Richard Hogan: Navigating the minefield of family dynamics

Richard Hogan. Photograph Moya Nolan

We are only a few days out from the big man’s arrival. It is always a chaotic week; collecting the turkey, buying the last of the presents, calling to family and friends, getting the house ready for visitors and managing the excitement of children.

It can certainly be a wonderful time, connecting with family and friends and reflecting on the year that has happened.

This might be the first normal Christmas in two years. So, I think we all have expectations to manage. While I love this time of year, I think it should come with a little warning too.

For, whenever we force merriment on people it can be the antidote to fun.

Fun happens in the cracks, in the spaces we were not expecting it to happen.

I remember being at a conference in Germany once and the speaker announced that there would be a short break in the proceedings for spontaneous fun.

Needless to say the only fun had was the constant declaration of, ‘spontaneous fun time’. So, when we feel forced to enjoy ourselves we can have a negative reaction to it.

Sometimes we can really question our levels of merriment: ‘I don’t have the Christmas feeling this year’ or ‘it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all’.

This can steal our joy over the next few days, as we compare our current levels of joy to previous Christmases and we come up short. It can just be a little error in our thinking.

Difficult dynamics

Many of us dread the next few days because it brings us into contact with those we have been avoiding all year. I meet clients at this time of the year and they are looking for some tips on how to manage difficult family relations and dynamics.

Our early experiences are never far from our present behaviour; where we came in the family and how we were perceived by our parents and siblings can really catch us in a tricky bind.

Those invisible forces can be very powerful. So, before you go back into a family dynamic this Christmas, think about the position you arrived into that family.

If you were the eldest, maybe you were given too much responsibility, maybe your parents relied on you too much and you resented having to look after your siblings, or you always felt the younger children had it easier because you took the brunt of your parents inexperience.

Being the oldest can be like traversing a thick forest, you have to machete the dense undergrowth so those behind can walk with ease. Therefore you might view the youngest as always having it easy and never having to compromise or be
responsible.

While the youngest might view the eldest as always thinking they know everything and are bossy; waiting to put them down and make them feel small.

The youngest can feel like they have to fight to be heard and can often come across as loud.

The middle child can often be caught between these two big personalities and be positioned as the peace-keeper.

These early dynamics are powerful and like the event horizon of a black hole, can pull you in even when you are aware of them. We can fight to re-author those early labels we received as children but the minute we step back into our family of origin, we are stepping back into the skin of that younger child.

And when we leave that experience, we can feel so incredibly powerless because we fell right back into the role that was assigned to us all those years ago.

Families are the most complicated systems we will ever have to navigate. However, we all have the power to show people they underestimated us or that we have changed.

Passive aggression

One of the biggest causes of conflict over the festivities is passive aggression. Let’s say you have a difficult relationship with a sibling and you always feel they put you down or say negative things to you.

And you’re sitting there and something subtle is thrown out that hurts your feelings, now your cognition is hot and you say something aggressively back.

A passive aggressive person says something negative in a way that allows them not to take responsibility for that comment. It really is the behaviour of a weak person. But now they have an out and say to you, ‘what’s wrong with you, I was only joking?’ You look like the irrational one. And they got you.

But what would happen if you responded with cold cognition, and said, ‘what do you mean by that? Can you explain the joke?’ Now you have put it back on them and you haven’t been aggressive.

They will be much less likely to try and say something subtle to you next time because you calmly called them out on their behaviour. Christmas can be a special time, but it can also place a lot of pressure on us and we have to navigate old family dynamics.

But, it’s all over in a few days, what would it be like to relax about it all and enjoy it.