SEND Parenting Podcast

EP 149: Surviving the Holidays

• Dr. Olivia Kessel

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December promises twinkly lights and cosy moments, yet many parents feel like they’re sprinting through a minefield. I open up about the invisible load that spikes stress during the holidays—noise, judgment, lost routines, sensory overload—and explain why your nervous system interprets it all as danger. When the body tips into fight, flight, or freeze, calm isn’t a choice you’re failing to make; it’s a state you can learn to access with fast, reliable tools.

We unpack the zones of regulation for parents—blue, yellow, red, and green—and walk through a relatable holiday scenario to show how we slide from steady to overwhelmed in small steps. Then I share a three-step reset you can use anywhere: notice, name, navigate. You’ll learn a one-minute breath pattern to switch off threat mode and a 5-4-3-2-1 grounding sequence to anchor back in the present. From there, we get practical about hotspots: setting boundaries for family gatherings, using code words and pre-planned exits, lowering the bar to get out the door, and choosing “good enough” bedtime routines after big days.

The heart of this conversation is a reframe: you’re not a bad mum; you’re a tired human carrying a load most people can’t see. Perfection is brittle, but presence is resilient. Trade the Instagram script for small, humane choices that protect your energy and your child’s regulation—leave early, say no, order takeaway, let the outfit go, and pick connection over performance.

If you’re craving steady ground, join the Seven-Day Calm Parent Challenge. For £10 you’ll get daily guidance, audio support, a private community, and a live Q&A to help you map triggers, practise resets, set boundaries, and release guilt. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more parents find these tools. Let’s choose present over perfect together.

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Dr Olivia:

Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, Dr. Olivia Kessel, and more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, Alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In today's episode, we're going to do something a little different. I'm not going to have a guest today. I'm actually going to share with you some of the content from the live webinar I did on keeping calm during the holidays. Because I know so many of you are in December, already exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering how you're going to hold everything together. If the holidays look beautiful in your head, but are actually chaotic, stressful, or downright impossible in real life, you're not doing anything wrong. You're not failing. You're a mom carrying a completely invisible load that most people will never see, let alone understand. And when you have a neurodiverse child who struggles with change, noise, expectations, and family dynamics, it can sometimes not be a magical time of year. It can be a minefield for the nervous system. This session is here to support you, not to fix your child, not to add more to your to-do list, but to help you feel calmer, steadier, and more resourced so you can move through the holidays without constantly tipping into survival mode. In this episode, I'm going to give you some practical tools that I use myself. I'm going to tell you about the nervous system science behind why you can lose your patience, even when you don't want to. And some simple strategies to get yourself back to calm when everything around you feels just a bit too much. So take a deep breath. You've already done the hardest part. You're listening. Let's dive in. Before we dive into the podcast, I want you to do something for me. And I promise this is the only assignment I'm giving you today. I want you to take a deep breath in. Just breathe in and out. When was the last time you did that? When was the last time you gave yourself permission to just stop for a minute or even five minutes to put yourself first? If you're like most of the moms I work with and myself, the answer probably is you can't remember. This podcast episode is for you. Today is not about fixing your child or trying different strategies with them. Today is about you. The exhausted mom, the one who's holding it all together, the one everyone depends on, the one who hasn't had a proper cup of tea in three days because you keep reheating the same one up in the microwave. Yep, that one. So let's get started. The holiday season is upon us. What do the holidays look like in your head? Is it the Instagram reel or the Pin Interest version? You know, a lovely Christmas morning with everyone in matching pajamas, calm but excited, a beautifully decorated tree, family dinner where nobody argues, perhaps even, and this might be pushing it, a moment where you sit down with a cup of tea and actually drink it while it's still hot as you admire your Christmas decorations. That's the dream, and that's kind of the pressure we put on ourselves. But what is the reality? In reality, Christmas can look very, very different. Routines are completely gone, school's finished, and suddenly there's no structure, your child's home with nothing to anchor them, the schedule you've carefully built all term out the window. Expectations at this time of year are through the roof. There are family gatherings to attend to, cards to write, presents to buy, wrap, hide, parties. Everyone's expecting the perfect Christmas. Your mother-in-law is expecting you for Boxing Day lunch, your school wants a donation for the Christmas hamper. It's a lot. And your child, they're absolutely dysregulated as well. The lights at the shops are too bright, the Christmas music is too loud, there's so much excitement and overwhelm. And you get lovely comments from relatives saying, Oh, is your child always on their device? And you, the mom, are you running on absolute fumes? Let me paint you this picture and you tell me if it sounds familiar. You're juggling work usually with the school holidays, no child care, your child's bored, and trying to keep them entertained while answering emails. You're staying up until midnight wrapping presents when everyone's finally asleep. You're surviving on too many coffees and yesterday's chocolate coins from your child's advent calendar. You had three glasses of wine just to get through dinner at one of your holiday functions with the family. You haven't been to the gym because you just don't have time, and you just can't get there. And you can't remember the last time you had five minutes completely to yourself. Even the bathroom doesn't seem safe anymore. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Say yes out loud if it does. But here's the real frustrating book. You know what everyone keeps telling you. You need to regulate first. Your child co-regulates with you. You can't pour from an empty cup. Have you tried staying calm? And you know what? That's absolutely right. But here's the thing that makes me genuinely furious on my behalf and on your behalf. No one tells you how. Okay? They tell you what you should do, but they don't tell you how to do it. And how to do it when you're utterly exhausted, you're triggered, you're being judged by your entire extended family, your child's having meltdowns in Tesco, and you've got over 47 things on your to-do list, you haven't had a proper night's sleep in weeks, and maybe you're hungover from a work Christmas party. You've had no time to exercise, no time to decompress, and no time to think. Everyone talks about fixing the child, but almost no one talks about the mom who's drowning. That changes today because I've been where you're at. I really have. I remember one Christmas Eve, Alexandra was about 11 before her ADHD diagnosis, and it was midnight, midnight. And she was screaming at me from her bedroom, Mommy, don't make me sleep here. I don't want to sleep here. She was furious, she was angry, she was refusing to get back in bed. And I honestly, I was losing it too. I was counting down the hours until she was going to be, you know, wanting to get up to do her stalking. It was a stressful situation. We were both going to be exhausted. All the effort that had been put into Christmas was going to be ruined, and we were going to struggle through the day. Looking back, and with hindsight, you know, it's 2020, and through the things I've learned, I know that she wasn't doing this to me. She wasn't trying to rule ruin Christmas. She was struggling. Her nervous system couldn't settle. And honestly, neither could mine. Realizing that really changed everything. And you know, now if I had to do that over again, you know, have her come into bed with me. Stop trying to get her to sleep in her own bed. It's okay if she doesn't spend the night in her bed one night if she's struggling. Just take the pressure off. And if we're tired on Christmas, we'll get through it. You know, it's not going to ruin everything. But first, I had to really learn to regulate myself and my nervous system. So today I want to share what I've learned because the holidays are not about being perfect, but by learning and living in the trenches. So why do we struggle with our regulation, especially, you know, during the holiday season? What makes it so difficult? Well, I think we first have to just step back and understand and acknowledge that the holiday season can be bloody hard. Because when you understand the why, you can stop blaming yourself. And that honestly is half the battle. Okay. We have this huge invisible load that's on our shoulders. We have financial pressure. Okay, the living crisis is real. And you've got to come up with money for presents, food, hosting, school parties, secret Santa, teacher gifts. And if you're parenting a neurodiverse child, you're probably already paying a lot of money for assessments, therapies, tutors, sensory equipment. And now you're supposed to also create a magical Christmas. There's also a huge time pressure. School holidays means your child is home all day, every day. I know Alexandra gets off this week, and you know, that means that there's no time while she's at school for me to breathe or get going and doing stuff. So you end up doing stuff when they're asleep late into the night, which then ends up making you sleep-defried, which adds to that pressure, that invisible load. And then, you know, your children are waking up early because they're excited. And then you're laying in bed at night unable to sleep at 3 a.m. because you're anxious about tomorrow's family gathering. What will happen? You know, will they coke? Will there be judgment? What if it all goes wrong again? And then, you know, we all like to socialize, but it is draining. You have to smile, make small talk with relatives maybe you haven't seen, pretend everything's okay, especially when you get unsolicited advice, like, oh, I think you should be firmer with her, you know, when your child is, you know, having a meltdown over the texture of the Christmas pudding that they don't want to eat. And there's really no time for you to decompress, zero time. You know, you might have gone for a run or seen a friend, but now you can't. In the holidays, there's no time, there's no escape valve, there's no space. So your nervous system is really on holiday survival mode with all of those pressures. So, what's happening to your body? Well, your cortisol, that's your stress hormone, is through the roof from all of those different forces. And your body genuinely thinks it's being chased by a tiger. You are not in rest and digest. You are in fight, flight, or freeze. And that is when your body actually thinks it's being chased by a tiger. Even though your tiger is maybe your child having a meltdown at the toy shop. Or your tiger is a passive-aggressive comment from your mother-in-law about screen time. Or it could be that the tiger is the 102 things that you have to do on your to-do list, or it could be that you haven't sat down in six hours. So, what happens when you're dysregulated? Okay. You can't think clearly. You have brain fog. I mean, at a certain age, this is coming anyway from menopause, but when you're in fight or flight, you can't think. And you might snap at your child. You didn't want to, and you feel terrible about it, but you do snap. And then you want to run away. That's the flight. Or you might explode. That's the fight. Or you could just shut down and completely freeze. Small things feel enormous, and your patience is almost non-existent. And then, and this is the worst part, you feel guilty about this because you should be calmer, you should be enjoying this precious time with your family, you should be a better mom. So, what can we do about this? Your nervous system is doing exactly what it's designed to do, it's trying to protect you. The problem is it can't tell the difference between an actual tiger and your Aunt Susan's judgment. So, I think the first thing that we need to understand to solve this problem is we need to understand the zones of regulation and where we're at emotionally during the day and during this festive holiday season. Now, your kids might have learned about this at school, and I know I've done a podcast about it with Alexandra, but now we're gonna actually apply it to you as a mom, okay? So we have four zones of regulation: green, red, yellow, and blue. So let me walk through them because if you don't know what zone you're in, you can't regulate, you can't show up calm, and you can't be the steady presence your child needs. So the blue zone. That's when we're kind of shut down. You're feeling you're moving slowly, you're feeling sad, maybe tired, or just flat. You're kind of disconnected and numb, and you want to withdraw. An example of this in the holidays would be you're watching TV with your family, everyone is excited and buzzing about Christmas, and you're staring at the TV blankly, feeling absolutely nothing, and you kind of want to disappear. Then we have the yellow zone. This is kind of like the getting activated zone. It's a fizzy zone. You might be feeling frustrated or anxious or maybe a bit overwhelmed. Your energy is rising. You can feel some of your control slipping. Your jaw might be clenched, your shoulders might be tight. For example, for this would be let's say you're getting ready to go out during the holidays and your child doesn't want to get dressed, and you can feel the tension kind of in your chest rising because you know you're going to be late. And you can feel yourself trying to stay calm, but you also can feel yourself losing it. And then we go into the red zone, and that's the fight, flight, or freeze, like that tiger that's on our back chasing us. And this is when you go into full survival mode. You're angry, you're panicked, you're terrified, you're out of control. You might be yelling at your child, you might be running from the house, or you might be shutting down. An example could be you're in waitros and your child has a complete meltdown, everyone's staring at you, and you just explode, either at your child or one of the people that are judging you in the supermarket, and you grab your child and run out of the supermarket. And the final zone is the green zone, and this is the regulated zone. This is when you're calm, you're in control, you're able to think clearly, you feel content, maybe even happy, you're ready to handle the challenges of life. An example would be if you know you're preparing the Christmas dinner and your child demands that you help them find their sweater, and you can respond to them without snapping. You feel capable, you've got this. So green sounds like a really good place to be, you know, but you can't stay in the green zone always. Um, the goal isn't perfection. That's impossible, especially during the holidays. I don't stay in the green zone all the time. No one does. So, how do we navigate ourselves back to the green zone when we're not in the green zone? And I'm gonna just touch upon this here, I'm gonna talk about it a little bit more in a bit, but it's literally less than five minutes. I want you to notice what zone you're in. I want you to name it, even if it's just saying it in your head, and then navigate back to yellow and green when you can. It's three simple steps that should take less than five minutes. It's not easy, but it is simple. Okay, and I want to use an example so we can kind of see how we move from one zone to the other and how we can use that simple reset to move ourselves. So I want you to imagine that we are at Christmas dinner at your in-laws, okay? And you actually slept quite well the night before, and you wake up in the morning and the kids are still asleep. You've had a lovely cup of coffee with no interruptions, and you're thinking to yourself, I can do this, it's gonna be a good day, and you're in the green zone. Now then your child gets up, has breakfast, and then you have an outfit that you wanted them to wear, and they're refusing to get into it. They don't want to wear it. So you start to go into the yellow zone. Your frustration's rising, you're getting worried about the time. And you bought this outfit, especially for them to wear, to your in-law's house. But you stay in control. You breathe, you offer two choices, and the moment diffuses, and you're back in green. Then you get into the car and your child keeps kicking the back of your seat and saying, Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And your husband's on his phone, not helping, and you can feel that tension creeping back in. You notice it, you take a breath, you put on some good Christmas music and start singing, and everyone goes back into the green zone. And then you go to, you're at your in-laws, it's dinner time, and your child, you know, already overexcited by the time they spent there, they refuse to eat. They start getting louder, and your mother-in-law chips in and says, In my day, children ate what they were given, and gives a deep, very condescending sigh. Your child starts to cry and you snap. You're in the red zone. Your nervous system is now in full survival mode. So, what went wrong? You might be thinking, oh God, I've lost control, I'm a terrible mom, I should have stayed calm, how could I do that? But here's the truth: you went from green to yellow to red without pausing. You didn't have to stay, you didn't have the right tool to stay in the yellow to get back to the green. So your nervous system did what it was meant to do. It viewed your mother-in-law as a tiger and it went into full survival mode. It's not your fault. But here's the good news. You can learn to notice that shift from yellow to red, and you can have a tool to bring yourself back. And that's the tool that I just mentioned: the three-step restep, reset, not restep, sorry. Notice, name, and navigate. And literally, it takes less than five minutes. So before you tell me that I don't have five minutes, I know, I hear you, but here's the thing. If you don't take five minutes now, you'll lose an hour when you hit the red zone. Trust me, I've done the maths. This isn't another one of those just take a bath suggestions. This is practical, it's fast, and it works even when you're in the thick of it. All right. So, how does it work? So, first, the notice. And when you notice, you actually have to stop, physically stop. If you can, remove yourself. So, in the example with at the mother in law's house for dinner, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. Lock the door if you have to. Or step outside and go sit in your car. Or go and get something from the kitchen and stand with your head in the fridge getting it cool. If you can't leave, you know, if it's with your child or something and they're screaming, then just pause, close your eyes, and count to five or 10 seconds. That's it. Okay? You know, I remember I've used this myself many, many times because it really, really helps. I know one of the our terrible mornings that Alexandra and I were having, we're running late for school, and I was getting more and more upset, more and more frustrated, and I could feel myself going from yellow to red. So I literally stopped and I actually stared at the wall and counted to 30. And Alexandra started laughing. She's like, Mommy, what are you doing? Are you crazy? And I said, she thought I'd lost the plot. But you know what? It worked, that pause. And that was everything because it gave my nervous system a stop or a pause. And then what's really important after you've paused is to name it, okay? What's happening? All right. Say it out loud or say it in your head. Say, you know, I'm in the yellow zone, but I feel myself going into the red zone, or I'm feeling completely overwhelmed. I'm starting to panic because I'm worried that we're going to be late. My body thinks that I'm in danger. But actually, we're not. I mean, honestly, if we're late for school, what's going to really happen? It is not a tiger, but my body is reacting like it's a tiger. All right. When you name it, you take the power away. You remind yourself, this is just my nervous system. This will pass. All right? And then the third step is to navigate your nervous system. Okay. And I'm going to give you three tools that you can use. The first one is to breathe and to do this for one minute. Okay? Now, this isn't woo-woo. And I know some people think this is, you know, it doesn't work. It's actual neuroscience. When you are in fight or flight, your breath is shallow and fast. And that tells your brain, danger. Keep panicking. The tiger is there. When you slow your breath down, you tell your brain, no tigers, we're safe. So here's the pattern. All right. I want you to take a deep breath in for the count of four. So do this with me as you're listening. Deep breath in for one, two, three, four. And then I want you to hold it for four, three, two, one. And now you're gonna let it out for a count of six. One, two, three, four, five, six. And then I want you to repeat that three times. One minute, that's all. It helps to regulate your nervous system. It helps to put the tiger away. I then want you to use a second tool in our kit, which is to ground yourself. And I want it's called the 54321 method. So I want you to look around the room and name five things that you can see. So, like I can see my curtains, I can see my computer monitor, I can see my dog. Then I want you to name four things that you can touch. Your chair, your clothes, your hair. And then I want you to listen for three things that you can hear. I can hear my dog snoring, I can hear the traffic outside. And then two things that you can smell. I can smell the dog because he's been on a walk and he's a bit wet. I can also smell my cup of coffee. And then one thing you can taste, and I can still taste that said coffee in my mouth. I'm now bringing myself back to my senses, back to my body, back into the right now. I'm no longer in my fight or flight. Can you feel yourself calming down? And now the final step in the three-step reset is to navigate. Now that you're calmer, ask yourself, what do I actually need right now? What does my child need? And what's the smallest step I can take or let go of? So maybe the answer is leaving a holiday party early. Asking for help. Let your child skip the meal if they don't want to eat it. Order takeaway instead of cooking if it decreases the stress. Say no to something. So this reset tool is your emergency tool. And it really works. And the more you use it, the more it works because your body will get used to shifting gears, going out of that fight or flight mode. But what do we do when the reset isn't enough? I want to give you some tips or strategies for some common holiday flashpoints. Okay. So we're going to talk about three of them. The first one is going to be family gatherings, which is a big one over the holiday season, and there's a lot of pressure, all right? And we put a lot of pressure on ourselves because we're worried. What if my child acts out? What if they have a meltdown? It's going to be so embarrassing. And you're so worried about it that you're putting your own, you're putting a tiger in the room with you, even before you've started. You know, you don't, you, you, you're worried about people judging you or failing in front of people. And you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself, even sometimes when you don't even realize it. So there's some things you can do before these kind of events or before you go out anywhere. And talk to your child about this, especially, you know, depending on what age they are. You know, tell them about, you know, what to expect, you know, what some of the challenges might be, like it might be too loud. If it's too much, we can leave. And give your child back some control. So, like with Alexander, if she's really struggling, instead of it getting to the point of a meltdown, I'll tell her to use our code word. So for us, it's pineapple. Um, and if she says pineapple, I know that she needs to leave or she needs a break from the situation. So I will have worked out with her what we're gonna do. So we might go to the bathroom and calm down there or go into a different room, or maybe we just leave the event. Okay. And then another thing to do is to set a time limit. And that's really helpful. Okay, we're gonna be here for an hour. We're gonna be here for two hours. But if it's not working, let yourself leave early if you need to. And if you notice yourself during the event going into the yellow, into the red, getting closer, use your reset. Name, notice it, name it, and navigate it. Okay. And if your child dysregulates or melts down, it's okay. Remove them calmly, not as a punishment, but just as a regulation support. And if someone judges you, just smile and nod and say, Well, you know what? That's fine. They don't get it. Their judgment doesn't matter to me. And then afterwards, talk with your kids. Ask them what was what worked, what didn't work. What could you guys do to support each other? Then your child doesn't feel so alone and you can kind of learn and that you're on the same team together. You know, also debrief of yourself and know that you did your best and that's enough. It didn't have to be perfect. Now, another fun thing is getting out of the house for activities or for family gatherings. And, you know, when you want your child to get ready, they don't want to get dressed, they don't want to eat their breakfast, they don't want to leave the house, and you're gonna be late again. And I really think during the holiday period, you have to be able to lower your expectations. There, you know, your children are not gonna grow up to be losers if you relax some of the expectations. You know, I know of my daughter, you know, she would need to come and walk the dog with me, and she didn't want to get out of her pajamas in the morning, you know, and I could just get really upset and then she could get upset, and then we could both end up in the red zone. Or instead, you know what? Why don't you just put on your coat and a hat? And I've got like slippers that have rubber soled shoes on them, they're boots, and we can go for a dog walk dress like that. I don't care what people think, you know? And that just made it a lot easier. So, you know, think about things that can decrease some of the stress. You know, uh, if they won't eat breakfast, make something that they can eat in the car. Um, arrive late. You know, tell text your host and say, look, I'm sorry, we're having a tough morning. We're coming in a bit late. If you've got tickets for the panto and it's just not a good time, and I know you've bought the tickets, if it's really not going well, who cares? Don't go. See if you can get the tickets to a friend, or just don't go or come late. There are many ways to navigate this, but the most important is to just find ways that take the stress off both of you. And then the final holiday uh flash point, I think, is when you finally get back from, you know, going to the panto or going out seeing friends, and you're trying to get your kids ready to for bed, and you're absolutely shattered and exhausted, and they're overstimulated, running around, and they won't settle, and you have nothing left to give. Again, the strategy here is let it be good enough. Maybe skip the bath. Maybe don't brush their teeth that night. Let them watch TV or be on their device to help them wind down. Lie down with them, maybe catch a couple of eyes of sleep yourself. Lower the bar. It doesn't mean you're failing, it means you're surviving. And surviving, that's actually succeeding. I want to actually give you permission this holiday season to say no, to leave early, to skip events entirely, to order takeaway on Christmas Day if you want. Let your child have more screen time than usual. Ask for help. You don't have to be perfect. Protect your energy. The holidays don't have to be perfect, they just have to be survivable and for you to enjoy the bits you can. You're already exhausted, you're doing the best you can, you're really brilliant. You are. Now, we know as neurodiverse moms that we have been able to reframe our child's behavior. And I know this was a huge turning point for me. When I stopped looking at Alexandra's behavior as she's misbehaving or being difficult, and you know, she's not trying hard enough, to me, realizing that actually she was struggling with her ADHD and that I needed to adjust things for her. And by reframing that, it changed everything, you know, because I stopped seeing her behavior as defiance and I started to see it as distress. And I could respond differently. So I had compassion instead of frustration and support instead of punishment and understanding instead of anger. Well, what I'd like to do, because I know you all do this with your children's behavior, I want you to do the same reframe for you. So the old reframe is I am a bad mom. I can't cope. I should be calmer. What's wrong with me? All those negative self-talk that we give ourselves. And instead, I want you to reframe it. I'm not failing, my nervous system can be overwhelmed, I'm doing my absolute best in an incredibly difficult situation. I need support, not judgment. Because you're not broken, you're not a bad mom, and you're not weak. You're just tired and you're trying to survive the holidays with a dysregulated child in a world that doesn't fully understand. And that is really hard. But you don't have to do it alone. What if things could be different? What if the next time your child had a meltdown, you didn't lose it or feel judged? What if the next time your mother-in-law makes a comment, it just rolls off of you? What if you could get through the holidays without feeling like you're drowning? That's what I want for you, and that's what you deserve. So I've actually created something quite special, which is an early Christmas gift that you can give yourself, and it's called the seven-day calm parent challenge. And this is for moms who are exhausted and overwhelmed. If you find you're losing your temper more than you want to and you're feeling guilty about it, and if you want to stay calm, but you generally just don't know how to do it, and you're so tired of everyone telling you just to relax. The seven-day challenge only costs 10 pounds, and I'll be sending you a day's email with what to focus on. And then I'll also send you some audio versions so you can listen to while you're doing something else, like the wrapping up. And also you'll have access to a private WhatsApp group so we can support each other. And mid-challenge, you'll have a live question and answer section with me. So, what would the seven days look like? I'm just gonna give you a little bit of a preview. So, our first day, we're gonna work on your personal trigger map. So, what are your holiday triggers? What sends you from the green to the yellow to the red? And kind of creating a watch list. And then on day two, we're gonna look at that reset: the notice, the name, the navigate, and how we use it and some real life scenarios. On day three, we're gonna dive into your zones. So understanding your personal patterns, and we're gonna do some journaling on that day as well. And then on day four, we're gonna talk about boundaries without guilt, how to say no without feeling terrible, and how to deal with difficult conversations and really protecting your energy. On day five, we are gonna let go of guilt, let go of perfect, let go of shoulds, and practice some self-compassion. And on day six, we're gonna build a personal toolkit with some strategies that you can dip into to see what works for your nervous system and to create your emergency plan. And then finally on day seven, we're gonna celebrate and commit to moving forward and plan for ongoing practice. So it's only 10 pounds, it's not a huge amount of money, it's two fancy coffees or a bottle of wine, and it's something that's for you, but actually it will benefit your kids as well because if you can stay calm, it helps them to stay calm. So I want you to remember the holidays don't need to be perfect. Your child doesn't have to be perfect, and you absolutely do not have to be perfect. What if this year, instead of aiming for perfect, we aimed for present? Present with your child even when it's messy, present with yourself, even when you're struggling, present in the moment, even when it's not Instagram worthy. That's all you need. You're enough, you are doing enough, and you are enough. Thank you for listening to me. I'm wishing you a present holiday season. Thank you. If today's episode made you think I need more of this, please join the seven-day Staying Calm challenge. The link is in the show notes. Um, for 10 pounds, you'll receive calming tools, audio guides, and access to a supportive parent community, plus a live QA with me. In just one week, you'll understand your triggers, release guilt, and build a personalized calm parent toolkit. You deserve a calmer holiday. Join the challenge using the link in the show notes. Happy holidays.