We’ve all been there.
The first day or two you spend with your family at Christmas is great.
You catch up with everyone, have a few glasses of wine, reminisce about childhood memories and chill by the fire. Bliss.
However, after about two days in the house, it feels like the entire family is out to get you and you can’t help but get irked by your mum’s weird way of chewing and your brother’s body odor. Ugh.
Well, psychologist Nicholas Joyce has shared a few tips on how to avoid arguments with your family at this time of year, and even if you think you’ll be fine, we’d take some of it on board.
Joyce wrote for The Conversation and said that we have to have an “acceptance mindset” towards family members whose little traits get on our nerves.
“This mindset involves dealing with exactly what is true, what is factual and what is realistic rather than all the things that we wish could be.
“It means I will go to holiday dinner knowing full well my brother is going to tease me or my mom is going to comment on my appearance.
“Entering with this reality makes us less reactive and more capable of choosing what if anything we want to do about this dynamic.”
Do you think you’ll be able to do it?
