This year has been a wild roller coaster ride. Some of us sat in the front with our hands in the air screaming. Some sat in the middle quietly gripping the handrails, and some of us sat in the back being whipped from side to side. Regardless of where you sat, we have all arrived in this moment together. How can we help ourselves and our families navigate this crazy year? The Holidays bring traditions, family, great food, celebrations and much more. This year will look different for most of us. If you have children living with you, the challenge of bringing “normal” into the Holidays can be quite daunting. One of the things I have found useful is modeling resiliency for our children. Resiliency has many different looks and involves emotional regulation from adults. Emotional regulation doesn’t mean you show no emotions at all and hide them from everyone around you. It means noticing, naming, and expressing emotions in a healthy manner. Resilience and emotional regulation are learned traits not genetic traits. Each moment in our lives, we have the ability to make choices, new memories and fill our lives with positive energy. Making this choice can be hard to fathom during incredibly difficult times. This is where resiliency comes in. By allowing our children to see emotions modeled in a healthy manner, it allows them to practice this modeling also. Acknowledging sorrow, sadness, fear, joy, excitement, and all of our myriad of emotions helps increase emotional intelligence, understanding and allows for shared moments and forward motion. This modeling can be done through music, art, outdoor activities; let your imagination and the imagination of your children take the lead. There are positive choices to be made during hard times and making them together as a family builds resiliency. Research has shown that children taught resiliency emerge from challenging experiences with a positive sense of themselves and their futures. What new memories can you make as a family this year? Who knows, you might just be creating new traditions!