Home For The Holidays

In an ideal world the holiday season is a time to reflect, relax and celebrate with family and friends. Unfortunately, most of us don’t live in this world exclusively. For the rest of us the holiday season may also include airports, malls, family conflicts, stress and excess. Managing the holidays can be a challenge. Add in a family member in treatment, and the holidays take on an extra element of stress and logistical madness. The first step in preparing for a successful and enjoyable holiday visit is setting reasonable expectations. Whether visiting with your daughter on campus, in the area or at home this holiday will likely be different from previous ones in many regards.


Tips for a successful visit:
· Parents set tone and structure. Talk to your daughter and other family members about expectations and structure. Describe what your goal and purpose is for the visit and what that would look like in terms of structure, behavior and attitude. Listen to your daughter and other family member’s input, but do not defer to your daughter to set the structure and rules or to facilitate discussions “because she knows how to do this from being at SRA”. She is still your daughter and you are still the parent.
· Stick with the routine and structure. Visits are the most important times to practice structure in the home and holidays are no exception. Continue to reinforce healthy choices by scheduling consistent wake-up and bedtimes and maintaining daily exercise and physical activity. Visits are not the time to reward your daughter or give her a vacation from structure. She has been successful because of the structure not in spite of it.
· Beware of the sugar and caffeine beasts! Holidays often bring with them colorful and tasty treats. Overindulgence however, can result in a nasty crash in mood and behavior. Students have been maintaining healthy diets with moderate opportunity for sweets. A drastic change in diet and environment can spell disaster. Keep in mind the concept of eating to nourish. This will assist in preventing food from becoming a reward, an appeasement for guilt or as a replacement of other mood altering substances.
· Dealing with Substance abuse issues. Holidays can include parties. Be mindful of family members in recovery when making holiday plans. Often extended family members can be very eager to see their niece, granddaughter etc. Do not let other’s enthusiasm (or pressure) override your daughter’s safety and sobriety. Talk with your daughter about possible encounters and triggers. Prioritize your events and gatherings in alignment with agreed upon structure and purpose for the visit. You do not need to keep your daughter locked in the house but you do need to make choices that support your family structure and purpose.
· Stay on purpose. Gift giving can be a wonderful part of the holidays or… an easy way to slip back into guilt and entitlement. If buying gifts discuss a budget and stick with it. Encourage creative and meaningful gifts that don’t necessarily cost a lot of money.