ASK THE EXPERT:Seasonal traditions are what create happy memories and cement family bonds
HAVE YOU any favourite Christmas traditions in your family? This is our first Christmas with our little man who is just five months old and I'd love to create something special to mark this time of year differently.
Neither my husband nor I can think of anything special that our families used to do apart from the turkey and ham and all the decorating.
JUST THE fact that you are thinking differently about this time of year means that you will create it as a special time. It is nice, too, that you are planning early so that as your son grows up he will have clear memories that will be reinforced year after year.
The key bit of tradition is that it becomes an annual habit. So pretty much everything you do that gets repeated every year counts as a tradition.
It is very easy to import traditions and to make them your own as long as they fit with your family and what you would like to do. There are loads of ideas from all over the world, never mind some of our own Irish ones. Just Google "Christmas traditions" and see what comes up.
My favourite tradition is to always ensure that we stay home for Christmas Day and do our visiting afterwards. I love the fact that this is the one guaranteed day when our family will be together.
We have collected CDs of Christmas carols and books with Christmas themes over the years and we keep them with our Christmas decorations in the attic only to appear in mid-December. So their reintroduction each Christmas really marks the season.
Also, if you don't already light a candle at mealtimes it is a nice idea to do it for the meals over Christmas. Having a lighted candle at the table adds a sense of occasion, even though the only occasion might be that you are sitting down together to eat - occasion enough!
Also, I am a big fan of anything that gives your family a reason to interact all together; whether it is board games, computer games, a trip ice skating, going to select the Christmas tree, decorating it or whatever. It is those shared memories of togetherness that remind us that we are part of a family at all.
I HAVE A four year old who is constantly wetting himself. He was toilet trained last year and it seemed successful at the time. I can't help thinking he is just lazy and is too distracted by whatever he is doing at the time to be bothered to go to the bathroom.
Will he grow out of it, because it is really starting to bug me and I can feel myself getting furious with him? I can't bear the constant hassle of reminding him, being ignored by him and then still ending up cleaning him and changing his pants.
IT DOES GET incredibly frustrating; it is time-consuming and means you probably feel like you have to be constantly aware in case he needs to go.
This dynamic may in fact be part of the problem. Because we are aware of our children's toileting habits we do often remind them to go, or even bring them to the toilet. This means, of course, that they don't have to think about it. If it seems to be more our responsibility than theirs, then they certainly won't be prioritising attending to their body signals.
He might also like the attention he gets from you as this might seem to him like the only time you are focused exclusively on him.
So, rather than thinking about it as laziness, think about it as a lack of responsibility. Your task then is to increase his responsibility for toilet-related activity so that he gets less attention from you for it and feels more in control of it himself.
Start the process by explaining that he is a big boy now and can be fully in charge of going to the toilet when he gets that "bursting to go" feeling and that you will stop reminding him about using the bathroom.
He will probably still have wetting accidents but he might just feel good about the fact that he remembers, on his own, for the few times he does use the bathroom. This is what he will build on.
Similarly, rather than cleaning him and changing him, try leaving a facecloth in the bathroom and have clean underwear on a shelf somewhere that he can reach. Explain about the stuff for cleaning and changing being there for him and that he can use it if he needs to if he forgets to get to the bathroom on time.
You can help him if he asks for help but don't offer to help or to do it for him. In this way you avoid taking proactive responsibility and you give him back the control he needs.
• David Coleman is a clinical psychologist and broadcaster with RTÉ television
• Readers' queries are welcome and will be answered through the column, but David regrets he cannot enter into individual correspondence. Questions should be e-mailed to healthsupplement@ irishtimes.com