Kids First Co-Parenting with Dr. Royster

Holiday Series: Coping With Holiday Grief After Divorce

• Dr. Karalynn Royster • Season 1 • Episode 18

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We explore how to face holiday grief and ambivalence when the kids are with a co-parent and the house feels too quiet. We share a clear plan to cope ahead, micro-skills for spirals, and when to bring in extra support while modeling regulation for our kids.

• naming grief and ambivalence during holidays
• separating feelings from behaviors
• building a coping ahead plan that fits you
• body, mind and connection actions for hard days
• grounding with feet and breath work
• quick resets with water, sky and fresh air
• recognizing red flags that signal added support
• modeling self-regulation language for kids

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Kids First Co-Parenting Podcast. The podcast for smart, intentional, millennial moms raising resilient kids after separation and divorce. I'm Dr. Carolyn Royster, a child psychologist, coach, and a mom. After thousands of therapy hours with kids caught in the middle of high-conflict households, I'm here to help moms like you do it differently. From peaceful co-parenting to total chaos, I've got you. Here we talk boundaries, regulation, and how to raise a great kid, even if your acts is beyond difficult. We blend science with real life, and as always, keep focused where it matters on raising great kids. This is Kids First Co-Parenting. All right, welcome to this week's episode. We're going to be talking a little bit about how to handle what can be a really difficult and tender time of year when your kids aren't with you and you want them with you for the holidays, when you feel tender, but your kids are at your co-parents' house. What is it like to wake up on Christmas morning and it's not your year? Or how do you manage when you're doing something really fun in someone else's kids, maybe your sisters or your friends, and you wish your kids were there, but they're with your co-parent? This is the holiday series. And so this episode is coming out right before Christmas. And this is something that has been on my mind a lot as we navigate this really, really, I don't know, intense and busy time of year. Sometimes it feels like be nice if I had a break from everybody for a little while. And yet, I know that that can be very painful for moms at this time of year as well. We're really going to spend some time talking about how you can cope with the sadness and your grief during the holiday season because, of course, this is grief. And because, of course, this is sadness. Perhaps you have a schedule where your kids are going back and forth. That's one scenario that this can be helpful for. Another would be that you have midday handoffs or split holidays. Um, or these these points are also going to be helpful today if you feel really sad inside and it's Christmas or it's a Christmas party or it's a Christmas parade or it's a Christmas presentation, and you feel not holly, not jolly, not excited, not joyful, and perhaps everyone around you is, or feeling the need to put on that show for your kids. I just want to really validate that holidays after separation and divorce are different. They're going to feel different. There may be a lot of sadness for you, even if you're very confident that you made the right choice for yourself and for your kids. Okay. This makes total sense. It's called ambivalence. It's about having two feelings at once, which we talk a lot about on the podcast, because it's just so common. It I don't want you to beat yourself up if Christmas Day comes or Christmas Eve comes and you want to cry, or you feel angry, or you feel just upset because that makes sense. Even when you know in your heart of hearts that this was the right decision for you. You can feel two things at once. You can feel relieved and happy that this is your first holiday without that toxic person. And you can also feel very sad that you're not with your kids, or that you miss this person, um, or that your family looks different this year. There could be any number of reasons you feel upset. I mean, holidays in my experience are either when people really put on a good show and you have, you know, people kind of pull it together. It's Christmas, let's like look like a happy family, or the stress of it makes things really, really toxic and bad. If you are the former where the holidays were, you know, maybe some of the times of year that you actually enjoyed this person, or you have really happy, good memories with this person, or even their extended family, that's okay too. And I also want to acknowledge that a lot of trauma and sadness and loneliness happens around the holiday season. Uh, and so you may be, your body may feel very untethered not having that stress this time of year. And all of this is to say our first point, that the first way to really handle the grief and sadness and the ambivalence, anger, is to really validate yourself and to sit with and explore and be comfortable with the fact that you may have these big emotions at this time of year and that that makes sense. Let's not try to force it, my friends. Let's not try to make yourself feel super, super cheerful when you don't. Let's not be spending a lot of time and energy gaslighting ourselves out of the experience that we're having. Really letting yourself know it makes sense that I feel this way. I'm not doing anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. It is okay that I feel insert whatever it is you're feeling, that I miss this person, that I don't miss this person, that I'm relieved to not have my kids here right now, that I miss my kids right now, right? All feelings are okay. We talk about this all the time on the podcast, but all behaviors are not. If you miss your co-parent or your ex and you then drown your sorrows in a bottle of tequila, that's probably not a great behavior to manage that sadness. But the feeling itself is not the problem. If you are feeling angry that your ex already has quote unquote moved on, which I guarantee you they haven't actually emotionally moved on, but has moved on and is now introducing all of your former family to someone new that they're dating and you feel angry, that feeling itself, there's nothing wrong with that. If you then send 25 texts that are nasty and inappropriate and rude, that behavior is a problem. But the feelings are okay. This is important that you spend some time validating this for yourself, because this is exactly what I teach you to do for your kids. This parallels what you're going to say and do for your kids during this season. If they are feeling sad because they missed their dad, that is okay. We're we're fine with that. We're not fine with a giant meltdown ripping your room apart kind of stuff. Again, the feeling is fine, the behavior is not. So you're going to do this for yourself as well. The next thing I want you to do is what we call as psychologists, coping ahead. This is a very good technique for you. Again, a deck, a technique that does translate very well to children. I call it coping ahead because here's the thing: you may not know how you're going to feel. That's that's how grief kind of works. Things that we think are really gonna trip us up don't. Things that we think we'll be totally fine with sometimes really affect us. And so we can't predict when those emotions are going to bubble up. We can predict what we might do. I want you to have a plan. I need you to have a plan. You can call it your like sad girl plan or your sad day or just feeling kind of down, especially if you're someone that is not very good at taking care of yourself, meaning someone that tends to shove their emotions down or thinks, you know, there's no reason I should be upset about this, or I have a million things to do because and therefore doesn't take care of themselves. I can talk about this because this is a little bit of my language. I need to have some things in place when I know I have the potential to have an emotional big day where I have a lot of big feelings, whether that's anger or sadness. I want to have things lined up. You can get a pen and paper out if this is helpful, or even just your notes app on your phone. But I just want you to think through answering a couple of these questions. If I'm having a hard day, what do I need? So maybe you wrote down something or something came to mind really quickly there. Pay attention to that. I want you to think, if I'm having a really sad, grief-filled day, do I want to be alone? Do I want to be with one person? Do I want to be with a small group or a big group? Am I somebody that needs to cry by myself in bed? Am I someone that needs to hang out with my best friend? Am I someone that needs a really small, intimate group of friends? Or do I want to be like lost in a crowd, a concert, or someplace where I'm reminded that there's a lot of people around going through a lot of things? How can I avoid having to quote perform? So if you're having a hard day, I don't want you in a room where you feel like you can't be authentic with what's happening for you. That makes it worse. That makes it harder. And so if that big family dinner is something where you feel like I can't be my authentic self, then your plan needs to not have that as part of it, needs to have an escape patch. However, if being around your family is exactly what you think you would need on a day like that, then I want you to do that. Do you see how this is kind of, it's not a one size fits all? It's a thinking ahead about what's going to support me. Think about one thing in your plan that you need or want for your body. Is that a workout? Is that a shower? Is that tea? Is that a yoga movement? Is that resting on the couch? Is that a walk with a dog? What am I doing for my body to regulate? Think about one thing that you need to regulate for your mind. I want to watch my favorite show. I want to listen to my favorite podcast. I want to read my book. I love to do baking or puzzles, or I really want to tackle that closet that's been driving me crazy. I don't know that that feels like self-care to me, but whatever floats your boat, my love. For me, I've gotten really into these liberty puzzles, which is, I realize, very nerdy, um, potentially, but actually it's not. I'm not even going to say that. They're amazing. Um, they're like wooden craft puzzle. I mean, they're incredible. And I can do them for long periods of time. It feels like such a gift when I get the chance to do them for long periods of time. I feel the same way about reading. I love to read. Very rarely do I find just whole pockets of a day where I can sit and read. And so that would be something I would do for my mind. You know, if I was having a very hard day reading and potentially doing my puzzle, having a cup of coffee, those are things that I would want to do. And then one thing for connection. What I don't want is for you to feel sad and to be necessarily alone in the depths of despair all day long. You may want to be alone. That might recharge you. Maybe you're more of an introvert, but I still want you to have at least one thing that you can reach out to for support. Members of the Kids First community have me, right? They can text and email me if they're having a hard day, just to have a somebody there that's like, yeah, this does really suck, or I'm really sorry. And they also have their group members. You might text your best friend, you might go to another online group or have a call with somebody that that really can just kind of ground you. And then I want you to think finally about what is it that you are needing to do that day. And chances are you probably don't need to do as much as you think. If you can avoid it, you know, avoiding big decisions around court or sending that response to the motion or writing that email to your attorney. If it can wait until that evening or the next day, and I'm talking about a day that you're feeling just really crappy. You're in the depths of sadness, a wallow day, a day that you really need to be in your feelings and feel your feelings. I want you to be saying things to yourself like, it's my job to really be comforting and gentle to myself today, not make anything heavier or harder. We're gonna take a quick break so I can tell you a little bit about the membership, and then I'll come back and we'll talk about some more points to help yourself through the holiday grief. High conflict co-parenting is exhausting because you're constantly having to react. If your child feels that instability, even if you're trying to hide it, you need support. Inside the Kids First Co-Parenting membership, I help you build a stable base in your home with routines, boundaries, and scripts that protect you and therefore your child's emotional help without needing your ex to cooperate. If you want weekly support with me, Dr. Royster, as well as the other moms inside the membership, practical tools, lessons, encouragements, and scripts, that's exactly what you get inside the membership. The membership is half off for listeners right now. You can find the membership at the link in the show notes. Please, please join us if this resonates with you. I want to talk to you about some other micro coping skills that you can use, especially if you're starting to feel like I'm spiraling, I'm starting to panic, things are getting out of control. I want to teach you some really classic techniques around mindfulness. This works for kids as well, just like everything on kids first and moms. I teach a lot about looking at things five. I teach this technique called think about your feet. So when you're up in your head and you're starting to panic or get upset or um spiral, if you're starting to feel sad, the chances that you're thinking about your feet are very slim. You're not thinking about your feet. Uh, you're not thinking about your toes, you're not thinking about how they feel in your shoes, you're not thinking about are they cold, are they warm? And so this can be a way that we literally teach you to ground. Grounding in your body, grounding in your feet, putting your feet on the floor, noticing how they feel, wiggling your toes is a really, really helpful thing that you can do to help ground yourself in the moment. After you feel your feet, taking some deep breaths. There are a lot of different breathing techniques that we teach. Obviously, they sound a little cliche, but that's because they work, you guys. And I could get into all the science of this about how it calms your regulation systems in your body and helps your body know that you're not in danger. But I can do that, and maybe we will in 2026 for episodes. But right now, I just want you to know that it does actually work. It's cliche because it works. Taking a deep breath in through your nose in particular, out through your mouth. A lot of people teach to hold it at the top. So you breathe in through your nose, you hold it, breathe out through your mouth. I like to use my Apple Watch. It has a nice mindfulness app that you can take a breath in and out. It's a little flower that expands and then contracts. Um, or circle breathing. So you want to just not get into this place where you're grounding your body in space, but also grounding your being in space. That sounds very woo-woo. But the point is if you're doing a mindfulness exercise around I'm feeling my feet on the ground and maybe observing things that you see, you need to add in the breathing to help yourself regulate. Take a drink of water. Water is extremely regulating. Take a step outside. I live where it's cold. I've always lived where it's cold. I've never lived where it's hot. I don't want to live where it's hot. Um, I like to vacation there, but I don't want to live there. But I suppose if it's warm too, the same would work. You know, getting outside, taking a breath, looking up at the sky, looking at the clouds, even just two minutes can be so helpful. The teenagers always say to touch grass. That means get outside and that that can really, really help regulate you. It's possible that as you listen to today's episode, you start to feel like these things are not going to help. I'm feeling very overwhelmed, or this is a really much bigger thing than what she's talking about. And then I need you to think about signs that kind of your typical regulation and your typical strategies might not be enough. And that there is support for you. But signs are things like sadness that feels constant and heavy and doesn't really lift. If it's hard to do the basics like sleeping, getting out of bed, picking up the kids, if you're noticing that you're doing a lot of numbing behaviors, so doom scrolling for hours on end, checking in and monitoring your ex, especially on social media and et cetera, um, drinking substances, assuming obviously your kids are not around, but even so, a lot of that makes me think of numbing. We're not really present. And if if your typical techniques are not really working, so let's say you're someone that loves yoga and yoga usually can kind of pull you out of a funk and you've been doing yoga and you've been practicing it for a couple weeks, and you're still sort of like, oh, I'm not doing great, then I think it's important that you maybe talk to a therapist. You may need to talk to your doctor. Those are signs that the grief might be building into more of a depression, maybe a divorce support group. We we had Dr. Kristen Hick on here recently. She talked about that. You know, groups like that are really lovely. If you're finding that, you know, it's just really hard to navigate how to parent through this season, and that you're kind of struggling with that piece, then you want to think about something like a coaching program, like the kids' first system, where you have that support, you have people that get it, you have people that understand, and you also are getting the tools to manage some of these hard things that are coming up. There's no shame in any of this. There's no shame in the grief, there's no shame in sadness. It's really about how do you take care of yourself and that you deserve that. And by taking care of yourself, you're helping take care of your kids. What we talked a lot about in this episode is that there are many ways to support yourself that also translate to ways to support your kids. If you're practicing mindfulness and you're practicing breathing, or you're going to yoga every day so that you can take care of yourself and be your best self, or you're calling your sister every day. So these are good techniques that you can share with your children, not share like take them to yoga with you. But you can be saying, Yeah, I'm gonna go move my body right now because that makes me feel a little bit better through my day. Or I'm noticing I'm feeling a little bit sad right now. I'm just kind of missing when we used to go to, you know, your Aunt Julie's house and have Christmas Eve dinner there, and it's just really different this year. I just want to take some really big breaths to kind of help myself feel a little bit better, and then I'm gonna talk to you about ways that we can manage this together or ways that we can adjust our holiday routines or expectations. As always, my friends, I'm so grateful that you're here. I will see you in 2026. There will not be any more episodes this year. I am always interested to hear what you think. So if you have something you'd like me to do an episode on, please let me know. I am very grateful and appreciative of your likes and subscribes and follows. We are growing at a very fast rate because of that, and I know it's because of the value you guys get from this, and I appreciate you sharing it with people because that's the whole point is to support moms in these really difficult situations. Thank you for being here. I hope your 2025 holidays wrap up in a nice way, and I am so excited to see you in the new year. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Kids First Co-Parenting. The best way you can support the show is by following, rating, and reviewing wherever you listen to podcasts, and by sharing it with another mom who could use the support. You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook at Learn with Little House, where I share daily tips and encouragement for moms raising kids through high conflict divorce. And if you're ready to go deep and get more tools, scripts, personalized support, and coaching, come join us inside the Kids First co parenting community. You'll find the details at learnwithlittlehouse.com.

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