The holidays can be a stressful time, especially for your children who are used to their routines. We want a perfect holiday, but sometimes we need to adjust our expectations of how that looks. Here are some tips on helping you enjoy the holidays a little bit more. 

Tips for a less stressful holiday:

• Adjust your expectations of how the holidays should look.
• Don’t force the thank you. They do not understand why.
• Let them know why they should be thankful, and model it for them.
• Tips on how you can say thank you after the fact.
• Consider where and what you are saying yes to.
• Check in with yourself on what really matters, not trying to have everything perfect. Make a list of have-to’s and then what you tell yourself has to be done but doesn’t. 
• Try to stick to a schedule. It’s ok if you can’t. Don’t beat yourself up. 
• Have a grounding practice to help stay calm. Check out Ep 7 for more tips on this from my friend Harmony Slater.
• Don’t add more to your plate; look to simplify things. Even a 2 min meditation can help. Whatever works best for you. 
• Starfish breathing benefits kids when they need to relax or start the day. 
• At the end of the day, anchor yourself and look back at 3 things that were wins that day. 

Resources: 

Here is the link to join The Parenting Reset, which will start on January 13th, there are only a few spots left.

https://theparentingreframe.com/the-parenting-program/

Check out Episode 7 with Harmony Slater on how to help stay calm. This is a good one to listen to this time of year. 

https://theparentingreframe.com/podcast-episodes/episode-7-tools-to-help-parents-and-kids-manage-stress-with-harmony-slater/

Here is the app I use for mediation.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-breathing-app/id1285982210

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

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