Coping with festive anxiety

Topics mentioned: anxiety, talking to your child about mental health

About: Parent Michael explores the anxieties that come up over the festive period, and how he and his son worked through them.

I always used to think of Christmas as a fairly simple time of year. Although it comes with its own pressures, like buying presents, cooking dinner, and trying to tie up loose ends at work before the holidays, I would basically look forward to putting up the tree, eating too much, and having a bit of time off. When our son was younger Christmas was even more special for me and I always tried to give him the most magical time that I could.

As he got older, this got much more difficult. My son has an anxiety disorder, which comes with a different set of challenges. He finds it difficult to deal with changes in routine and is easily overstimulated - which as you can imagine is easily triggered during December.

We first noticed he was struggling a few years ago, when he was nine. Rather than feeling excited about Christmas, which had always been the case before, he seemed agitated and anxious.

This culminated in a meltdown just before the school holidays, when his lessons and routine had become disorganised. At first we didn't really understand why he was refusing to go to school, especially at the end of term when his class wasn't doing much work and was focused on having fun. I always loved doing no work during this period!

I didn't deal with this particularly well at the time - I got quite frustrated with him, because I just didn't understand what was going on. I hadn't stopped to think that maybe the disruption of Christmas isn't fun and exciting for everyone, and to be totally honest I sometimes took it personally that he didn't want to take part in family activities. 

Eventually, after lots of meltdowns, we understood that the change in routine, loud noises and lights, and increased social activity was seriously triggering his anxiety. Once we worked out what was going, and after being in touch with the YoungMinds Parents Helpline, we were able to make a bit more of a plan to support him.

Firstly, we now give him a lot of control over what activities he does and doesn't do over Christmas. Christmas often comes with lots of (sometimes unwanted) family gatherings, and we let him opt in or out now rather than expecting him to attend everything.

We also try very hard to maintain a sense of routine, even when he's not at school. This means being clear about what every day will involve, giving him a bit of structure to each day, and having consistent mealtimes and bedtimes. And we constantly check in with him to see what he needs, including more space and time on his own.

I have actually learned a lot from my son, even though the road to getting there wasn't 100% smooth. When you think about it, we all put pressure on ourselves at Christmas in ways that aren't really necessary. We try to see everyone, do everything, buy too much food and worry about how much we've spent on presents.

The thing that really makes Christmas special is that it gives us time to spend with people we really care about. Paring back all the other stuff to help my son's anxiety has given me a different perspective and made me put less pressure on myself too.