Making Holiday Family Conversations Merrier

The annual Stress in America survey consistently reports strain among families caused by their ideological differences, and the holidays have a keen reputation for these conflicts, even at the dinner table.

Try the following tips to help make your get-togethers a little merrier:

1. steer conversations that appear to be drifting into conflict toward those things you can agree on;
2. if you are angry about what’s in the news, avoid displacing this tension onto loved ones;
3. challenge yourself to be a tension de-escalator, not an aggravator; and
4. rehearse how you might respond to conflict because doing so will dramatically improve your ability to act calmly while avoiding hair-trigger reflexes.

Source: apa.org [search “stress-conversations”]

Keith Stein | 12/12/2019

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