The holidays can be difficult for everyone. Here tips and local Lafayette area resources to help.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – During the stretch of November and December that encapsulates many of the year’s major holidays – Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and others – there’s typically an increase of travel and spending time with family.

Differences in political, religious, financial views or even thoughts of parental favoritism between adult siblings can be the cause of conflict in families during the holiday season, a time which is generally encouraged have a cheerful and festive mood.

Jill Suitor, a Purdue distinguished professor of sociology, said through her years-long study of “Within Family Differences” found that parental preferences “emerged as the most consistent predictor of relational and psychological well-being” among the mothers and adult children that were part of the study. In addition, the study predicted that these preferences can become more consequential in later stages of life.

Adult children often believe that their parents prefer one child or confide in one child over another for a variety of reasons, which Suitor said can cause rifts in relationships between the adult siblings or with the parent and child.

“We know from research that adult children are wrong far more often than they are right about patterns of favoritism that exist in the family,” Suitor said.

If conflicts of favoritism or other polarizing topics such as politics or religion arise, Suitor said her best advice was to focus on common agreements rather than differences.

“Recognizing that you may not agree with your family with some things, but agree a great deal on others,” Suitor said.

It’s also not easy to deal with grief in a time that is expected to be festive and cheerful, according to Heather Servaty-Seib, a professor of counseling psychology at Purdue.

“The holidays are not going to be the one-sided event that society tells us,” Servaty-Seib said. “There are certainly elements of disappointment involved.”

Recognizing that grief doesn’t end, but instead changes and shifts over time is an important factor to understanding how some people might feel during the season. How people grieve varies. Servaty-Seib said some may want to engage in certain traditions and acknowledge a person’s absence in those traditions, while other many want to shift and change traditions in a way that honors the memory of a loved one that has died.

The best thing family or friends can do to support a person who is grieving during the holiday season, or year round, is to recognize that grief does not end, that it is not equal to sadness and that it changes and shifts, Servaty-Seib said.

“To me, one of the best things for grieving people to do is talk about similarities and differences in grief, and how those can come to play during the holidays,” Servaty-Seib said. “Each person needs to have a personalized response.”

Along with grief or issues of favoritism, other crises of any shape and size during this season could arise, and often people may need someone to talk to, which is where the Crisis Center at Mental Health America, Wabash Valley Region comes into play. Tenecia Waddell-Pyle, director of crisis intervention services at MHA, said the volunteer and staff run crisis line, which operates over phone or text message, offers completely free and confidential assistance to someone going through any type of crisis in their life.

Calls to the Crisis Center actually increase in January, Waddell-Pyle said, likely due to people facing the reality of a new year, mounting debt, losing hope in the coldest winter months, or leaving from spending time with family during the holiday season.

When a person calls the center, which operates 24/7, they are connected with “crisis intervention specialists,” a team of volunteers and MHA staff aid the caller, walking them through steps to deescalate the situation or reaching out to Lafayette police if it is a matter of safety.

The crisis intervention specialists are given 44 hours of intensive training to learn suicide intervention skills, empathy and values training, emergency intervention, assertiveness, technology and cultural competency. Trainees learn they leave their personal judgment at the door, listen to callers and explore options with them to deescalate a crisis situation.

Having a crisis center local to the Lafayette allows callers in need to be connected quickly to local resources, Waddell-Pyle said.

“This is a vital mental health service we provide to the community to bridge the gap to resources that people wouldn’t otherwise know about or get to,” Waddell-Pyle said. “At some point in peoples’ lives they either need help or want to be the helper, and we provide an avenue for both.”

Mental Health America Crisis Center Numbers

Crisis Line - Call or Text: 765-742-0244

Toll-free Crisis Line:  877-419-1632

To volunteer with the MHA Crisis Center, visit https://www.mhawv.org/services/crisis-center

Emily DeLetter is a news reporter for the Journal & Courier. Contact her at (765) 420-5205 or via email at edeletter@jconline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @EmilyDeLetter.