HopeForYourFamily

Halloween Tips:
Here are some basic tips for parents to help their kids and family have a safe, enjoyable Halloween season, whether that means traditional Trick-or-Treating, church or community festivals, scary movie parties, or all of the above.

Young Children

- Only allow your children to Trick-or-Treat with a trusted adult, whether it is your self, or someone you and your children know well.

- Be sure your children Trick-or-Treat in a group that is small enough to be well supervised.  Large groups can easily split into smaller clusters – each with appropriate adult supervision.

- Know what movies will be viewed at the house or party your children will be attending, if they will be away from your home.  Screen movies for age-appropriateness.  Personal parental previewing is ideal, but you can also utilize an online reviewing tool, such as Dove, Plugged In, Michael Medved, or Hollywood Jesus (for teens or adults).  Be prepared to talk with your children before, during, and/or after viewing a scary movie about how movies use tricks to make pretend monsters look real.  These tips generally apply to haunted houses as well.

Older Children/Teens

- Know where they will be going, with whom, and how they will be getting there.  I recommend talking with them about this directly, and checking their Facebook/MySpace page, just to be sure.

- Get a phone number for someone, besides your child, who will be in the group, preferably an adult.

- Discuss personal responsibility, decision making, and consequences BEFORE they go out for their Halloween festivities.

- Empower kids ahead of time to leave if others in their group are making wrong choices, or if they otherwise feel uncomfortable with how things are going.  Give them permission to blame it on you, if it helps them make the right choice to get out of a bad situation.  Discuss practical ways they can do this, if need be.

Everyone

As you prepare for Trick-or-Treaters at your home, don’t just arm yourself with candy.  Be prepared to offer an encouraging word to the children who ring your doorbell, even the ones who seem like first class knuckleheads.  Spend time in prayer for the week preceding Halloween, asking God to work through you and your home to bless each child in a meaningful way.  Then keep your eyes, ears, and heart open to the opportunities He will give you to do just that.  The traditions of Halloween allow this to be a time of either community building or community harm, depending on our choices.  Do what you can to use the unique opportunities of this season to build a more loving, trusting, considerate community.

General Tips For A Healthy Holiday Season

• Resist the urge to impress others with your holiday efforts – there is only one Martha Stewart. Focus on holiday festivities that YOU and your household will enjoy, and let others worry about finding what they enjoy.
• Eat well. If you begin healthy eating habits now, they may help carry you through the holiday temptation to gorge now, and face the scale later. Avoid extreme diets, but find an approach to food and meals that is reasonable and healthy for you.
• Don’t overdo it. We Americans often feel compelled to try to do it all. Decide what is really most important for you to experience during the holidays, and do that. If others give you business about not doing something (a visit, an activity, etc), tell them you are giving them the gift of a healthier, less-stressed YOU this year!
• Have a regular, reasonable exercise routine. As with the eating – don’t try the most extreme thing you can find. Pick a managable, consistent plan that helps you get fit and toned in the ways that are most important to you. Remember, exercise is on of the greatest stress-relievers available. It releases natural stress-fighting chemicals within your own body, which means you can…
• Keep alcohol and medication use in moderation. It’s so tempting to turn to our old friends, Jack Daniel or Xanax, to make it through the holidays. The glass or two of wine with dinner, family, and friends, or the reasonable use of doctor’s prescribed medication is one thing. However, many make their lives worse with alcohol and drugs in an effort to numb themselves through the holidays. If you need that kind of help getting through the holidays, call a helping professional or reach out to Alcoholics Anonymous, and get some help that will really help.
• Focus more on family and faith, and less on stuff and entertainment. That first week of January can leave us feeling empty inside, if our holiday season has been all about presents, food, and movies (which are all great things – when kept in perspective and priority). The holiday season can be a great time to deepen our faith and relationships, and really do some healthy growing.
• Read “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry with your family. This is a great story for the family any time during the holiday season, but particularly significant for Christmastime. (The language may be a bit difficult – it was written about a hundred years ago.)
• Feel free to happily exclaim, “Merry Christmas!” to anyone without fear of offending them or resentment toward those who would have you tone it down to “Happy Holidays.”
• Watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. To me there’s something wholesome and nostalgic about the original black and white, but go for the colorized if it makes you happy.
• Use Thanksgiving to really think about and express what you are thankful for. Tell God. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Why not start a revolution and tell the person at the checkout line?! I’m all for turkey, ham, dressing, and that yummy cranberry sauce that slides out of the can (while keeping its shape), but the day is called “Thanksgiving” after all. You may even take this a step further and begin keeping a daily or weekly gratitude journal. For tips on what to write in it, see Philippians 4:8.
• Do your part to make roads and stores places of joy, rather than places of…well, you know how bad things get. Be part of the solution this season (not part of the problem).
• Enjoy your special traditions! If some old traditions are just not good for you anymore, don’t feel guilty about changing them or doing away with them. Make an effort to create a great new tradition or two this holiday season, as well. Traditions are a great way to remind us of who we are and help keep life in perspective, while offering great continuity to our years and seasons.
• Remember the old saying, “The family that prays together and plays together, stays together.” This isn’t a magic formula to make everything OK, but it sure can do us a lot of good.

For other great ideas and insights into having a healthy holiday season, check out the free ebooks from ScreamFree Living: http://www.screamfree.com/content.php?name=free-ebooks-reg (ebooks available are “ScreamFree Christmas,” “ScreamFree Holiday Meals,” and “ScreamFree Birthday Parties.”)

Some other sites that may be helpful to you during the holiday season are: http://www.daveramsey.com/ (for sound financial guidance) http://www.wdworkshop.com/ (for real help with weight loss and management) and http://www.womans.com/the_spa/index.php (The Spa at Woman’s Wellness Center, which offers services, such as a range of massage options, for women and men)

For Those Who Are Grieving This Holiday Season

Loss can make the holidays particularly difficult, and sometimes very painful and empty. While the death of a family member or friend is the most obvious form of loss that we acknowledge, there are other types of loss that are very significant as well: divorce, move, job change, loss of home, traumatic multiple loss – such as through a major hurricane, etc. If you or your family have experienced any significant loss this year, prepare to face the holidays a bit differently, and be patient with yourself and your family. Following are some practical tips to help you through the season:

• Take good care of yourself. This means focusing more on taking care of your own needs than on trying to please others by meeting their expectations of what you should or should not do during the holiday season.
• Parents, remember that your kids need you to be in a healthy place, for them to have the best chance of making a healthy adjustment. Remember the wisdom of the airline safety speech: “If you have small children, put your own oxygen mask on first, then the children’s.”
• Keep your expectations and plans reasonable. Don’t try to do more than you are able this year. This doesn’t mean you have to hide in a hole from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, but it will probably mean cutting back on holiday activities this year.
• Allow your children to be a part of holiday planning. It will give them a much-needed voice during this difficult time, and it may help you get a much clearer idea of how they are doing.
• Keep the traditions and memories that are important to you, even if others tell you to let them go this year. This is true for all of us, but is particularly meaningful to younger children. Continuity and predictability may be the most helpful resources to get them through a confusing and painful time.
• Acknowledge the loss for what it is – don’t try to pretend everything is still the same. It isn’t. Only when we honestly face the truth of our losses and hurts can we begin to truly heal and be restored. We may be able to pretend for a while, but eventually the painful reality of life becomes unavoidable.
• Don’t try to fill the void or ease the pain by spending too much money on presents, food, or festivities. This may be fun for a moment, but our stress only grows when that credit card bill comes in January.
• Talk about how you are doing with safe people you can trust. This means people that are willing to let you express your feelings without trying to correct or “fix” you. These are people who love and respect you enough to be with you in your pain, confusion, anger, guilt, hope, or any other feelings. If you have children, do your best to be this kind of safe person for them.
• Check out my “Parenting 101″ page entry from October 30, 2007, “Have a Healthy Holiday Season,” for more insights and recommendations.

For more guidance in having a healthy holiday season in the face of loss, check out the following excellent links and local resources:

(Looks like most of the sites I originally linked are now defunct.  I will work on providing some fresh online resources.)

www.dougy.org (The Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families)

G.O.A.L. (Going On After Loss) 225-766-4566 – Robin Smith, executive director, This excellent local resource provides weekly support group sessions, quarterly newsletters, and outreach workshops. Their vision is “to reach out to those in the community experiencing grief who would not otherwise seek counseling. This includes the unemployed, uninsured and those that are unable to pay.” All services are free.

L.O.S.S. (Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors) – http://www.brcic.org/pro_loss.html – This program, sponsored by The Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center and the Traumatic Loss Center is a wonderful program for adults and children who are survivors of the suicide of a loved one. For more information, or to enroll, contact Patty Rives at 225-924-1431 ext. 203, or email prives@brcic.org