Gearing up for a big family dinner party? Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, a wedding, or any other kind of family get-together, keeping the peace is no joke…especially when it feels like you’re constantly being provoked by relatives looking to pick a fight.
In this Q&A, we have a sticky situation coming from Anita, who asks
“Hello Lauren, can you help me keep conversation civil during my big family Christmas dinner? I’ve got a couple of family members who have very different ideas and beliefs from me, and they just LOVE airing out their dirty laundry. It sometimes feels like they’re trying to pick a fight or get a rise out of me. How can I avoid taking the bait while still keeping conversation civil?”
Tune into the video below for some practical strategies for keeping conversation civil during family gatherings – even when you feel like you’re being deliberately provoked.
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Now let’s open up that sharing circle – have you ever had a family gathering go spectacularly sideways? If you’re willing, please share the gory details in the comments or send them to me over on Twitter
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hello hello hello, it is Q&A time where I get to answer all sorts of questions about communication from you – my lovely viewers. And today we have a sticky situation coming from Anita, who asks
“Hello Lauren, can you help me keep conversation civil during my big family Christmas dinner? I’ve got a couple of family members who have very different ideas and beliefs from me, and they just LOVE airing out their dirty laundry. It sometimes feels like they’re trying to pick a fight or get a rise out of me. How can I avoid taking the bait while still keeping conversation civil?”
Ah, aren’t family dynamics fun, Anita? Even the most harmonious households get into scrapes like these, especially during stressful times of the year like the holiday season.
While I know that your brain is probably thinking ‘okay, here we go again,” you can take some very real steps to prepare yourself for the inevitable tense conversations and get through the family gathering with greater composure.
When dealing with these sorts of family dynamics, there’s something that I want you to keep in the absolute front of your mind: when the arguing starts, you can be right, or you can be polite. Trying to be right is just going to invite more fighting – no argument made at a family gathering will change the way your family thinks. But being polite will make the evening go more smoothly and will reduce stress, even if it means you need to bite your tongue for a few hours and let other people do all the talking.
In terms of how to get through the gathering, there’s a few strategies I want you to try. First, spend some time thinking about who will be there and what sort of aggravating or contentious things they will bring up. Accept the fact that these things will be brought up – don’t waste time or energy mentally struggling against it – just calmly tell yourself “This stuff is going to come up. I can’t prevent it, but I can choose how I’ll respond to it.”
Next, shift your focus and intentions away from engaging in the argument or making a point and instead towards discovering as much as you can about why a family member thinks the way they do. Then, when the red button topics come up, ask them neutral, open-ended questions about their opinions, about why they view things a certain way, and then ask them questions about related subjects. Don’t fight them on their opinions or dismiss them as ridiculous. Just listen and learn.
The whole point of asking the other person lots of questions instead of making statements is that it will allow the other person to do most of the talking, which means you can more easily keep your mouth shut. It can help the other person feel that they’re being heard and that their opinion is valued, which can drastically reduce the tension. And it’ll give you the chance to use questions to gently guide the conversation away from the contentious issue and towards other, less volatile topics.
There is one more thing that I want to address. Anita, I don’t know if you drink or not, but a lot of people overindulge at events like these with the excuse that a stiff drink will “help them through it”. Now I like a glass of red myself, but I adopt a low-or-no booze policy in situations like this. Alcohol lowers inhibitions – you’re much more likely to lose your restraint and get sucked into the bickering when you’ve got a boozy buzz going on. Stick to tea or coffee or…pineapple juice…whatever your alternative drink is, just be sure to stay stone cold sober.
Remember, Anita, you can be right, or you can be polite. Family gatherings come to an end, and your goal is to get through it, not to radically shift your family’s opinions on X, Y, or Z. Take deep breaths – you CAN do this. I hope this helps you have a more peaceful holiday season.
Now let’s open up that sharing circle – have you ever had a family gathering go spectacularly sideways? If you’re willing, please share the gory details in the comments down below.
If you’ve found this video helpful for surviving your next family gathering, please help others find this video by clicking that like button and subscribing to my channel. Don’t forget to head over to laurensergy.com and sign up for more communication advice that I only share out by email.
Thanks so much for watching, and I look forward to seeing you on our next Q&A!
