Not Just You: How Parents Can Gently Re‑Anchor Children After Disruptive Holiday Routines

Illustration generated using AI tools.

Many parents have been in touch recently about the post‑holiday struggle. Your children return from a holiday with your ex completely out of sync, school has already started, and you are left holding the chaos, the anger, and the worry about their long‑term wellbeing. For many expat parents, often far from extended family and navigating cross‑cultural dynamics, this time can feel especially lonely and destabilising.

Routine and the “holding environment”

The British paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott wrote about the importance of a reliable “holding environment”: the combination of a responsive caregiver and a predictable setting that allows a child’s mind and body to organise themselves. In his well‑known idea of the “good‑enough mother”, he describes how a parent initially adapts very closely to the baby’s needs and then gradually “fails” them in small, manageable ways so the child can begin to tolerate frustration and develop an inner sense of safety and continuity.

From this perspective, daily routines are not just practical timetables; they are part of the psychological holding that allows a child to feel that life is broadly safe and predictable. When a child moves between two very different sets of rules—late nights and lots of screens with one parent, early bedtimes and homework rituals with the other—the holding environment itself can feel split, and their behaviour often shows the strain.

For expat families, there are extra layers: long‑haul flights, jet lag, helpers or extended family in one household but not the other, and sometimes stark differences in cultural expectations around sleep, food, discipline and deference to elders. Post‑holiday clashes are rarely “just” about too many late nights; they are often a collision of two versions of home, two cultures, and two unspoken stories about what a “good parent” should be.

Younger children: re‑finding the ground

For infants and primary‑school children, disruption often shows first in their bodies and basic functions. You may notice that they:

• Refuse to go to bed or need you to stay much longer than usual.

• Melt down over getting dressed for school or separating from you at the gate.

• Regress in toileting or suddenly become very fussy with food.

From an attachment lens, this is not simply that they are “spoiled now”. It is a sign that their internal sense of predictability has been shaken, and they need to test whether you, as the more consistent attachment figure, are still there to help them re‑establish it. In cities with intense schedules and often limited outdoor space, this dysregulation can feel amplified because there are fewer physical outlets and less time to “buffer” the transition.

What can help with younger children

• Short, visual routines. A simple visual schedule for “school days” (wake‑up, breakfast, brush teeth, uniform, transport; dinner, bath, story, sleep) means the routine is something external you both refer to, not just you “being strict”. Some parents find that using tools like Alexa or similar devices to announce steps (“Now it’s time to get dressed”) can remove some of the nagging, and younger children often respond well to the neutral reminder.

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• Transitional rituals. Small, repeatable acts can signal “back in this home now”: a particular snack when they return, a song in the bath, or a “one nice thing about today” at bedtime. These micro‑rituals help rebuild a sense of continuity.

• Naming the difference without blaming. You might try an “I‑statement”: “I know that at Mum’s/Dad’s you had very late nights and lots of cartoons. At our house, I help your body and brain get ready for school again, so we have earlier sleep. Both places care about you in different ways, and I want to help you feel ready for school and your friends.” This honours the child’s experience and keeps you out of the good‑parent / bad‑parent trap.

This is not the time for perfect control but for being a reliable, emotionally present parent who can tolerate your child’s temporary disorganisation while the routine reforms. Your frustration is real—and also part of what needs holding, so it does not spill out as harshness towards the children or attacks on yourself for not “managing better”.

Older children and teens: loyalty pulls and “two worlds”

By late primary and adolescence, most young people know the two households are different. One home may represent “freedom, fun and no nagging”, while the other holds “school, rules and reality”. Returning to school after a holiday block with the more permissive parent can trigger strong push‑back, such as:

• Refusal to follow curfews or limits that they previously accepted.

• Sarcastic comparisons (“At Mum’s I can stay up, you’re so controlling”; “Dad lets me game, you don’t get it”).

• Withdrawing into devices or friends, with more irritability at family requests.

Psychodynamically, this often reflects internal splitting: instead of holding a complicated picture (“both parents love me but have flaws and limits”), the young person copes by idealising one parent and devaluing the other. There can also be a cultural split: one home may be more closely linked with extended family and flexible bedtimes, while the other aligns with particular routines and academic expectations. The teen then carries a painful sense of living between two worlds, two sets of norms, and sometimes two languages.

Illustration generated using AI tools.

What can help with older children and teens

• Invite them to co‑create the routine. Instead of simply “switching the old rules back on”, you might ask, “Given school has started and you’re tired from late nights, what’s a realistic bedtime this week? What would help you get up on time?” This respects their emerging autonomy while keeping you in the holding role of someone who thinks with them about reality.

• Name the loyalty conflict. You could gently say, “It sounds like part of you wants to defend your time with Mum/Dad by keeping their rules going here. Another part knows that school and your health need something different. I’m not asking you to choose a side; I’m here to help you get ready for school and look after yourself.” This kind of mentalising supports integration rather than forcing them to take sides.

• Connect to identity, not just behaviour. Many teens feel pressure to perform academically while also navigating culture, friendships and identity. Linking routines to their own hopes (“more energy for football”, “less anxiety before exams”, “time to chat with friends”) can feel more respectful than “because I said so”.

Over time, the holding environment becomes internalised as a capacity to “hold oneself”. When you remain firm but reflective in the face of post‑holiday storms, you are helping your teen build that inner parent—one that will later organise their own sleep, food, study and relationships—even if at the moment it looks as if they are rejecting everything you stand for.

Your anger with your ex: carrying more than your share

Holidays often highlight an underlying split in parental roles. One parent (often the one with more school contact) becomes the “boring container”: homework, bedtimes, emotional labour and logistics. The other can more easily inhabit the “fun” role: treats, outings, fewer limits, and sometimes a subtle or open undermining of your structure.

Psychodynamically, this can involve projective processes: the “fun” parent disowns their own guilt, anxiety and wish to be seen as loving and “nice”, and unconsciously leaves you to carry all the worry, anger and boundaries. You can end up feeling both resentful towards them and critical of yourself: “Why am I always the one nagging? Maybe I am too rigid. Maybe the kids prefer them because I’m failing.”

It can be helpful to see this as a pattern in the system rather than a personal flaw. You are being asked to hold not only your own frustration and the children’s dysregulation, but also the other parent’s disowned responsibilities. Maybe the task is not to become superhuman and perfectly containing, but to remain “good enough”: reliable, able to acknowledge limits, and open to repair when you lose your temper or become inconsistent.

Giving your own anger somewhere safe to go—therapy, supervision, a trusted friend or a divorce coach—protects your capacity to keep holding the children. And it is worth remembering that after overseas holidays or long visits, many children are also coping with genuine circadian disruption alongside the emotional shifts, which can make everything feel harder for a while.

Practical, gentle steps for “re‑holding”

In the first week or two after a disruptive holiday or visit, it can help to approach routines in small, compassionate steps:

• Lower the bar (strategically). Expect clinginess, irritability and testing. When you can, plan for earlier evenings, simpler meals and fewer extra activities. Let school and core sleep routines take priority over perfect homework or screen rules; you can tighten again once the basic holding feels re‑established.

• Create a re‑entry ritual. Perhaps a short walk together, unpacking side‑by‑side, or a “welcome back to this home” snack and chat. You might say, “Our bodies and hearts are changing gears from holiday mode to school mode; it takes a few days and we’ll do it together.”

• Use story and symbol. Younger children may respond to a simple story about a child with two homes and a caring grown‑up who helps them find their own steady beat. Older children may relate to metaphors of jet lag or switching apps: “Your brain has been running one operating system; now we’re shifting to another, and that lag feels horrible for a bit.”

• Keep communication with your ex factual and child‑focused. A brief message like, “School resumes on Monday; it would really help if bedtime the night before could be no later than X so they can manage the first day,” can support your own sense of being the thinking parent, even if they do not respond as you hope.

• Repair when you “lose it”. If you shout or speak sharply, a small repair—“I shouted earlier because I’m worried about how hard this change is for you. Shouting is not okay and no one deserved shouting. I’m going to work on saying the same things more calmly”—models that relationships can survive anger and that responsibility can be owned without shame.

• Look after the holder. In Winnicott’s terms, the person who holds also needs to be held. That might mean your own therapy, a peer group of co‑parents, or time with a divorce coach who understands high‑conflict dynamics. Even small acts—five minutes of grounding (for example, the 5‑4‑3‑2‑1 technique), a solo coffee after school drop‑off, a short walk, a massage, regular exercise—can help you stay more anchored and less reactive.

Seen through a psychodynamic and attachment lens, post‑holiday chaos is not proof that you are failing. It is evidence that your children are trying to make sense of two different internal and external worlds at once. By offering a good‑enough, reliable holding environment in your home—one that makes room for their feelings, your frustration, and the reality of school and sleep—you are already doing deeply important work that will outlast this term’s timetable.