause, don’t fix: Give time for emotions to settle before intervening.
- Use fantasy to empathise: “Wouldn’t it be amazing if…?”
- Keep expectations low and flexibility high: Simplicity makes the day better.
- Be mindful of adult emotions + alcohol: Redirect early, protect kids’ psychological safety.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. Oh my goodness,
it's the first of December.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Marry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You have felt the animal Christmas. It's just I feel like
minutes away. I mean it's a couple of weeks to
go yet, but the energy is ramping up. The Christmas
spirit is building and that also means that there's a
whole lot of Christmas emotions. Today we address the reality
that Christmas is not always joyful. Sometimes the kids aren't
(00:32):
able to navigate disappointment, over stimulation, exhaustion, grief and anxiety
and changes in routine. Oh sorry, that was the kids,
and then there's the parents as well. Today on the
Happy Families Podcast, we help you to navigate big Christmas
emotions the whole spectrum and share two massive Christmas blow
(00:53):
ups that we've experienced so that you can learn not
to do what we've done. Stay with us. It's The
Happy Family's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions. Every single day on
Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, we are justin and Kylie
full Some Christmas is here. The Christmas spirit is alive
(01:16):
and well. The Christmas energy is booming, and Kylie, it's
time to talk about Christmas and the big emotions that
come along with it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I was just thinking about big emotions and I had
a doozy. A couple of years ago, we had just
moved into a new house and we thought it would
be great to put on a neighborhood Christmas party. And
when we looked at the dates available, we kind of
with a few neighbours input decided that the twenty third
was perfect. Everyone would be, you know, finished with their year,
(01:47):
everyone's around. Let's do it on the twenty third because
we'll get everybody there. And we pretty much.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Had the whole neighbor streets.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
In our backyard and it was fantastic. It was real.
It was such a beautiful night. It was and I
would have to do it again. But it took me
about a week to get over it. And come Christmas Day,
there was nothing left. There was nothing left in the tank.
And I literally looked at the family and I said,
there's leftovers in the fridge from two nights ago. That's
(02:14):
what we're eating. Like, I am not cooking. I'm not
even getting out of my pajamas today.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So it's nothing that there was a lot of emotion.
It was that there was just an inability to function.
There was just the exhaustion that happens to some of
us at that Christmas season because we'd tried it so.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Much so I'm getting old.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
There's that happening as well. I know, the kids.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Jump on our bed at two early o'clock and like,
can you just let us have another hour sleep?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
There was another one that comes to mind for me.
It's been an unfortunate one. We were a big Christmas gathering.
A family member lost the plot. There was lots of swearing,
there was lots of abusive language thrown towards plenty of
adults and specifically the children, specifically a couple of our children. Big, big,
big emotions. So today we want to talk about what
to do when the are either not there at all,
(03:01):
or when the emotions are too big, or incidentally, when
that sort of thing happens, you just get out of
the way. There's no point trying high emotions all intelligence.
Like when somebody is that angry and that upset, you're
not going to be able to say, hey, you know what,
it's Christmas, why don't we sing a song, let's talk
I'm grateful for Yeah, that's not going to happen. We
wish you marry Christmas, and we're all leaving right now.
But I've dotted down a bunch of notes and we
(03:24):
thought we'd flip the script today. You don't even know what.
I don't know if you can read my writing, but
you're going to interview me about my best ideas for
how to navigate the big emotions that can come with Christmas.
Or you can throw my notes away and talk about
whatever you want. But I figured that I've got good notes,
and I wanted to be helpful.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I'm so glad you think you've got good notes, because
I cannot read them.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I'm a doctor. No one can read doctors.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay, let's see you've got no one's born knowing.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Oh yeah, so no one's born knowing how to regulate emotions.
And so we need to remember that, especially when the
kids are losing it, Especially when the kids have had
a lack of sleep. They've been hyped up because this
is the most exciting day of the year. They know,
they're seeing their cousins, their grandparents, they're they're friends there
whoever it is that they're going to be spending time
with emotion regulation, the ability to either turn up or
turn down your emotions appropriately for the context, in harmony
(04:09):
with your long term goals. Well, kids don't have long
term goals. It's Christmas. Christmas is the goal, full stop,
end of story, and enjoying every moment of it is
what this sort of their goal is. So the idea
that our children are going to be emotionally regulated, really
well regulated on Christmas Day in some ways it's kind
of a developmentally inappropriate expectation, but.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It's not also about the development. It's the acknowledgment that
we let them stay up really late on Christmas sugar
they have sugar first thing in the morning because that's
in their stockings. And then they've just got this day
of indulgence, and we wonder why they fall apart and
lose the plot. We don't set them up for success.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
In fact, you've just reminded me. You know the marshmallow experiment.
Walter Michelle, just down the road from Stanford, at the
little preschool there back in the I think it was
the I think it was the seventies, Walt to Michelle
did this experiment that became world famous, and basically he
stuck a marshmallow in front of some kids and said, hey,
you can have this now or in ten minutes time
when I come back from my little walk because I've
(05:10):
got to go and do something. You can have two.
He didn't tell them how long it would be, but
he was gone for about ten or twelve minutes. And
what he found, or what most people say, is that
the kids who had the highest levels of self control,
they got the extra marshmallow, but they also did better
later in life. And so a lot of people are like, well,
we've just got to teach kids to be controlled, like
kids need to learn self control, and that's partly true.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Like this, how many adults do you know have absolute
control over theirselves?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It's a really big jake, especially on Christmas Day when
they're stressed out and they've been cooking all day, or
maybe they've had a few too many wines or whatever,
and all I've had to deal.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
With that person that they just really struggling hard with.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So the science here is that what Michelle really found
was that it wasn't about the kids and their individual
characteristics and attributes. What it was is what they did
to make the situation tolerable and bearable. So some of
them started to play games. They played games in their mind,
or they sang themselves songs, or they did other things,
which meant that the environment was much more amenable to
passing the time, not focusing on the marshmallow, and therefore
(06:10):
being more quote unquote self controlled. If we want our
children to be able to regulate themselves, well then we've
got to create environments that are conducive to regulation.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So a hand well, it's not even a handful of
years ago. Now we're talking maybe fifteen again.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You make me sound very ill, you're dating this. Thank
you for that. So fifteen years ago, when.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Our kids were much younger, we realized that this was
a really big struggle staying up super late and then
waking up first thing in the morning, and our days
were just ratty.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, Christmas was horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And you had actually read about this.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Jack a book of flood. I don't know how to
say it properly, and I probably mispronounced it right then.
But it's a North European I think it was Finish
or a Scandinavian. It's a Nordic. I don't know, it's ours.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's all I know. We do now tradition. But we
started gifting the kids one book and a block of
chocolate on Christmas Eve, and the excitement for them was
there were no rules about how long they could stay
up reading and so that was their late night. But inevitably,
you're lying in bed, you're reading a book, and for
(07:18):
the most part, it's a really quiet night. Even if
they do stay up, it's a really quiet, subdued night
for them, and more times than not they actually fall
asleep way earlier than they would had you have said
you have to go to bed.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Set the kids off for successmorre find you. It has
its disadvantages, right, I mean, it's really fun on Christmas
Eve to stay up late and wrap presents and play
games and talk. And we're not saying.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That he's doing that.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Well, maybe we could do that this year. I'm just
saying anyway, my first whole, my first point that you've
oh my goodness, like we've spent four hours talking about
it already, is that no one is born knowing how
to regulate their emotions, and this is something that develops
over time. We've got to give our children, we.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Actually just need to set them up for success. Talked
and talked and talked to a sample. Simple fact.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Let them be kids, and let them be dysregulated because
it's the most exciting day of the year for most kids.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's the worst advice ever.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I don't have a problem with it. We're getting the
more I'm into that, and I wish we hadn't. Ye,
it's because it's not yours. It's worried out of stuff
going on. I know, it's so much fun.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You get to send them home. You're the worst. Okay.
It says you're not a therapist.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't any order. No, I just so
you're not a therapist. What I mean about that? We've
made emotions king in twenty twenty five. We just treat
our children's emotions like the most important things ever. Emotions
give us some data. They give our kids some data.
But emotions are pretty big liars. Emotions are really myopic.
We just focused on what's right in front of us.
That's what emotions do. They really shrink and narrow a
(08:49):
field of vision, so all we can do is think
about the thing that's right in front of us. That's
what happens when.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Your next note there, you've actually said they're real, but
they're not always right.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, So we kind of let's say
we're getting upset about something we don't see the full picture.
We become rigid and inflexible in our thinking. That pushes
our emotions up even higher. We start to think faster,
which means we don't process as effectively, and therefore what
ends up happening is we have these massive explosions because
we are so convinced that we are right. What was
(09:20):
the thing that I wrote? Again, emotions are king? Is
that what I wrote?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, emotions, So we make emotions king. Oh, and you're
not a therapist. But then parents see their kids having
a big emotion, and parents have become increasingly uncomfortable with
their children having emotions because everyone's supposed to be happy
all the time. Apparently not true, but that's what we
seem to believe in society today. So when our kids
are getting upset because we want to be wonderful gentle
parents or attachment parents or whatever parents we're supposed to
be according to the latest bad, what we do is
(09:43):
we start to get very uncomfortable those emotions because it
means that our child isn't doing well. We just want
them to do well, especially on Christmas Day because it's
such a special day and Therefore, we step in and
start to therapeutically respond to our children's emotions. We sit
down and say, oh, it looks like you're feeling so awful,
and why don't you tell me all about it? And
we make the emotions even bigger by stepping into that. Now,
sometimes it will work, but often it won't. What we
usually do is we end up pandering to our children.
(10:04):
We end up making ourselves and everyone else around us
miserable as well, because we've elevated emotions to a level
that they don't deserve. So what I would generally say is, well,
emotions are important, and they do matter. They are not king,
and we are not therapists. And by the way, if
you are listening to this podcast and you are a therapist,
you're not your child's therapist. And they don't want you
to be that, right, They want you to be their parent.
(10:26):
So usually when child's having a really big emotion on
Christmas Day.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
We use the timeout theory all the time in our house.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, go ahead, because everyone knows that I'm anti timeout,
So you're making me nervous the fact that you've even
said that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
We put ourselves in time out. The kids do it
as well, they're having a meltdown and they're just like,
I need some space, I need some time. And it's
amazing what a handful of minutes in your own space
to just self selectricy, self regulate makes all the difference.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So I guess that's my second piece of advice is
don't make a big deal about your kids emotions. Don't
try to be therapist. Just say, oh, yeah, I know,
it's really hard, isn't it. And every now and again
you want to say what do you want me to do?
Like when the kids come to you and they're really
upset because my brother this or my sister that. Instead
of saying, well that's fine, I'll go and fix it,
just look them and say, I know that's really rough.
That's really tough, isn't it. What do you want me
(11:16):
to do?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I'm just thinking what it must have been like to
be a teacher before computers were invented. Because you're scribble here,
it looks like a triangle.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That's just high E motions, low intelligence. So that's the
way that I write high motions low intelligence. Right, So
there's the X and Y axis and the horizontal negative line,
sorry not horizontal, the sloping negative line. It just means
that when your emotions are higher, intelligence is low.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
What's the glitteragen, the glitiger?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Oh, I'm going to tell you that right after break
Welcome Back, it's the Happy Families podcast. What's the glitterger?
So I got this brilliant metaphor from doctor Lisa de Moore.
We were doing an Instagram together one time and it
just was like, oh, we need to talk about this
emotional thing, and she said, emotions. Your brain on emotions
(12:08):
is like a snow globe or a glitter jar that's
just been shaken up. You know, when you shake up
the snow globe, you can't see everything clearly. You try
to look through it, but there's all the snow buzzing
around or the glitter settling, And if you give it
enough time, it starts to settle and you can see
more clearly. And if you give it long enough, then
everything settles and you can see the entire panorama, diorama
(12:30):
or whatever you want to call it. You can see everything.
And so I wrote the glitter jar down just as
a reminder that if your children are having a big
emotion right now, that's fine. Their brain's pretty fizzy and
you're not going to be able to see clearly, and
neither a day. But if you give it a little
bit of time, give it five minutes, give it ten minutes.
Not as a punishment, not as a time out, but
just everyone's pretty emotional right now, let's just take a
little breather. In five or ten minutes, all the glitter
(12:50):
starts to settle in the bottom of the jar, or
all the snow starts to settle at the bottom of
Santa's runway, or whatever it is that you're looking at.
Now you can see the problem a little bit better.
You can say, we've got a bit of a problem
to solve, so let's work this out, get the kids
to figure out an answer, and then they're on their way.
Like usually, big emotions on Christmas Day, especially, they don't
last for more than five minutes. They don't last longer.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
There's a lot of distraction that works in our favor.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Massive benefit. Like people underplay the benefit of distraction when people,
especially young kids, when they're emotional, disess.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
The trick is recognizing and understanding that emotions are contagious
and that if we can keep our calm when our
kids are having a meltdown, that we've got a better
chance of actually helping by coregulating.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah. Yeah, so this gets tricky as well. You and
I are not drinkers. We don't really have alcohol at
all on our well, I mean we don't have alcohol
in our family, but even in our extended family it
barely exists. Right, But I've heard so many horror stories
and alcohol and emotions can be very, very tricky. So
you may be feeling a little bit tipsy, or maybe
Uncle Frank's had a few too many, and then somebody
(13:59):
says something of somebody does something, and there's that myopia again,
there's that short, sharp instant reaction and somebody says something
in response, and all of a sudden it starts to escalate.
The emotions are contagious. Alcohol makes them even more so,
So I guess just a quick reminder. I'm not going
to get all preaching and beyond a soapbox here, but
(14:20):
being mindful of alcohol consumption intake and who's drinking what
and where and where the kids are and where the
conversation is going, making sure that there's at least one
or two people who are able to redirect either people
or conversations where necessary that can definitely help to keep
emotions in check.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Okay, we've almost run out of time, but you've said
you don't need to fix it. There's fantasy and time
to process and problem solve.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Okay, all right, so you don't need to fix it.
This is probably my favorite emotion tip. When our kids
have emotions, we feel as parents, and I kind of
touched on this with the therapy idea, we feel like
we need to help our kids to process their emotions
and fix their emotions and deal with their emotional state
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I'm just thinking about the times where the kids get
cranky at me. More times than not, it's me coming
in to defend one of their siblings who they've had
a falling out with.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, or trying to just fix things.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And the crazy thing is that if we just take
a step back, more times than not, the storm either
blows over or the kids actually work it out. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, And that's kind of what I'm getting at here.
You don't need to fix it, you just need to
give it time. I mean, kids go from being mortal
enemies to best friends in ninety seconds. Sometimes they're playing
a game at the dining table, they're swimming in the pool,
they're riding their bikes, well, only gets upset at the
other one. They blow up and I'm like, three minutes
later they're playing again. They're fine. So you don't have
(15:47):
to fix everything. You just have to let things settle,
and sometimes you might have to solve help the kids
to solve their own problems briefly, and then let it go.
So that's the first one. The second one, give them
in fantasy what they can't have in reality. I love
talking about this. It's really simple. You just say to
the kids when they're upset, don't you just wish that.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Santa had God and use some rollerskates.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Or wouldn't it be great if and then you finish
the sentence with whatever it is that they're upset about,
and what you're really saying is not going to happen.
There's a clear boundary here. But also I get how
hard this is, and that little bit of empathy, that
little bit of compassion, it's incredible for acknowledging the emotion
without having to be a therapist and without making it king.
(16:29):
Could you imagine if Santa did do that? Wouldn't it
be amazing if this was able to happen? Could you
imagine how much fun we could have, Like if you.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Ate all the marshmallows.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, we get to have this conversation about it, and
the kids just sort of get caught up in and
it feels nice. And then you say, I wish you
could as well, and then you move on with the
day and guess what, Every now and again, the kid's
gonna have a little tanty and that's okay, it's not
going to ruin Christmas.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I guess the last one that you've got on your
list is low expectations.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
This is mye I just wrote that down to be funny.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I think so often, especially as parents, we kind of
create in our head the ideal perfect day, and the
reality is family life is fluid and it's changing all
the time, and there are so many moving parts and
so many different people to kind of navigate and deal
with that. The thought that we could actually control the
(17:22):
day is a bit stupid, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Just I mean, we're still we're still a couple of
weeks away from Christmas, but just to make Christmas go well,
low key, don't do too much, have low expectations.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well, as we were prepping for this, I was just
kind of thinking about it, and I'm like, we we
have such a nice Christmas Day because there we actually
just live in the moment. We're not we don't we
don't put on a big crazy meal. We don't. We
don't get out of our pajamas. If we want to
go for a swim, we go for a swim. If
we want to go to the beach, we go to
(17:57):
the beach. But it's just however the day feeds.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
We've started doing Christmas with my family at the start
of December and with your family, I don't know, sort
of mid December, and so it's just made life so
easy on Christmas Day because we're literally at home.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And get to do what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
We get to do whatever we want to do.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And the kids, the kids are crazy. They just like
they just want to come and jump on our bed
first in the morning so they can open their stockings together. Yeah,
and just spend time playing games.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
So you've got me looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I'm pretty excited. Hey, we hope this helps you to
have an emotionally stable.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I thought you were going to say an emotionally free.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
An emotion free Christmas. No, we want you to have
emotions on Christmas. That will be important. You're so funny.
We hope that it helps you to have an emotionally
stable Christmas Day. You're so funny and we can't wait
to be with you again tomorrow as we unpacked. See
what I did that unpack unpack like unwrapped, we can
unwrap our last tricky question of the year. This one's
(18:59):
got a certain Christmas Us flavor to it. Actually wants
to know what to do when cousins are coming over.
But there's different values in the family and there's a
little bit of a clash there. How do you navigate
the conflict and contention around that? That's on the podcast tomorrow.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media. Mim Hammons provides research, admin and a whole
lot of other support and if you would like more
(19:21):
information or resources to make your family happier, you'll find
it all at happy families dot com doda you
Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast. Oh my goodness,
it's the first of December.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Marry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You have felt the animal Christmas. It's just I feel like
minutes away. I mean it's a couple of weeks to
go yet, but the energy is ramping up. The Christmas
spirit is building and that also means that there's a
whole lot of Christmas emotions. Today we address the reality
that Christmas is not always joyful. Sometimes the kids aren't
(00:32):
able to navigate disappointment, over stimulation, exhaustion, grief and anxiety
and changes in routine. Oh sorry, that was the kids,
and then there's the parents as well. Today on the
Happy Families Podcast, we help you to navigate big Christmas
emotions the whole spectrum and share two massive Christmas blow
(00:53):
ups that we've experienced so that you can learn not
to do what we've done. Stay with us. It's The
Happy Family's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions. Every single day on
Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast, we are justin and Kylie
full Some Christmas is here. The Christmas spirit is alive
(01:16):
and well. The Christmas energy is booming, and Kylie, it's
time to talk about Christmas and the big emotions that
come along with it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
I was just thinking about big emotions and I had
a doozy. A couple of years ago, we had just
moved into a new house and we thought it would
be great to put on a neighborhood Christmas party. And
when we looked at the dates available, we kind of
with a few neighbours input decided that the twenty third
was perfect. Everyone would be, you know, finished with their year,
(01:47):
everyone's around. Let's do it on the twenty third because
we'll get everybody there. And we pretty much.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Had the whole neighbor streets.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
In our backyard and it was fantastic. It was real.
It was such a beautiful night. It was and I
would have to do it again. But it took me
about a week to get over it. And come Christmas Day,
there was nothing left. There was nothing left in the tank.
And I literally looked at the family and I said,
there's leftovers in the fridge from two nights ago. That's
(02:14):
what we're eating. Like, I am not cooking. I'm not
even getting out of my pajamas today.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So it's nothing that there was a lot of emotion.
It was that there was just an inability to function.
There was just the exhaustion that happens to some of
us at that Christmas season because we'd tried it so.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Much so I'm getting old.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
There's that happening as well. I know, the kids.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Jump on our bed at two early o'clock and like,
can you just let us have another hour sleep?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
There was another one that comes to mind for me.
It's been an unfortunate one. We were a big Christmas gathering.
A family member lost the plot. There was lots of swearing,
there was lots of abusive language thrown towards plenty of
adults and specifically the children, specifically a couple of our children. Big, big,
big emotions. So today we want to talk about what
to do when the are either not there at all,
(03:01):
or when the emotions are too big, or incidentally, when
that sort of thing happens, you just get out of
the way. There's no point trying high emotions all intelligence.
Like when somebody is that angry and that upset, you're
not going to be able to say, hey, you know what,
it's Christmas, why don't we sing a song, let's talk
I'm grateful for Yeah, that's not going to happen. We
wish you marry Christmas, and we're all leaving right now.
But I've dotted down a bunch of notes and we
(03:24):
thought we'd flip the script today. You don't even know what.
I don't know if you can read my writing, but
you're going to interview me about my best ideas for
how to navigate the big emotions that can come with Christmas.
Or you can throw my notes away and talk about
whatever you want. But I figured that I've got good notes,
and I wanted to be helpful.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
I'm so glad you think you've got good notes, because
I cannot read them.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I'm a doctor. No one can read doctors.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay, let's see you've got no one's born knowing.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Oh yeah, so no one's born knowing how to regulate emotions.
And so we need to remember that, especially when the
kids are losing it, Especially when the kids have had
a lack of sleep. They've been hyped up because this
is the most exciting day of the year. They know,
they're seeing their cousins, their grandparents, they're they're friends there
whoever it is that they're going to be spending time
with emotion regulation, the ability to either turn up or
turn down your emotions appropriately for the context, in harmony
(04:09):
with your long term goals. Well, kids don't have long
term goals. It's Christmas. Christmas is the goal, full stop,
end of story, and enjoying every moment of it is
what this sort of their goal is. So the idea
that our children are going to be emotionally regulated, really
well regulated on Christmas Day in some ways it's kind
of a developmentally inappropriate expectation, but.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It's not also about the development. It's the acknowledgment that
we let them stay up really late on Christmas sugar
they have sugar first thing in the morning because that's
in their stockings. And then they've just got this day
of indulgence, and we wonder why they fall apart and
lose the plot. We don't set them up for success.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
In fact, you've just reminded me. You know the marshmallow experiment.
Walter Michelle, just down the road from Stanford, at the
little preschool there back in the I think it was
the I think it was the seventies, Walt to Michelle
did this experiment that became world famous, and basically he
stuck a marshmallow in front of some kids and said, hey,
you can have this now or in ten minutes time
when I come back from my little walk because I've
(05:10):
got to go and do something. You can have two.
He didn't tell them how long it would be, but
he was gone for about ten or twelve minutes. And
what he found, or what most people say, is that
the kids who had the highest levels of self control,
they got the extra marshmallow, but they also did better
later in life. And so a lot of people are like, well,
we've just got to teach kids to be controlled, like
kids need to learn self control, and that's partly true.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Like this, how many adults do you know have absolute
control over theirselves?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
It's a really big jake, especially on Christmas Day when
they're stressed out and they've been cooking all day, or
maybe they've had a few too many wines or whatever,
and all I've had to deal.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
With that person that they just really struggling hard with.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So the science here is that what Michelle really found
was that it wasn't about the kids and their individual
characteristics and attributes. What it was is what they did
to make the situation tolerable and bearable. So some of
them started to play games. They played games in their mind,
or they sang themselves songs, or they did other things,
which meant that the environment was much more amenable to
passing the time, not focusing on the marshmallow, and therefore
(06:10):
being more quote unquote self controlled. If we want our
children to be able to regulate themselves, well then we've
got to create environments that are conducive to regulation.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So a hand well, it's not even a handful of
years ago. Now we're talking maybe fifteen again.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
You make me sound very ill, you're dating this. Thank
you for that. So fifteen years ago, when.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Our kids were much younger, we realized that this was
a really big struggle staying up super late and then
waking up first thing in the morning, and our days
were just ratty.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, Christmas was horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And you had actually read about this.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Jack a book of flood. I don't know how to
say it properly, and I probably mispronounced it right then.
But it's a North European I think it was Finish
or a Scandinavian. It's a Nordic. I don't know, it's ours.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's all I know. We do now tradition. But we
started gifting the kids one book and a block of
chocolate on Christmas Eve, and the excitement for them was
there were no rules about how long they could stay
up reading and so that was their late night. But inevitably,
you're lying in bed, you're reading a book, and for
(07:18):
the most part, it's a really quiet night. Even if
they do stay up, it's a really quiet, subdued night
for them, and more times than not they actually fall
asleep way earlier than they would had you have said
you have to go to bed.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Set the kids off for successmorre find you. It has
its disadvantages, right, I mean, it's really fun on Christmas
Eve to stay up late and wrap presents and play
games and talk. And we're not saying.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That he's doing that.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Well, maybe we could do that this year. I'm just
saying anyway, my first whole, my first point that you've
oh my goodness, like we've spent four hours talking about
it already, is that no one is born knowing how
to regulate their emotions, and this is something that develops
over time. We've got to give our children, we.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Actually just need to set them up for success. Talked
and talked and talked to a sample. Simple fact.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Let them be kids, and let them be dysregulated because
it's the most exciting day of the year for most kids.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's the worst advice ever.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
I don't have a problem with it. We're getting the
more I'm into that, and I wish we hadn't. Ye,
it's because it's not yours. It's worried out of stuff
going on. I know, it's so much fun.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You get to send them home. You're the worst. Okay.
It says you're not a therapist.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, isn't any order. No, I just so
you're not a therapist. What I mean about that? We've
made emotions king in twenty twenty five. We just treat
our children's emotions like the most important things ever. Emotions
give us some data. They give our kids some data.
But emotions are pretty big liars. Emotions are really myopic.
We just focused on what's right in front of us.
That's what emotions do. They really shrink and narrow a
(08:49):
field of vision, so all we can do is think
about the thing that's right in front of us. That's
what happens when.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Your next note there, you've actually said they're real, but
they're not always right.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, So we kind of let's say
we're getting upset about something we don't see the full picture.
We become rigid and inflexible in our thinking. That pushes
our emotions up even higher. We start to think faster,
which means we don't process as effectively, and therefore what
ends up happening is we have these massive explosions because
we are so convinced that we are right. What was
(09:20):
the thing that I wrote? Again, emotions are king? Is
that what I wrote?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, emotions, So we make emotions king. Oh, and you're
not a therapist. But then parents see their kids having
a big emotion, and parents have become increasingly uncomfortable with
their children having emotions because everyone's supposed to be happy
all the time. Apparently not true, but that's what we
seem to believe in society today. So when our kids
are getting upset because we want to be wonderful gentle
parents or attachment parents or whatever parents we're supposed to
be according to the latest bad, what we do is
(09:43):
we start to get very uncomfortable those emotions because it
means that our child isn't doing well. We just want
them to do well, especially on Christmas Day because it's
such a special day and Therefore, we step in and
start to therapeutically respond to our children's emotions. We sit
down and say, oh, it looks like you're feeling so awful,
and why don't you tell me all about it? And
we make the emotions even bigger by stepping into that. Now,
sometimes it will work, but often it won't. What we
usually do is we end up pandering to our children.
(10:04):
We end up making ourselves and everyone else around us
miserable as well, because we've elevated emotions to a level
that they don't deserve. So what I would generally say is, well,
emotions are important, and they do matter. They are not king,
and we are not therapists. And by the way, if
you are listening to this podcast and you are a therapist,
you're not your child's therapist. And they don't want you
to be that, right, They want you to be their parent.
(10:26):
So usually when child's having a really big emotion on
Christmas Day.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
We use the timeout theory all the time in our house.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, go ahead, because everyone knows that I'm anti timeout,
So you're making me nervous the fact that you've even
said that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
We put ourselves in time out. The kids do it
as well, they're having a meltdown and they're just like,
I need some space, I need some time. And it's
amazing what a handful of minutes in your own space
to just self selectricy, self regulate makes all the difference.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So I guess that's my second piece of advice is
don't make a big deal about your kids emotions. Don't
try to be therapist. Just say, oh, yeah, I know,
it's really hard, isn't it. And every now and again
you want to say what do you want me to do?
Like when the kids come to you and they're really
upset because my brother this or my sister that. Instead
of saying, well that's fine, I'll go and fix it,
just look them and say, I know that's really rough.
That's really tough, isn't it. What do you want me
(11:16):
to do?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I'm just thinking what it must have been like to
be a teacher before computers were invented. Because you're scribble here,
it looks like a triangle.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
That's just high E motions, low intelligence. So that's the
way that I write high motions low intelligence. Right, So
there's the X and Y axis and the horizontal negative line,
sorry not horizontal, the sloping negative line. It just means
that when your emotions are higher, intelligence is low.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
What's the glitteragen, the glitiger?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Oh, I'm going to tell you that right after break
Welcome Back, it's the Happy Families podcast. What's the glitterger?
So I got this brilliant metaphor from doctor Lisa de Moore.
We were doing an Instagram together one time and it
just was like, oh, we need to talk about this
emotional thing, and she said, emotions. Your brain on emotions
(12:08):
is like a snow globe or a glitter jar that's
just been shaken up. You know, when you shake up
the snow globe, you can't see everything clearly. You try
to look through it, but there's all the snow buzzing
around or the glitter settling, And if you give it
enough time, it starts to settle and you can see
more clearly. And if you give it long enough, then
everything settles and you can see the entire panorama, diorama
(12:30):
or whatever you want to call it. You can see everything.
And so I wrote the glitter jar down just as
a reminder that if your children are having a big
emotion right now, that's fine. Their brain's pretty fizzy and
you're not going to be able to see clearly, and
neither a day. But if you give it a little
bit of time, give it five minutes, give it ten minutes.
Not as a punishment, not as a time out, but
just everyone's pretty emotional right now, let's just take a
little breather. In five or ten minutes, all the glitter
(12:50):
starts to settle in the bottom of the jar, or
all the snow starts to settle at the bottom of
Santa's runway, or whatever it is that you're looking at.
Now you can see the problem a little bit better.
You can say, we've got a bit of a problem
to solve, so let's work this out, get the kids
to figure out an answer, and then they're on their way.
Like usually, big emotions on Christmas Day, especially, they don't
last for more than five minutes. They don't last longer.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
There's a lot of distraction that works in our favor.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Massive benefit. Like people underplay the benefit of distraction when people,
especially young kids, when they're emotional, disess.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
The trick is recognizing and understanding that emotions are contagious
and that if we can keep our calm when our
kids are having a meltdown, that we've got a better
chance of actually helping by coregulating.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah. Yeah, so this gets tricky as well. You and
I are not drinkers. We don't really have alcohol at
all on our well, I mean we don't have alcohol
in our family, but even in our extended family it
barely exists. Right, But I've heard so many horror stories
and alcohol and emotions can be very, very tricky. So
you may be feeling a little bit tipsy, or maybe
Uncle Frank's had a few too many, and then somebody
(13:59):
says something of somebody does something, and there's that myopia again,
there's that short, sharp instant reaction and somebody says something
in response, and all of a sudden it starts to escalate.
The emotions are contagious. Alcohol makes them even more so,
So I guess just a quick reminder. I'm not going
to get all preaching and beyond a soapbox here, but
(14:20):
being mindful of alcohol consumption intake and who's drinking what
and where and where the kids are and where the
conversation is going, making sure that there's at least one
or two people who are able to redirect either people
or conversations where necessary that can definitely help to keep
emotions in check.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Okay, we've almost run out of time, but you've said
you don't need to fix it. There's fantasy and time
to process and problem solve.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Okay, all right, so you don't need to fix it.
This is probably my favorite emotion tip. When our kids
have emotions, we feel as parents, and I kind of
touched on this with the therapy idea, we feel like
we need to help our kids to process their emotions
and fix their emotions and deal with their emotional state
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I'm just thinking about the times where the kids get
cranky at me. More times than not, it's me coming
in to defend one of their siblings who they've had
a falling out with.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, or trying to just fix things.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And the crazy thing is that if we just take
a step back, more times than not, the storm either
blows over or the kids actually work it out. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, And that's kind of what I'm getting at here.
You don't need to fix it, you just need to
give it time. I mean, kids go from being mortal
enemies to best friends in ninety seconds. Sometimes they're playing
a game at the dining table, they're swimming in the pool,
they're riding their bikes, well, only gets upset at the
other one. They blow up and I'm like, three minutes
later they're playing again. They're fine. So you don't have
(15:47):
to fix everything. You just have to let things settle,
and sometimes you might have to solve help the kids
to solve their own problems briefly, and then let it go.
So that's the first one. The second one, give them
in fantasy what they can't have in reality. I love
talking about this. It's really simple. You just say to
the kids when they're upset, don't you just wish that.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Santa had God and use some rollerskates.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Or wouldn't it be great if and then you finish
the sentence with whatever it is that they're upset about,
and what you're really saying is not going to happen.
There's a clear boundary here. But also I get how
hard this is, and that little bit of empathy, that
little bit of compassion, it's incredible for acknowledging the emotion
without having to be a therapist and without making it king.
(16:29):
Could you imagine if Santa did do that? Wouldn't it
be amazing if this was able to happen? Could you
imagine how much fun we could have, Like if you.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Ate all the marshmallows.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, we get to have this conversation about it, and
the kids just sort of get caught up in and
it feels nice. And then you say, I wish you
could as well, and then you move on with the
day and guess what, Every now and again, the kid's
gonna have a little tanty and that's okay, it's not
going to ruin Christmas.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I guess the last one that you've got on your
list is low expectations.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
This is mye I just wrote that down to be funny.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I think so often, especially as parents, we kind of
create in our head the ideal perfect day, and the
reality is family life is fluid and it's changing all
the time, and there are so many moving parts and
so many different people to kind of navigate and deal
with that. The thought that we could actually control the
(17:22):
day is a bit stupid, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Just I mean, we're still we're still a couple of
weeks away from Christmas, but just to make Christmas go well,
low key, don't do too much, have low expectations.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well, as we were prepping for this, I was just
kind of thinking about it, and I'm like, we we
have such a nice Christmas Day because there we actually
just live in the moment. We're not we don't we
don't put on a big crazy meal. We don't. We
don't get out of our pajamas. If we want to
go for a swim, we go for a swim. If
we want to go to the beach, we go to
(17:57):
the beach. But it's just however the day feeds.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
We've started doing Christmas with my family at the start
of December and with your family, I don't know, sort
of mid December, and so it's just made life so
easy on Christmas Day because we're literally at home.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
And get to do what we want to do.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
We get to do whatever we want to do.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And the kids, the kids are crazy. They just like
they just want to come and jump on our bed
first in the morning so they can open their stockings together. Yeah,
and just spend time playing games.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
So you've got me looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I'm pretty excited. Hey, we hope this helps you to
have an emotionally stable.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I thought you were going to say an emotionally free.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
An emotion free Christmas. No, we want you to have
emotions on Christmas. That will be important. You're so funny.
We hope that it helps you to have an emotionally
stable Christmas Day. You're so funny and we can't wait
to be with you again tomorrow as we unpacked. See
what I did that unpack unpack like unwrapped, we can
unwrap our last tricky question of the year. This one's
(18:59):
got a certain Christmas Us flavor to it. Actually wants
to know what to do when cousins are coming over.
But there's different values in the family and there's a
little bit of a clash there. How do you navigate
the conflict and contention around that? That's on the podcast tomorrow.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
Bridge Media. Mim Hammons provides research, admin and a whole
lot of other support and if you would like more
(19:21):
information or resources to make your family happier, you'll find
it all at happy families dot com doda you
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