This article starts by talking about some of the reasons kids and teens may feel anxious or nervous about upcoming holiday get togethers. It talks about the power of communicating with your kids about their feelings and helping them build more confidence through prep, role playing and activities intended to spark joy and inclusion.
Table of Contents
- Pre-Thanksgiving Activities to Bolster Confidence in Kids and Teens
- Role Play People Interactions
- Social Skills Activities
- Make a Drawing / Place Cards
- Make a Centerpiece / Decoration
- Create a Word Search
- Print Coloring Sheets
- Plan a Dish Together
- Tell the Story of the First Thanksgiving
- Make a Thankful Tree
The fall season is upon us which means we are rolling into the holidays. For some, family and friend get togethers are a wonderful time and for others they can provoke feelings of anxiety, dread and a whole host of other less than pleasant feelings. For younger kids, these feelings can manifest in clinginess, an unwillingness to say hello or interact with guests, tears and meltdowns at the actual event. For teens, the feelings can similarly present an unwillingness to say hello, interact with others, help or even attend the event all together. We must remember that all feelings are allowed and valid. There is nothing wrong with kids and teens who have these feelings before, during and even after holiday events. As parents, friends and family members, our goal should never be to push someone in a way that doesn’t feel comfortable. Instead, we can help the important people in our lives build the right skills to feel more confident and comfortable at holiday, or really any social, get together. As a mother to two young daughters, we are regularly practicing social emotional learning in the context of being with other people at family, friend and social functions. I am guessing parents of teenagers continue to work on the building the same skill set on a more advanced level. Let me remind you, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Many of us were raised in the generation where we didn’t talk about things that were uncomfortable (yep, 80’s kid) and certainly didn’t do any prep work prior to a situation that could be uncomfortable or unpredictable for kids and teens. Thankfully parents today have a lot more resources and knowledge available to help them better understand their child’s feelings and navigate them in a way that avoids pressure, shame or beratement. What can often be social anxiety inducing is the introduction of new variables in the way of people, foods, and routine. Prep in the way of role playing and talking about what the event will look like can help alleviate unknowns and bolster confidence.
Pre-Thanksgiving Prep Ideas to Instill Confidence and Excitement
1) Role play
For some, the influx of people on turkey day at your home or another person’s home can been overwhelming. Help your kids understand exactly how the day will flow as a way to remove some of the unknowns associated with a get together. A prep conversation might look like this:
- “In the afternoon, our family will start to arrive. People will ring the doorbell. We will meet them at the door and say hello using their name and eye contact – “Hi Aunt Michelle. Hi Uncle Alex. We will help them carry their food items into the kitchen and take their coats.” At this point, you can stop and literally role play what was just described. Have kids (and even teens) pretend being the guests and ring the doorbell. My kids go nuts over anything involving the doorbell. Be silly to make this fun!! Do this a couple times before moving on.
- “Next, you can show each family member the drawing you made for them and where they are sitting at the table. After that, we will eat appetizers and talk in the kitchen while some of us do final preparations for dinner. You are welcome to stay with the adults or go play with the other kids joining us.” Stop again and role play.
- Continue explaining what will happen: “After about an hour, we will sit down to eat dinner. After dinner, we will all help clean up and then relax a bit before dessert. After dessert, you and the other kids can watch a movie – let’s talk about which movie we want to watch.”
All of the above is building predictability!
2) Social Skills Activities
- Writing out questions or topics that kids and teens can use in conversations during social functions. Post them on a bulletin board.
- Discussing conversation basics such as:
- “When you see someone, say hello. Don’t wait for the other person to say hello first – just go for it!”
- “Adding in a ‘how are you?’ can elevate an initial interaction so much. It might look like this: ‘Hi, Paige, how are you?'”
- For younger kids, just focus on coaching them to say hello to guests with eye contact.
- Coaching kids and teens to have two-sided conversations. Often conversations with kids are fairly one-side where the adult is asking the questions, and the kid is answering the questions – sometimes just with one or two words. “How is school?” Good; “Are you having fun with your soccer team this year?” Yes.
- Help kids expand on their answers. To the common “How is the school year going?” Encourage kids to share a detail or two. My daughter gets sooo excited for her “hot lunch day” that I let her pick each week so I might encourage her to say “School is good – I get to do hot lunch once a week. Pizza day is my favorite” or “Good – my teacher Ms. Graves is so awesome.” or “Good – my favorite part of the day is playing with my friends at recess.” For the sports question – encourage them to talk about a skill they are working on at practice “We are working on passing drills” or “We won our first game” or “The best part of soccer is the snacks afterwards – someone brought donuts last week!”
- Discuss body autonomy. Remember that body autonomy is incredibly important and therefore it should always be the choice of the child or teen whom they choose to hug, high-five or handshake (or not). Talk about this.
3) Make a gift / drawing / name card for each person who will be at the Thanksgiving event
This event is geared to kids 13 and under and is the perfect way to build familiarly with the people who will be attending the event or gathering. We often get together with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and their 3 kids and my oldest daughter loves to draw a picture for each person and place it on their plate at the table. We make a list of every person who is coming over and my daughter ends up deciding who is going to sit where based on where she puts each drawing. When our family arrives at our house, she can’t wait to show each person what she made for them and where they are sitting. It is a great way to get her interacting with guests in our home and making them feel welcome. For older kids, this activity may look like name cards for the table or another small craft that plays to the talents of the individual child or teenager. If possible, prep thanksgiving activities in advance, based on your level of craftiness, to make it as easy as possible for kids to dive right in.
4) Make a centerpiece for the table or another holiday decoration
For older kids, invite them into the brainstorming process of making a table centerpiece or other sort of decorative item during the thanksgiving break. Let them browse Pinterest for inspiration on a few thanksgiving-themed activities or crafts that they think would be fun to do with you or, on their own. As they are sitting at the table working on this project, you can casually talk with them about expectations for the event you are hosting:
- “Let’s remember to stop what we are doing when people arrive (this includes me coming out of the kitchen) to say hello to each person. It is our collective job to make guests in our home feel welcome. Could you be sure and help me with that?”
- “Also, we are all going to keep our phones out of sight during Thanksgiving so that we can focus on conversation and being present. Are you excited to tell the family about how you came up with the idea for the centerpiece?”
- This low-pressure conversation is a way to prep your child or teen for the actual event. You can also ask open ended questions such as “How are you feeling about having 10 people come to our house on Thursday? or “Do you think it is fun getting together with family, stressful or a little of both?” Based on their answer, you can continue with a “Tell me more about that answer….” to get them talking.
5) Create or print a thanksgiving word search
Let your kids be in charge of passing out the thanksgiving-themed word search, pens and explaining instructions for people who want to participate. You can even put them in charge of giving out small prizes for the winners.
6) Print Thanksgiving theme coloring pages
This helps occupy younger kids while you are bustling around with final mean preparations. Sites such as Mombrite offer a free download of seasonal coloring sheets and other fun activities such as decorating little turkeys. You can order table sized coloring banners from Tiny Expressions. I ordered one of these last December and my kids had a great time working on it for weeks! These are all great ideas to keep kids grounded and focused during what can feel like a chaotic time for them.
7) Plan a dish together
Cooking and baking have been bringing friends and family members together for generations and the learned life skills are abundant: planning, math skills, grocery shopping, fine motor skills, creativity. Does baking a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving dinner with your kids take longer? Absolutely but the pride and confidence it instills far outweighs the extra time and effort. For kids and teens who struggle with conversation topics with guests, this is a something they can share with everyone in attendance. Baking and cooking together can be so much fun especially if adults go in with the right attitude and expectations and, allot some extra time for teaching and spills.
Remember, social-emotional learning doesn’t happen overnight. Even if you practice and your kids are doing great in practice, they may act more reserved the day of an actual event. We are looking for progress, not perfection.
8) Tell the story of the first thanksgiving
Share how Native Americans and early settlers came together to have a historic harvest feast. This is a wonderful social studies activity to teach kids the origin story behind the holiday we are celebrating. Thanksgiving books, online social stories or just open discussion are all ways to share the 400-year old story that is an important part of American history. For older kids who are familiar with the story, encourage perspective taking. This may involve throwing out questions for discussion such as “How do you think the Native Americans felt when the settlers arrived from Europe? Do you think they were happy to share their land and resources?”
9) Make a thankful tree
A fun small group or independent work idea is making a “thankful tree” where kids and teens write out things for which they feel thankful. Betty from MomBright has a ready to go, printable thankful tree that you can easily use. This activity feels a bit more genuine than publicly asking everyone to share what they feel thankful for in a large social situation such as Thanksgiving dinner. For elementary and middle school students, let them write out their thoughts on fun pieces of paper to decorate the tree. If kids are young and not quite able to full write out their ideas, encourage them to color an image that represents something for which they feel thankful. Even just discussing thankfulness can be the main activity. Once the tree is complete, sit back and admire it as a group. A second part of the activity can involve asking kids and teens if they want to share what they wrote. Make this totally optional to alleviate pressure.
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