Not All Kids Love The Holidays

“Mommy, what are we doing today?” My six-year-old questioned me one Saturday morning in December.

“We have your soccer in the morning, then library, then a Christmas party at night.”

He glances up at me with sad eyes. “Mommy,” he says. “Why do we always do so much? When can I rest?”

I glanced at him in disbelief, absolutely taken aback. When I had been rushing around for the past two months trying to make special holiday memories for him, I never paused to contemplate how he was taking it.

I had just assumed he was excited and willing to do all we had lined up for him.

But glancing at his expression now, I understood he was fatigued.

“Tomorrow, would you like a day to just do nothing?” I ask him. “We can stay in our pajamas and read books, watch TV, do crafts, or play board games all day.”

“Yes,” he yelled at me. “That would be wonderful!”

As I saw his joy over doing nothing, it got me thinking.

How much of what we do as parents over the holidays is genuinely for our children?

And how much is for what we anticipate our children will enjoy? Are we too busy trying to create the ideal holiday experience, that we forget that our kids are people too?

If we are fatigued, anxious, and over-it, perhaps they are too.

Pressure to always be “on”

Whether we plan to or not, many times parents cultivate an air of “on-ness” over the holidays.

What do I mean?

How many times throughout the holidays do we expect our kids to take that great picture in front of the tree, or with Santa?

How many Christmas parties, or activities do we take our kids to and want them to behave perfectly so we all have lovely “memories?”

How many times do we bring them to the mall, beg them to make this or that card or craft for that relative, or to phone their granny who is out of town?

For the whole month of December, and possibly for much of November, our kids don’t have a break.

They are always expected to be “on.”

And that is exhausting.

I know when I go into the office for work, just the eight hours I am compelled to be “on” is tiring. I come home that night more a zombie than on any other day. All I want to do is sit on the couch and watch T.V.

And that is one day.

We are anticipating this of our kids for one to two months.

Of course my son is exhausted. Of course he wanted a break.

He is still enthusiastic for the holidays - he can’t wait for Santa to visit.

But he wanted some break and he needed it urgently. He needed a day — or more — with zero expectations.

Seasonal depression starts in November and December.

We reside in Canada, and starting in November, the days are shorter, darker, and miserable.

I swear we can go days on end without seeing the sun beyond the sliver it pops out occasionally from a gloomy and dreary sky.

I even coined a song to be sung to the theme of a popular pizza restaurant jingle,

When the moon reaches your eye, and it’s 4:45, it’s November.

It’s stupid, and definitely not my best work, but it gives levity to a bad time of year.

November sucks.

I always start to feel more grouchy, overwhelmed, and less pleasant by the beginning of November. While I have never had a formal diagnosis, I have always thought that I — along with up to 10% of people in North America — suffer from seasonal depression.

In the middle of November, this year, my son asked me why he’s feeling more grouchy than normal. “Mommy, I don’t know why, but I just feel not good lately.”

Me too, buddy. Me too.

It is not just grownups that are influenced by the change in season. Lack of daylight impacts everyone.

In fact, Dr. Kevin Gabel, a child and youth psychiatrist at North York General Hospital, reported that November this year, was a very busy month for pediatric mental health appointments.

We can’t presume our children are immune to the stressors that we as adults succumb to.

They are persons too.

If we are hurting, we need to take a serious look to determine if our children are likewise feeling the same.

And not only expect kids to be always pleasant, well-behaved, and enthusiastic simply because it’s the holidays.

Many therapists close during the holidays.

For those youngsters who suffer from mental health concerns routinely, the holiday period can be extremely tough.

Not only can it be a more stressful, hectic, and anxiety-inducing period for children, it is also when most therapists take a break.

At the moment when children need the help the most, it is not there.

Perhaps that is why the Kids Help Phone line receives more requests in November and December than in the summer.

As parents, if our children suffer from mental health concerns, we need to be aware of this.

We can’t just believe that their troubles will miraculously go away during the holiday season.

If anything, they are likely to be heightened.

We have to be present for our children. We have to let them take pauses. We have to let them be “off.”

As parents, we sometimes get so caught up in the holidays that we forget that our children are persons too.

We try so hard to create a “perfect,” magical Christmas, that we forget that it may not be what our kids desire at all.

If we are anxious, overwhelmed, and fatigued, than it is highly likely our children, who we are doing all this for, are feeling the same way.

Sometimes less really is more.