Holiday co-parenting

But before then, here's Steve. Well, listen, the holidays can certainly bring complicated emotions and schedules for children and parents after separation or divorce. While familiar traditions and schedules may change, families can still create meaningful celebrations for the kids. And here to share some tips on how to make the holidays feel special across two homes, licensed clinical marriage and family therapist, Kate Alcamo and Dr. Holly Strauss. And thank you both for being here. I appreciate it. It is a challenge, right? Anytime that you have the holidays and you have two households, you know, You know, the focus is on the kids, but... Then you have to figure out what's best for everybody. Where do you even start? Yeah, so what we would say is that... Parents want to start planning specifically and early, right? So the earlier, the better. That goes for all year round. But to have parents make sure that they know exactly what transition is happening, when and where, and who's dropping the kid off. And that's something you want to do all year round, like I said. But we also would suggest that if there is a dispute, again, that parents handle that just between them, right? You're not involving the kid. You're not having your kids mediate. You want to make sure to keep that conflict just between the adults. Yeah, how important is that to make sure that... The parents do the parenting part of the equation and leave the kids to be kids. I mean, that's really critical, as Hallie said, I mean, all the time, right? But especially during the holidays, you want to protect kind of the magic for them. And the best way to do that is to keep them out of the conflict and just share with them when you have the plan so they can just show up and enjoy themselves, right, with family, extended family, and they don't have to worry about where am I going to be, when am I going to go there, what do I have to leave, what do I have to miss out on? One of the things I thought was really interesting that I know both of you talk about, Parents always mean well, right? And you always think you want the best for the kids. But when it comes to making these decisions, these are decisions that the parents have to make. You can ask the kid for feedback, but the temptation to let the child decide what happens, you kind of have to push that back, right? Yeah, and actually we have something we call voice not choice for the kids, which is where you can ask for input from the kids. We put it akin to meal planning, right? You can ask your kid, okay, what would you maybe like for dinner this week? But you're not going to make them do the meal plan on the grocery shopping, right? So you can ask them, you know, what events do you think would be really important for you? Or would you like to see these cousins or do this thing again? But you're not going to put them in charge of determining what the actual plan is for the holidays. So then how do you have that conversation with them to explain what's going on and why the parents made this decision? Yeah, I mean, I think you're speaking to when kids have those kind of big questions about why can't we just all do the holidays together this year? Do what we used to do. Yeah, tell me what I'm going to be doing, where am I going to be waking up on Christmas? We have what we call our pause framework, which helps parents not only speak to those hard questions in a really child-centered way, but also really speaks to the underlying feeling or need or worry, which often we find is much more powerful for kids, right? Right. Sometimes it's They want to know the question itself, but they really just want to be heard and validated. Like, this is hard, and this is different, and I see you and I hear you, and let's work together to figure out how to do this differently this year in a way that still feels special. Yeah, Hallie, you mentioned maybe if you talk to them about something that they enjoy, right? So they're not dictating the entire schedule, but maybe they can choose to incorporate something that they enjoy. How do you do that? How do you determine that? How important, I guess, is it to, if you can't do everything the way it used to be, to carry on some of those traditions? Yeah, I mean, we say you can pick a couple of old traditions that you've had and invite your child for some input. It could be as simple as baking holiday cookies or watching a favorite movie or something and have them put a little twist on it to make them feel involved and important and like they have a say in things over the holidays. Do you address things differently when it comes to this, depending on how old the kids are? Yeah, age and development definitely matters. Little kids, it's going to be a lot more concrete, right? And, you know, they might not drive the decision as much as like an older teenager who may have more of a say, may have more independence to make different types of decisions. Or may push back a little bit more. Or may push back a little bit. Yeah, but giving them that voice often, even if you don't ultimately decide to do what they would like to do, they feel. Like, you cared enough to take it into consideration, and often that makes it easier for them to say, okay, that's what we can do this year. So what is the importance of having the parents still make the decisions in the end? Well, it helps the kids feel like they can still be kids and that their parents are in charge and their parents have this. And that's really important, right? Because we don't want our kids to feel like they have to mediate. They have to be the adult in the relationship or in between the parents. And so making sure that the parents are still the parents is really an important thing, development. Last thing for you, we're going to have to wrap it up. But what advice do you give maybe parents that are, this is the first time, right? I mean, you have Thanksgiving right around the corner. You've got the winter holidays. What advice do you have for the parents who might be just getting into this situation? Thank you. Go ahead. So for those parents, I mean, you can recognize, feel the feelings. You don't have to hide behind that. You can talk to your kids, be open about it, but also recognize that you can, like Kate said earlier, you can still have the magic, right? You can take those old traditions, put a little tweak on them. Your kids just want to be with you, and that's ultimately what the holidays are about, is about family and being together. Yeah, spend as much time together as you can. I appreciate it. We'll put some more information on the screen, of course, but Kate and Dr. Halle, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. Thank you. Wish you the best throughout the holidays as well as they're creeping up on us. Marissa? All right, that's a really good discussion. Thanks for coming in. Well, today is the...