How to Communicate Your Family’s Changing Needs at the Holidays

Nov 22

Do you need to spend your holiday differently this year because your family has changed or grown? Use these communication strategies for setting boundaries and making your family’s needs at the holidays known.

If you’re getting anxious about spending time with your extended family over the holidays, you’re not alone. Spending quality time with extended family sounds great, in theory, but in reality, the logistics can be super stressful.

Making plans at the holidays gets trickier as your family changes and grows. Traditions that worked well for your family when you were in your pre-kid era may no longer be practical or even possible.

So what’s a mom to do? How do you honor your family’s changing needs without ruining the extended family gatherings and traditions?

Being able to clearly communicate your family’s needs at the holidays is one way to navigate this tricky side of the holiday season.

It’s a way to reduce the overwhelm that comes along with recognizing that the family gatherings, as they are traditionally planned, will be difficult for your family.

Communicating your needs also opens up a conversation about what will work for the holidays this year – and it gives your extended family the chance to consider, honor, and care for your family’s needs, too.

Yet it’s easier said than done. We worry about hurt feelings. We worry about guilt trips. We worry about our needs not being honored. Even the most supportive families tend to be resistant to change, even when the change makes sense & supports the overall goal of being together at the holidays.

How to Communicate Your Family’s Needs

If you’ve struggled in the past with communicating your family’s needs, and if there’s one thing you take away today, it’s that it’s important to do right away. So often, our extended families want to find ways to support our needs at the holidays, but they have no idea that we need the holiday plans are a hardship. Speaking up in a clear, respectful, and solution-focused way gives our families the chance to reimagine the holiday traditions for us.

Here’s how to do it:.

1. Identify Your Family’s Needs

The first step is to pause and pay attention to the needs of your immediate family during this holiday season. You need clarity here, because it informs the rest of your thinking about the holiday plans. Take some time to think about:

The ages of your children & their realistic capabilities.

The travel distance & expense to the holiday gathering.
Your family’s ability to host versus travel.
The financial cost of the holiday gathering & your family’s ability to manage it.
Your physical and emotional capacity to recover when the holiday ends.
Your family’s work & school schedule.

I recommend including your spouse or partner in the discussion so that they can help you with figuring out your family’s needs and support you in your efforts to communicate those needs to the larger family group.

2. Find the Yes

While the purpose of the process is on communicating the challenges, the goal is to “find the yes”. It’s important to be able to communicate the thing your family can do easily and willingly as a part of the negotiation process. Determine:

Your overall goal for this holiday season. Even if you are hoping for a long-term change in tradition, I recommend that you focus on just this year. We truly don’t know what the future will need.
Your family’s ability to contribute with your time, energy, and finances.
What you would like to have happen instead of the normal holiday traditions.
The places your family is willing and able to compromise.

3. Have the Conversation & Include All Involved Parties in the Solution

Once you know what you need & what you can do, it’s time to communicate your needs to your extended family. As anxiety-provoking as this kind of conversation can be, it’s important to let your extended family know that your family’s needs have changed this holiday.

I recommend using the sandwich formula to communicate those needs, especially if you anticipate that the conversation will not go over well. You want to think about the news you’re sharing as containing both positives and negatives. The positives are the bread and the negatives are the filling. You want to sandwich the positives around the negatives.

Here’s what this looks like in practice (and email or text):

Hi Family,

We are so excited to spend time this holiday season with you all. We can’t wait for you to see how big the kids have gotten and for them to spend time with grandparents & aunties. Unfortunately, we can’t fly across the country for the holidays this year. The expense is too great for us, and my work schedule won’t allow me to take any extra travel days. We know this is disappointing, and we feel terrible. If anyone is open to discussing a change in plans this year, we have some creative solutions that we’ve considered that would make things easier for us while still allowing us to spend time together.

Thanks for being so understanding and for working with us!

We know we can figure this out together.

XX, me.

Leading the discussion with the positives makes it much more likely that your needs will be heard, even if they are difficult to resolve. It sets a positive tone for the conversation, and this tone allows your family’s needs to be heard.

Making sure to include all involved parties in this discussion is important. Why? First, it’s important for everyone to hear your family’s needs directly from you. This cuts down on misunderstandings that further complicate the holiday planning process. Second, this gives everyone involved a chance to also speak up about their own family’s needs. It encourages a type of honest communication that most families struggle with by your positive example. Third, it offers you the best chance for a resolution that will truly work.

4. Work For a Creative Compromise

Now the negotiation begins. Creating a new holiday plan that meets your family’s most important needs – and, ideally, the important needs of all the other family units involved - takes communication, communication, and more communication.. The expectation here is that every family unit’s non-negotiable needs are met, but that compromise happens otherwise.. This part of the process takes time, effort, and creativity.

Some tips for encouraging this kind of creative, solution-focused conversation:

Offer solutions.
Be flexible about things that aren’t dealbreakers for your family.
Use “I” language to communicate your family’s needs.
Praise family members for their efforts & ideas – this kind of conversation isn’t easy.
Stick to logic.

If you put in your best effort and a compromise that meets your family’s needs isn’t possible, it is okay kindly bow out of the holiday plans this year. If you need to do this, be sure to do so with kindness and respect. Your family’s needs matter, and it’s okay to put them first even if others are disappointed.

It’s the Effort, Not the Outcome

Navigating conversations about holiday plans and traditions is vulnerable work.

The hope is always that you get the desired outcome: holiday plans for that meet your family’s changing needs. Whether or not you were able to find a way to uphold the tradition or extended family gathering this year, your efforts are a success. How so?

You’ve Raised Awareness of New Family Needs. You’ve let your extended family know that the way things have always been done needs to change so that it works for all the family units involved.

You’ve Sought Balance. You’ve shown your extended family that you take your family’s needs seriously and that you’re willing to speak to them, but not just for the sake of doing things your own way. You’ve also demonstrated that you want to reimagine the holidays so that you can continue to be together, even if the traditions change to make that possible.

You’ve Set the Foundation for Future Planning. The idea that your family has important and changing needs is not going away. As your kids reach each new age and phase, your family’s needs will change again. This year’s communication sets the foundation for planning future holidays and extended family gatherings in ways that make sense for everyone.

Honoring your family’s needs, within reason, is truly important. Taking care of your family is your biggest responsibility as a parent, and sometimes you must step back from your extended family’s expectations to do this, even at the holidays.

If you’re looking for more support with navigating your responsibilities as your family changes and grows, your’e in the right place ! Our community at Nurturing the Sisterhood has valuable tips, resources, and support options to explore. Join us in honoring the realities of motherhood and overcoming them together!