Holiday Family Conflict

Date: 08/11/2023

Title: How do we get through our family's holiday get together peacefully?

00:00:01 Speaker 1
It's the first big holiday family gathering in years due to COVID. But parenting styles and
conflicts in parenting styles from the extended family threaten everything. Let's talk about
that today on Tips on Teens. My name is Kent Toussaint. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
and I specialize in helping kids, teens, and families live happier lives. I lead two organizations
teen Therapy Center and the nonprofit 501 organization Child and Teen Counseling, both here
in Woodland Hills, California. Every Wednesday at noon, I jump on a Facebook Live to answer
your parenting questions. Let's jump into today's. I'll be getting together with our extended
family on Christmas for the first time in two years and I've got some anxiety. We let our kids
eat all the sugar they want on the holidays. We're kind of lax about screens and we don't mind
if they're loud and act like kids at big gatherings. My brother and his wife have a very different
parenting style and they don't mind voicing their

disapproval. Sometimes they even say stuff with an earshot of my kids. It really irks me. I don't
know how to respond to them in this situation. I don't want my kids to feel ashamed. And also,
I don't really know how to explain it to them. Any advice for me? Yes, thank you for your question.
The first thing I want to say is this is not necessarily a problem for your kids. This is a problem
for the grownups. And it's interesting how, even though we're all adults, we have kids of our
own, we have careers of our own. Somehow when all the kids get together from your generation,
from your family of origin, you all turn into 13 year olds again, right? And you all get into that
conflict and that competition. And I think that it could be what's happening here. And I really
encourage you that what this calls for is all the adults, all the parents who are going to be there
need to get on a zoom or something like that and kind of just have a big come together meeting and
talk about what are the rules,

what are the expectations? We all have different parenting styles. Where is the middle ground
that we can all agree to? Whether it's screen time, maybe there's a compromise of when screen
time is allowed and when it is not allowed. So it's not all for you and your kids where they can
do as much they want. And maybe it's not all for your brother's kids where it's never allowed.
Maybe there's a middle ground where at these times we have no screens. We agreed to it. At these
other times we agree to screens, find the middle. Same thing with sweet treats and sugary treats
and all that stuff. Obviously, there's probably going to be some there. I'm sure there's going
to be cakes and cookies and all kinds of yummy stuff if it's there. It's kind of weird to say, well,
you can't have any. Obviously there's going to be some compromise. And maybe it's kind of thing
where if your brother's family is worried about, well, if your kids are eating all these treats,
then our kids how do we explain to our

kids why they can't have any? Well, ultimately that's not your problem. But maybe there's some
talk about, hey, we'll kind of keep it at a we're not going to indulge too much and talk to your
kids like, hey, when you're around your cousins, try to not eat too much, try to eat it away from
them. Again, I don't think it's a perfect situation, but there is no perfect situation unless
it's all your side or his side. And either way, it's not perfect for the other side. So how do you
find the middle? How do you find the middle? So the comments from the adults are not there, so
it's not creating more divide because those comments are not helping your kids connect with
their uncle and aunt and vice versa. So if you, as the adults can't find a solution, how do we expect
our kids to how do you, as the adults, set the example for your kids on how to find compromise,
how to resolve problems and conflicts? This is one of the roles as parents that we have, is to
set the example, especially when our kids

can't follow it. I think this is really important. I think if you can find an agreement with your
brother, any other extended family, I think that's the best way. If you can't, then I don't know
how to help you. Because if they're not willing to compromise and you're not willing to compromise,
there is no solution to this. And it may mean that your kids will have a little more sugar treats
than they would approve of, but they kind of keep their thoughts to themselves. But if their
kids say, hey, why do my cousins get cookies and I don't? And they'll say, well, your aunt just
lets them have all the cookies they want and we would never do that because sugar is poison, blah,
blah, blah, blah, they have a right to say that. And you may just need to educate your kids on,
hey, they have different rules than we do. Let's try to respect that. You can have cookies, but
try not to gloat about it. Again, it's not a perfect solution. I don't think there is a perfect
solution, but there's a good enough

solution through communication and compromise. That's my big thing on this. Hopefully it
works out for you. Hopefully you guys can have that talk. That's our question for today. We're
taking next two weeks off for the holidays. So this is our last tips on teens for 2021, but we'll
be back on January 3, Wednesday at noon, answering your questions on Tips on teens. We don't
have a question yet, so if you have a question, you'd like us to answer for the first of the year,
email us at tipsonteens@teentherapycenter.com or you can direct message us right here
on Facebook. We love your questions. Thank you. Have a wonderful and safe holiday, and I'll
see you in 2022. Bye bye, guys.