“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” sings Andy Williams over the PA system in Walmart, and as we pile gifts in our shopping cart we halfway believe it.
The kid riding in the cart – eyeing the decorated artificial trees and the life-sized cardboard Santas and the aisles and aisles of toys – sincerely believes it.
Everyone is as happy as happy can be during holiday time because they’re all going to be given exactly what they want, and a few things they never even imagined, besides.
And then the crash comes. Maybe it’s because her divorced mom and dad didn’t get back together as she had hoped they would after all. Maybe it’s because she got in a fight with her brother over a toy they both wanted and got put in “time out” by an unusually crabby mother. Maybe it looked like her sister got way more presents than she did.
Whatever the cause, if she knew the words, she would tell us she is terribly disappointed. And if she did, we her parents would be terribly disappointed.
Of all the developmental tasks that we hope our growing child will successfully master, none is more demanding on the growing parent than the child’s learning to express his feelings.
Read the full article for insights about helping children manage holiday disappointments for a developmental benefit that will long outlast the season.
The Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development helps children understand and manage their feelings for success in school and life; and works with parents and child-facing professionals to do the same. Services include a preschool and state-chartered kindergarten, a classroom for young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, mental health clinic for children and adolescents, and outreach/training for early childhood educators and other professionals.
