Holiday Toddler Tantrums Survival Guide

It’s now the most wonderful time of the year! But wait, why does it seem that holiday toddler tantrums seem to be more than the usual? There’s all this delicious food, loved ones coming over for visits, and presents overload. What’s there to meltdown about?

Believe it or not, our toddlers melting down during these times is perfectly normal. Why? Understandably, our toddler’s routines are thrown off course. There are new people to mingle with. Plus, there’s also the fact that they may not clearly understand what’s going on.

So without further ado, let’s dive right into some of the ways for us to decrease the likelihood of tantrums thrown during the holidays. (take note that I said to decrease, NOT eliminate, tantrums are perfectly normal and the sooner you accept, expect, and prepare yourself for this likelihood, the better equipped you’ll be to regulate yourself and help your child with their big feelings).

1. Prep your child. Inform them of the holiday season!

I feel that a lot of times, we come into a whirlwind of mental load. We try our best to sort through all of the supposed checklists we ought to prepare for the holidays. But then we forget the most basic thing of letting our child into the loop of things.

I completely understand though. We need to settle our leaves, our holiday decors, our supposed menu to be prepared, fit all the visitation schedules in order, on top of the daily grind of raising our kids and maintaining the house.

But, when we add the time to prepare our kids, we at least lessen the time we need to spend dealing with our kids’ tantrums and meltdowns when we are in the thick of the holiday spirit already.

Some ways to prepare our kids:

Literally, tell them as it is! The more you give them the details of what to expect on a certain day, the more they can prepare their brains on what to expect!
Put up a calendar with all the supposed schedules, let them cross the date leading towards Christmas, or set a countdown of some sorts ( check out Susie from @busytoddler for her suggested activity!)
Roleplay with stuffed toys! About how they’ll wake up and visit maybe Grandma in the morning, go to Uncle John in the afternoon, the gifts they’ll be receiving, and you can even use this time to help them how to receive, what to say, and even what kind of food they can expect!
Read books about the Holiday Season you’re celebrating! Books are always one of the most helpful tools we can use to visually prepare our kids on what to expect.
Show them pictures of the family or friends that are coming over, or whom you will be visiting. Tell them stories that you have together with family or friends for your kids to have an idea of who they are and what they can expect from them. Especially if it’s their first time to meet them, this will hopefully ease the transition of the ‘warming up’ session.

2. Remember to sprinkle your kids with age-appropriate choices, (even if it’s the holidays) and honor them!

As it is with any human being, to be barked at orders and constantly directed on what to do all day is no fun at all. And this tendency of ours as parents might increase especially during the holidays as we might get too stuck on fulfilling all our promised schedules of visits.

Their feeling of lack of power might lead to even more tantrums, so it would be helpful to give them back some of this power through age-appropriate choices!

Some ways you can exercise giving your kids choices can be the following:

How to greet family when they come over (or when you visit). ‘Do you want to wave or give your Grandpa a high five?’
What clothes they can wear. (Do consider laying out clothing that is weather and season-appropriate for them to choose).
To exercise the spirit of giving, you can ask your kids to choose something that they can give to the people that they’re visiting. It can be as simple as some holiday goodies, balloons, helping to bake some simple holiday meals, or they can choose to make some holiday art decor.
- Bonus: You can use this opportunity to prep them as well! ‘Once Aunt Jacy comes over, you can tell them Happy Holidays and promptly give them your gift!’
- Another Bonus: You’re teaching them the true spirit of the Holidays season!
What decor they want to include in the Christmas tree if you celebrate them! Again, ascertain that your decors are kid-friendly and not fragile or have too many pointed objects.

3. Stick to your own boundaries on what feels right for your family for the holidays.

Sadly, during the holidays is when we might also get some unsolicited advice on our parenting. It may be from how rigid or structured your schedules/visitation hours are, or the kind of gifts you want for your kids, or even the meal plans you have laid out.

Or maybe you just don’t have it in you to muster the holiday cheer needed for the season. Or you’re too exhausted to even deal with the visitation requests you have from your friends or family.

Whatever be the case, you get to choose what is right for your family, whether it be low-key, extravagant, or something in between.

And here are some scripts and plans for when family comes over and has something to say about your parenting, especially when dealing with tantrums:

Role model how you wish your child to be spoken to. The language you use with your child will also be the kind of language that they’ll eventually pick up and use with them as well. Hence, using a respectful tone and words, paired with validating of their feelings is always the way to go.
Use prompts and planned scripts to PREVENT the tantrums. “When the meal is done, where should the plate go?’ “After entering the house, what should we do with our hands to keep them clean?” This will hopefully give your toddlers time to appeal to their upstairs brain and keep a lid on their ‘fight or flight’ mode where they don’t know what to do.
In cases where people comment or ask about your parenting, you can always share with them what you’ve researched about gentle/positive/respectful parenting. And hopefully, this will lead to another child being raised in this kind of approach.

4. Always prioritize connection first then redirection.

As it always goes with the territory of early childhood parenting, tantrums are inevitable. On the occurrence of said meltdown, again, always use connection first then only redirect them to the desired outcome.

Especially with the time of supposed holiday cheers and merrymaking, the last thing we want is to kill the safety connection we have with our kids. This is a time to be jolly yes, but it’s also a time for our kids to get easily overstimulated and overwhelmed.

So here are some of the possible scenarios where you can use this strategy of connection then redirection when handling tantrums:

On touching the Christmas decors: ‘You really want to touch the Christmas tree, I understand. But we can’t ruin them as Grandma has worked really hard for it. You can have your own Christmas tree and decorate it’ (You can set up a felt Christmas tree version for them)
On the meals prepared: “You don’t want to eat the lasagna, that’s ok, but we don’t throw the food around. This tells me that you’re all done. I’m taking the plate away now and cleaning you up.”
On receiving presents: “You’re no longer interested in the presents, I understand. You don’t need to destroy your toy, you can give it to me for safekeeping now”

And that is basically it. Some days will always be tougher than others, maybe even in this holiday season, tougher than most. But remember that family and the spirit of giving is what we really want to teach in this holiday season. Hence never lose sight of what’s important.

Your child may not remember half the things that you did for the Holidays, but they’ll remember that you’ll always be their anchor in times of emotional dysregulation.

Other articles you might find interesting:

How to Prevent the Toddler Tantrums

Ways To Repair With Your Child After Yelling at Them

What To Do When You’re Questioning Your Approach To Discipline

Cheering for you in this parenting journey we have together,

Kristine