#004: 7 Tips to Navigate the Holidays for Children of Divorce
The holidays are a challenging time for most children of divorced or separated parents. Most of us feel alone, lost, and uncertain of how to navigate the holidays with our broken families.
Instead of experiencing the joy of the holidays, we often feel overwhelmed, frustrated, embarrassed, and sad.
If you can relate, we made this episode for you. In it, we give 7 tips on how to navigate the holidays so you can enjoy them and hopefully, avoid all the drama.
The advice is from a survey of older children of divorce combined with Joey’s advice on the topic.
If you love or lead someone with divorced or separated parents, share this episode with them.
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Coming Up: Episode #005: 9 Common Struggles of Adult Children of Divorce - Part 1 | LeeAnne Abel
Thanks for listening! Our next episode features speaker, author, and leader LeeAnne Abel. We talk about the 9 common struggles that children of divorce face and some tactics of how to deal with them.
TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
The holidays can be a challenging time for so many people, for so many reasons. But this is especially true for people whose parents are divorced or separated, particularly if they're teens or young adults. Most of them feel alone. They feel lost, and they feel uncertain of how to navigate the holiday.
Given their family situation and worse of all, they're vividly reminded during the holidays of how broken their families are. I remember one of the first holidays that my parents were separated as a boy. I felt kind of awkward. I felt kind of embarrassed about what was going on with my family. I think most of all, I felt sad.
I was sad because this was one of the first holidays where both of my parents were not there, and so I remember spending most of that holiday, most of that Christmas in one of the bedroom. Playing video games. If the holidays are a struggle for you, this episode is for you. In it, I'm gonna give seven tips, seven practical tips on how to navigate the holidays if your parents are separated or divorced.
And this isn't just my advice. I surveyed older children of divorce and ask them what they would say to you if they could speak to you. And so I'm gonna take their advice. I'm gonna combine it with my own thoughts on. And that's where the seven tips come from. Keep listening.
Welcome to the Restored podcast, helping you cope and heal after your parents' divorce or separation so you can feel whole again. I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. Thank you so much for listening. This is episode four and I wanna just dive right in. If you're someone who doesn't come from a divorce or Ed family, you may not understand why the holiday.
Can be so challenging for people like us. And so I wanna spend a little bit of time on that. I wanna explain some of the reasons why it can be so challenging, and certainly there are many reasons, but these are just a few. Like I said at the top of the show, it's a clear reminder that your family is broken and your parents are not together.
For most of us, we, we have fond memories of holidays, and when your parents separate a divorce, those kind of holidays just don't happen again. Those memories, sadly, will never be made again. On a practical level, it's just challenging. Logistically, you could have twice as many parties to attend, or if your parents are remarried, maybe even more.
If you're married, of course you have your spouse's family, and if you have children, you may feel even more pressure to bring the kids around to see your relatives and your parents. An obvious reason is the possibility for drama intention. Perhaps there's already drama intention to begin with. I know if it hasn't been long since the divorce was finalized.
Maybe you're in the midst of it all. There can be a lot of tension, not only between your parents, uh, but also between your relatives. Some of your relatives may be speaking bad about one of your parents, uh, and vice versa. Like I said, I remember just feeling sort of awkward about everything that was going down, and I knew some of my relatives didn't think very highly of my other parent, and so there was just a lot of tension and drama at some of those parties.
And one of the last reasons is that it's difficult to make everyone happy and, and I don't think you should, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But it can be challenging because mom may want you over at this time. Dad may want you over at this time. Dad may not wanna see mom, but mom may be okay with seeing Dad or like I've heard in some families, Mom and dad may still do holidays together, which can bring its own type of challenge.
Relatives can be upset that you didn't go to this party or that party, or you didn't stay as long because you were leaving to, to go to the other side of the family. And so, and at the end of the day, it leaves you feeling frustrated. Overwhelmed. Embarrassed, like I said, and I think kind of hopeless and just sad.
Just sad that your family is the way it is, that your family is broken, that your parents are not together. Even if I always say this, even if it was necessary for them to break apart, it's still a tragedy. The first thing I wanna say is if you feel any of those feelings, There's nothing wrong with you.
You're not weird, and you're not alone in feeling that writer and psychiatrist, Victor Frankel said that an abnormal response to an abnormal event is normal. In other words, when your parents separate or divorce, that's an abnormal event. It's not supposed to happen. And so if you feel anxious, if you feel sad, if you feel embarrassed, overwhelmed, frustrated by the divorce, but especially about navigating the holidays, that's.
And I just want you to know that this isn't right. The holidays should be a time for celebration, not drama. And I'm sorry if in your family there's a lot of tension, there's a lot of drama, and you really struggle to even attend these parties and especially struggle to find any joy in these holidays. So faced with all this, what do we do?
How do we navigate the holidays so we can enjoy them and hopefully avoid all the drama? The first tip is to set and enforce boundaries. Now, boundaries you could think of as like property lines. On this side of the line is me and what I like and what I'm willing to do, and on that side of the line is what I don't like and what I'm not willing to do.
It's out of bounds. Again, it's basically saying, I'm willing to do this. I'm not willing to do that. A few examples are telling your parents that I will not talk to you about the other parent. Another example is saying, I will spend the holidays with both of you, and then maybe laying down some rules saying, This is how much time I'll spend here.
This is how much time I'll spend there. And remember, it's okay to say. No, it's okay to say, I don't wanna do that. I'm not willing to do that. I'm not willing to talk about that, whatever it may be. Once you set the boundaries, you have to enforce those boundaries. If someone steps over one of those boundaries, you have to enforce it.
You have to show them that if these boundaries are not followed, there are consequences. And what you're basically saying, In enforcing your boundaries is that I am not a doormat. These are my rules, and if you follow them, we can have a relationship. I'll come to that party and so. If you don't, then you are self-selecting to not have a relationship with me.
Remember, you set the boundary and if they don't follow it, they're the ones making the choice not to have the relationship, not to have you present at the holiday, not to have you present at the party. It's not your fault if they don't follow the boundary that you set. You're not doing it to them. They are doing it to themselves.
Of course, as part of boundaries, there's likely to be some drama, and so just don't engage in that drama. Underneath this advice for boundaries, there's a few other important points, and one of them is it's not your job to please everyone. You're not responsible for pleasing your parents or your family or your relatives.
You have no responsibility to, to make everyone happy, and so on a, on a practical point, don't feel forced to involve strangers. In your life, whether that's, you know, your dad's girlfriend or your mom's boyfriend or someone else, you shouldn't feel forced to involve them in your life. It should be something that's natural and gradual.
Remember that you're not responsible to parent your parents. You are not your parents' crutch. You're not what holds them up. And don't let your parents emotionally rely on you. I know that sounds like tough love, but I mean it, it's really not good for them or for you if mom or dad are emotionally relying on you, they're opening up to you in a way that just is too much.
They shouldn't be coming to their child with all of their emotional baggage and emotional issues if they do. Kindly and firmly redirect them to their support network. And what I mean by support network is their friends, their family, maybe their siblings, or an aunt or an uncle or their mom or their dad.
Your grandparents could be a counselor, a pastor. Someone like that, they need help, but not from you. And so it's actually more loving for you to redirect them to someone who could actually help them and support them than to keep listening to them and allow them to use you as their emotional support.
And so you could say something simply like this, mom or dad, I love you. I care about you. I want what's best for you, but I can't be your emotional support. You need to go to your friends, to your counselor, to your family. To a pastor and lean on them, Not me. I wanna help you, but I have to help you in another way.
And one of the last points when it comes to boundaries is protect yourself from manipulators. And I'm not condemning parents here and saying that your parents are automatically manipulators, but if there's a manipulator in your family, whether it's your parents or someone else, be aware of that. Protect yourself from anyone who might want to use the holiday celebration or the holiday.
Spirit to take advantage of you or to back you in a corner, so to speak. In any way, don't let anyone use fear, a sense of obligation or guilt to manipulate you. So just keep an eye out for this. Recognize the manipulation, and just distance yourself from that person. It may mean confronting them and telling them, No, I'm not allowing you to manipulate me like this.
But it also may just mean getting out of that situation because you know that they just won't listen to what you. The next tip is to communicate ahead of time. There's a few important points here, and one of them is that you have a right to express your feelings. Be honest about your feelings and the needs that you have.
In fact, if you're at that point, I encourage you to talk to your parents, sit them down, talk to each of them, and tell them I love you both. But it can be very hard around the holidays to please you both and to not offend you. So I need you to please understand my decisions, my boundaries, and please understand that the tension in our family makes it difficult to actually enjoy the holidays.
But even if you're not there yet, I encourage you to set expectations early by communicating to both of your parents. You could tell your mom, Mom, I will be coming to your party for this long and then leaving to go to dad's party. The reason to do this is so that there's no surprises when the holiday shows up.
Now I realize if you live at home, This can be especially difficult. You may not have as much power to just leave or tell mom or dad that you're not coming to the party, but even in that case, I encourage you to communicate with mom, with dad, and tell them what you're comfortable with, what you're not comfortable with, and my hope is that they'll hear you out and they'll love and care about you enough to understand where you're coming from and give you that respect and that freedom.
That you need. Tip three, take ownership. You can choose how to respond even in the midst of the worst situations. I know it's difficult, Trust me. I know it's difficult, but this is absolutely true. You can choose how to respond even in midst, all the tension and the drama during the holidays. When I say take ownership, I mean do what you can with what you're given.
When it comes to traditions, some of the old traditions that you're used to may die, sadly, but you can make your own traditions, especially if you have your own family, you can spend. The holiday with someone else, with a friend or a family. If your family right now is toxic for you, and if you spend the holiday with another family, I really encourage you to be intentional about that and to choose a family that really exemplifies it shows what it means to be a true, good family.
And as the years go on, keep in mind that you get to make your own family. You get to choose your own family. And again, if you're married or moving towards marriage, just focus on your. This could be a good time to think about what you want for your future family or your current family compared to what you have right now in your immediate family.
And a practical tip is to just plan things around the holidays that can distract from the drama and the tension. An example of that could be going to a movie or doing some sort of activity, whether it. Bowling or glow in the dark, mini golf, whatever it may be, some maybe activity that takes away the tension and the focus on conversation.
The fourth tip is to be virtuous. Vir, of course, is those good habits that we have and the disposition that we have toward what is good. And so give your parents some grace during the holidays. Just understand that they are navigating the holidays too, as someone whose family is broken as well. So be polite, be kind, be loving.
But remember, I'm not saying to just be nice and be a doormat. Stand up for yourself. Set those boundaries. But of course, be loving. Be virtuous. Tip five. Have a plan to take care of yourself. Think ahead about what could happen during the holidays. Prepare for different conversations. You're gonna have, I know this sounds extreme, but seriously, think about, I'm gonna be talking to this family member.
I'm probably gonna be in this situation and this conversation. Think ahead. Think about what you'll say, what you'll do in that situation, and be prepared to handle the difficult emotions that come along during the holidays. If you're from a broken. In my life, whenever I've been faced with a lot of stress or, or difficult emotions, especially as a teenager, I was always tempted to seek comfort in unhealthy things like pornography.
And I know other people struggle with things like alcohol or drugs or binging on social media, overeating, so many different unhealthy ways of coping. And so think ahead to that. How will I be tempted in the midst of that tension, that trauma, that stress? And then think about ways in which you can respond in a healthy way that may be going on a run or spending time with a friend or a good movie.
It's really helpful throughout the holidays if you can have a friend or maybe a couple friends who you can talk to about everything with your family. Don't keep it inside, get it out of you. Find that support and I'm gonna tell you how at Restored, we have an opportunity for you to join our private safe online community so that you can do just that.
You can find support with people who've been through the things that you're going through, and who in fact are going. The things that you are going through, uh, stay tuned. I'll tell you about that at the end. Another great way to get things out of your head, out of your chest is just to journal about them.
And this doesn't have to be in a paper notebook. It could be on your phone, it could be in a recording app. You can just say it out loud. It doesn't matter. The point is that you get it out of your head. And whatever happens through the holidays, learn from it. Look at it as an opportunity to be better, and whatever comes up inside of you, whatever emotions or memories come up inside of you, work through those.
Don't shove them away, but pay attention to that. Tip number six. Focus on the celebration. It can be so easy when there's so much drama and tension to forget about the reason that you're celebrating that holiday. And so try to remember, try to think of the meaning of the holiday and the United States. Of course, we have Thanksgiving, so think through maybe the history and the meaning of Thanksgiving and think about what you're thankful.
Again, even in the midst of a really bad situation, look for what you are thankful for, cuz there's always something that you can be thankful for. Even if it's as simple as the food or your friends who you can talk to about this, or if you love traveling, whatever might be, find something that you can be thankful for.
If you're Christian, of course you celebrate Christmas, but maybe you're Jewish, so maybe you celebrate Hanukkah, whatever it may be, remember the meaning of the holiday. Don't lose the meaning. In the midst of the drama and try to enjoy it. Enjoy the little things, and keep in mind that you may need to lower your expectations of what the holidays are going to be like.
Especially if your parents' separation or divorce is pretty fresh, you may not feel safe or secure at your family parties. And I'm sorry that's the case, but it is the reality and I just wanna warn you of. On a personal note, there are very few places that I feel safe and secure, and so just be prepared for that.
And don't be afraid to, to take a break. You know, help with clean up, help with setting the table, help with whatever someone may need help with. If you need to step away, go for a little walk step outside. And do things you enjoy. Play a game, play a board game. Play a card game, watch a movie, watch sports, whatever it might be.
Do something that again, takes the focus off of any drum or attention and helps you to enjoy the actual holiday. Tip number seven is to ask God for help. And if you're not religious, I'm not trying to stuff God in your face. For anyone who is religious, rely on God in the midst of these situations. If you're Christian, bring Jesus with you into the family party.
You don't have to do this alone. And if everything is a complete mess in your family, uh, first I'm so sorry that that's happening, but I want you to trust that God is not finished. He does not want this to be happening to you. I'm so convinced of that. I struggle with that for a long time thinking, God, why would you allow this to happen to me and to my family?
And that's a huge topic that we're gonna tackle later, but I just want you to know that God is not a sadistic God. He doesn't enjoy watching us hurt. He hates it too. He doesn't like us to suffer, but he does allow it. And that's something that we're gonna be talking about in the future. We'll talk about free will, and we'll talk about how God can bring good even out of the worst situations, even if it's hard to believe.
And I want to end with a quote from Saint Mother Therea of Calcutta, and it's a beautiful quote, and if you're not familiar with Mother Teresa, I think most people are, but she was a religious sister who served in India and really the worst part of India, and she would just serve the poor was so much love and so much joy, and she didn't just capture the Christian world, she captured the entire world secular.
Religious world, even atheist, just had so much respect for this woman. This woman who had so much love in her heart. So much joy and so much wisdom, which I wanna share with you because I think that it is applicable to the situation that we find ourselves in when it comes to navigating the holidays as children of divorce or ed parents, she said people are often unreasonable, irrational.
And self-centered, forgive them anyway. If you are kind people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere. People may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight, create anyway. If you find sincerity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good. Anyway, give the best you have and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
I hope these tips have been helpful for you. I just wanna name the seven tips again in case it's helpful. Tip one is to set and enforce boundaries. Tip two is to communicate ahead of time. Tip three is to take ownership. Tip four, be virtuous. Tip five, have a plan to take care of yourself. Tip six, focus on the celebration.
And tip seven, ask God for help. Like I mentioned during the show at Restored, we have a private online community, and the main benefit of the online community is that you can speak freely. In a private setting to people who also come from separated or divorced families. If nothing else, they can just encourage you and listen to you.
But often what I've seen in our community is that people will actually give some wisdom and some guidance on what you're dealing with, and you'll be challenged to grow into a better, stronger person. And even if you're not interested in sharing a lot in our community, You can still benefit from hearing what others are going through so that you know that you are not alone.
Now, if you wanna join our private online community, you can go to restored ministry.com/community. Again, that's restored ministry ministry singular.com. Slash community, again, restored ministry.com/community. When you go on there, you're gonna fill out a form, submit the form, and we'll get back to you, uh, with the next steps and welcome you to our community.
If you'd like to access the show notes for this show, you can go to restored ministry.com/four. That's the number four. Again, restored ministry. Ministry is singular.com/four restored. ministry.com/four. Big thanks to everyone who filled out the survey. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and taking the time to do that.
Thank you so much for listening. If this has been useful, please subscribe. And the reason to subscribe is not only to be notified when new episodes go live, but also it helps us get more visibility on the different podcasting apps so that we can help more people. And please share this with someone that you know who could really use this.
During the holidays, and please know that I'm thinking of you. I'm praying for you. I really wish you the best this holiday season. I hope you can navigate that holidays successfully so you can enjoy them hopefully without all the drama. And always remember, you're not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and become the person you were born to.
