Stress-relieving tips for divorced families

By Judy Fortin
CNN

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(CNN) -- Family gatherings around the holidays can be stressful. Experts say that's especially true for step families.

For a child, being away from a biological mother or father and blending in with a new family can add confusion.

CNN medical correspondent Judy Fortin spoke about relieving the stress with psychologist Nadine Kaslow, a child and family psychologist at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fortin: Why are the holidays so stressful for divorced parents and their children?

Kaslow: Dealing with divorce around the holidays is extremely difficult. The first year after the divorce, there is a sense of a void. Children really want the family feeling. So they feel like they've lost something. It's really hard for children and it takes them a long time to get over it.

Fortin: How can rituals ease stress?

Kaslow: Rituals help us have a sense of what is predictable. It's something you can count on every year. Rituals that are well done give everyone a role from the youngest child to the oldest adult that everybody has an important part to play. The other thing about rituals is that they give meaning to the family. They bring families closer together.

Fortin: How do you temper expectations?

Kaslow: Particularly in blended families it's very important to temper expectations because they want this parent or step-parent to be just like the other family was, and it's not going to be, and it's going to be different. Sometimes it helps for families to have a family meeting ahead of time. (Read Kaslow's holiday tips for blended families.)

Fortin: How can younger children reconnect with a parent if they have to be separated during the holidays?

Kaslow: For children, you don't want them to feel responsible for taking care of their parents during the holidays. Sometimes in divorced families that is what happens.

So the children may be with Dad on Christmas Eve and then they leave Dad alone and they go have fun on Christmas day and they worry about Dad being alone.

It's Dad's responsibility to find a way to be connected on Christmas day say through a phone call, an e-mail.

I think it's really important in divorced families to remember that the children come first and even though you may no longer love each other and want to be together, that you have to think about what's best for the children.

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