For ADHD families, the holidays can feel chaotic, stressful, and overwhelming. Those of us who travel for most major holidays wrangle not only with the preparations, but with the disruption of our daily routines. Add children into the mix and the challenges multiply.
This year, don’t let holiday travels end in resentment or meltdowns — from you or your children. Here’s our family’s best advice for surviving the season with kids and sanity intact.
Get over your FOMO.
People with ADHD tend to want it all. Maybe it’s time blindness, but we forget that these years with young kids will be over before we know it. It’s easy to feel unfairly burdened or restricted.
Now, I’m all for teaching kids to behave appropriately in restaurants or while attending family functions, but your children won’t be welcome everywhere. They won’t be able to keep up with an endless parade of late nights, either. And you can’t count on sleeping in after your own late-night carousing because most young kids wake up early. You’re going to have to say no to some of the fun stuff.
Even though it may not seem this way today, your kids’ childhood will pass by relatively quickly. Parents with ADHD may struggle to internalize this because the future doesn’t feel present and real like right now does. However, you have to make peace with the current reality. You’ll gain more freedom and flexibility in a few years.
Be flexible, but be realistic.
Sometimes your family will attend events that ask a lot of the children. Maybe they’ll be up hours past their bedtime, or maybe they’ll be asked to dress nicely and sit still for a long time. You — and they — need to be flexible. It’s not always appropriate to say no.
If you find yourself in this situation, you have to allow time on either end to rest up and wind down.
For example: as strict as I usually am about bedtime, I recently let my five-year-old stay up until 11:00 p.m. at a family destination wedding. It went great, even though he’d already stayed up a little late for the rehearsal dinner the night before.
That’s because I insisted he get to bed by 7:15 every night leading up to the wedding. Yes, we were visiting out-of-state family. Yes, everyone wanted to hang out late into the night. And yes, I took flak for being too strict and not letting him stay up. I didn’t care. I was willing to be very flexible with bedtime for the wedding, but only if the kiddo went into the weekend well-rested. It wasn’t easy, but it paid off where it mattered.
Remember: sleep deprivation intensifies your ADHD symptoms.
Travel and holidays create major disruptions to our structure and routines. Even people who enjoy going to bed may stay up a little later to cram in extra time with long-distance friends and family. To some extent, these sleep sacrifices are normal and expected.
They also come at a cost, especially for people with ADHD. Sleep deprivation creates ADHD-like symptoms in neurotypical people. Along with the disruption to your daily routines, lack of sleep will make your ADHD worse. If more than one person in your family has ADHD — which, let’s face it, is more likely than not — the problem multiples exponentially.
If you decide to skimp on sleep for yourself or your kids, do it with an awareness of the consequences. Know you may have days where it seems like everyone is off their meds and at each other’s throats. Think about the implications for increased risk of traffic accidents. We all spread ourselves thin during holiday travels, but remember the holidays are supposed to be fun. Out-of-control ADHD behavior can ruin the fun — if not for us, for the people who have to deal with us.
Set clear and fair expectations with your co-parent.
Plan how you will divide childcare responsibilities in advance. When our family travels for the holidays, we’re usually traveling to see either my side or my husband’s side of the family. This affects how we share responsibilities. I’m much more likely to let him sleep in when we’ve traveled to see his family. He likes to stay up late catching up with his brothers, and I think that’s fair. When I want to spend time with my family or friends, he’s there to step in.
With ADHD families, these arrangements need to be clear and intentional. Don’t wing it. People with ADHD need concrete, explicit requests. When I want my husband to get up and make breakfast for the kiddo while I go surfing, I tell him so. If he feels overburdened, I expect him to say exactly that — not wait for me to figure it out because it “should be obvious.”
Remember that “fair” might not always mean dividing time and childcare responsibilities 50/50. However you work things out, make sure no one feels unfairly burdened and everyone gets a break.
Be true to yourself.
Know what your family’s true values are. Know what you need. Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, even if you’re making an unpopular decision.
It may be small, like my decision to put my son to bed early in the days before a wedding even though his cousins were allowed to stay up later. Or it might be bigger. Several years ago, I announced we would no longer make an effort to see everyone over Christmas. We’d take turns spending a few days with one of our son’s grandparents each year, and open our home to anyone else who wanted to come to us during the months of December and January. It was a difficult choice. I feared disappointing someone or creating resentment, but my first priority was making sure our family actually enjoyed Christmas.
Beware of shoulds, which I talk a lot about in Order from Chaos. People with ADHD sometimes have a hard time articulating ourselves. We also struggle to say no. This can lead to us doing a lot of things because we think we should. Like spending 12 days traveling to each of our parents’ homes so they can see our kid for Christmas. Sometimes too much is simply too much, especially for families with ADHD.
Also consider what kind of ADHDer you are. My son seems to generate energy at parties. As long as he’s surrounded by people, he can keep going forever. I’m an introvert. I get overstimulated easily by large social gatherings or noisy environments. That means my brain will short-circuit after a while and I’m liable to have a complete meltdown if I don’t carve out some alone time. Any family with ADHDers has learned the hard way that meltdowns — from kids or adults — can be sudden and explosive. Take care of yourselves and try to avoid them.
Accept that the basics are harder for you, and that’s okay.
In my most recent ADHDgram, I wrote about not settling for less. Just because we have ADHD doesn’t mean we should give up. We shouldn’t accept a lower quality of life because that’s just part of the ADHD package. It’s not. But ADHD does make certain things more difficult, and that’s a reality we need to face.
Planning a trip, packing bags, and getting out the front door are more difficult for families with ADHD. Sitting through family dinners can be more difficult. Being away from home and having our daily routines disrupted can cripple our cognitive function. Jet lag or simple lack of good sleep can make us feel like we’re off our meds. We struggle to keep ourselves out of heated political arguments with relatives. It’s tough to put others first and offer to stay home with the kids while our spouse grabs drinks with some high school buddies. All these little exertions of self-control add up.
And because this stuff — basic life stuff, really — is harder for us, we need to take it easy. That’s why I quit the 12-days-of-Christmas-traveling habit. It’s why I let people make fun of me for going to bed early. And it’s why I pack my running shoes and go out for an early-morning jog by myself on days when we’re expected to attend a big party. The struggle doesn’t mean we can’t be happy or have a good time, but it does mean we ought to know and take care of ourselves. We aren’t superheroes, after all. We’re just humans with brains that need a little extra TLC sometimes.
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