As challenging as this time of year can be for many families and children, for families who are separated from loved ones due to work or migration, the challenges can be greater, especially if you’re accustomed to large family gatherings in your home country.
It’s during these gatherings that our cups are filled, as we connect with family, loved ones and our culture. Family traditions are an important part of maintaining our sense of identity and place in the world. And they’re even more important for our children.
As parents, the way we respond to any given situation can go a long way towards helping our kids cope, because they look to us first for clues on how they should respond.
It’s normal and to be expected that you would be experiencing feelings such as Grief, Loss, Anxiety, or Overwhelm. But trying to deny or ignore those feelings is not only unhealthy for you, it doesn’t help your kids.
After all, if you don’t know how you’re feeling, and you can’t manage your feelings in a healthy way, how can you teach your children to know and manage their feelings?
So, give yourself permission to feel, because there’s only so long we can sit on these heavy emotions without something giving way. Of course you will grieve the loss of old traditions and separation from loved ones at this time of year. You may even have mixed feelings as you begin to forge new traditions and connections away from family. It’s important to acknowledge and validate these feelings, they are a testament to the love and connection you share with family and friends.
Chances are your children had very little say in the decision to move away, so as difficult as it is for you, how much more so for your kids. It’s important we understand this. Not to add to the guilt of moving them, but to understand what’s going on for them.
Listening is about watching. Watch for body language, changes in behaviour, regression, all of these could be signs that your child is grieving. By looking beyond behaviour and words, we send a strong message to our kids that they are not alone in their feelings.
As parents we want nothing more than for our kids to be happy. However, in our efforts to try and cheer our kids up when they’re going through heavy emotions, we often make things worse for them. When we respond to their emotions with attempts to distract them with other things to look forward to, or when we focus on disciplining
the behaviour rather than seeing the need behind it, our kids just feel alone and misunderstood.
The thing is, as much as we wish we could, we can’t always make things better. And while that’s scary to admit, it’s important that we do. In his book No Drama Discipline, Dr Dan Siegel discusses the importance of Connection before Redirection.
Connection sounds like You miss your cousins don’t you. This is hard. I miss my family too, especially now. It’s OK if they see your tears.
I can’t stress enough the value in these first two steps. In fact, if you take nothing away from this article other than Listening to and Validating yourself, your partner and your children, you will be making huge strides into supporting your children and helping yourself manage this season of change. If you would like to know more about this topic, check out the Circle of Security or Bringing Up Great Kids Programs.
While nothing beats the connection that comes from being able to physically share a meal, play a game, or even just to sit with a loved one, this doesn’t mean we should give up altogether. Thanks to the internet, we can still plan and engage in special times with loved ones and family.
For our children, this could include regular catch ups with cousins and friends to work on shared projects, that may even lead to gifts for family members. For example, a collaborative patchwork or painting which one person starts, then sends it to the next person who adds to it, who sends it to the next… and son on.
Other creative ways to connect include
1. Start a magazine. Have your children plan with cousins and friends what their magazine will be about and how they will contribute.
2. Old fashioned snail mail. There’s something special about the anticipation of receiving and then holding in your hand something that was carefully created just for you. When I started writing to my penpal, we were both in Primary School, and it would take at least 6 weeks to get a return letter if we responded immediately. Every letter was like a work of art. Sometimes literally as we would decorate them or even create our own paper and envelopes. 50 years later and we’re sisters, enjoying long visits together over a cuppa courtesy of facetime.
3. Enlist older relatives and friends to share their skills with the children in your group. For example, Nana could teach them how to make their favourite dish which they can then share together online. Food plays an important role in culture and relationships. Or maybe an uncle or aunt can teach them to play an instrument or to sing or paint.
4. For the musicians in the family, jamming and creating tunes over ZOOM or Facetime or any other platform is great fun.
Earlier in this article I wrote about the importance of family tradition. Tradition and Rituals are vital for our wellbeing, because they give us a sense of belonging. Traditions change over time, but they always keep their essence. For example, in my Italian family the tradition was a shared meal around the table under the grapevines and olive trees. In Australia, the tradition became a shared meal around the table on the beach foreshore. We played Cricket AND Soccer, and the food was the same traditional food from home.
The best of both worlds.
In the same way, you can create wonderful new traditions for your family by blending the best of old with the new.
After all is said and done, remember, you are your child’s safe place, and home is where you are. That statement is not to overwhelm you, it’s to encourage you to pat yourself on the back for a job well done because you’re already doing it.
After all you’re here, learning more about how best to support your children.
If you would like more tips on creating tradition, whether or not you are a migrant family, come along to our Foundations for Learning workshop early next year, where we will be discussing culture within families and the importance of Being, Belonging, and Becoming.
