Festive Feeling Series
Navigating the Festive Season with Resilience and Practical Strategies
By Prof Patrick McGhee
The father-son relationship, often characterised by unspoken expectations, competition, and a unique form of ‘activation,’ takes on an intensified significance during the Christmas period. Unlike the traditionally expressive mother-daughter dyad, the dynamics between fathers and sons can be subtle, communicated through shared activities, silence, and the performance of competence.
Christmas, with its enforced proximity and focus on traditional roles—the son returning home, the father hosting or providing—acts as a psychological spotlight, illuminating long-standing anxieties about validation, identity, and generational succession. For those of us practising Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, recognising the cognitive scripts activated in this relationship is key to helping men navigate the festive season constructively.
The Ghost of Unfinished Business: Self-Efficacy and Emotion
The son often arrives home carrying a lifetime of paternal messaging, which heavily influences his sense of self-efficacy—the belief in one’s own ability to succeed in specific situations.
Research, including a significant 2024 study on father self-efficacy and child mental health, suggests that a father’s parenting style—particularly his response to a child’s negative emotions—has a long-term, indirect effect on his son’s mental well-being.
At Christmas, this often plays out in two ways:
- The Competence Trap: The son feels compelled to demonstrate his adult success (e.g., job title, financial status, ability to fix the Christmas lights) to gain explicit or tacit approval. The father, viewing the son’s competence as a measure of his own success as a parent, may offer intrusive ‘help’ or critical commentary, inadvertently triggering the son’s original feelings of inadequacy.
- Emotional Avoidance: Traditional masculine scripts often encourage emotional restraint. When faced with the stress of the holidays (financial pressure, logistical demands), both father and son may resort to avoidance coping—using emotional withdrawal or distracting activities (like excessive drinking or obsessive focus on sports) rather than sharing genuine feelings of overwhelm. This emotional distancing is a key factor in festive loneliness, even when surrounded by family.
The Lasting Legacy: Involvement and Stress Regulation
The effects of the father-son bond stretch far beyond immediate interactions. A 2022 longitudinal study examined the long-term impact of father involvement during childhood on the son’s physiological stress regulation system in adulthood.
The study revealed a correlation between the quantity of positive father involvement in childhood (e.g., shared activities, reading, outings) and a more well-regulated adult diurnal cortisol pattern—the body’s core physiological response to stress. In simple terms, a consistently involved father contributes to a son’s biological resilience almost three decades later.
This finding carries vital implications for Christmas:
- The Activation Relationship: Fathers are noted for encouraging ‘healthy risk-taking’ and ‘activation’—often through physical, ‘rough-and-tumble’ play—which can equip sons to manage anxiety. At Christmas, shared, low-stakes activities (a competitive board game, a long walk) can become vital, non-verbal channels for maintaining positive connection and mutual co-regulation of stress.
- The Silence of Disappointment: For adult sons who experienced low quality or quantity of paternal involvement in childhood, the expectation of a ‘perfect’ family Christmas can heighten feelings of emotional disconnect, leading to amplified stress and internalising problems like anxiety or depression. The shared, competitive silence over the carving knife can feel less like peace and more like proof of an unbridgeable gap.
Towards Authentic Connection: A CBT Framework for the Festive Season
The festive season presents a powerful opportunity to rewrite old, unhelpful scripts in the father-son dynamic. CBT provides clear steps for fostering a more genuine, resilient relationship:
- Define and Communicate Roles: Combat the ‘Competence Trap’ by having a brief, proactive conversation. The son can say: “Dad, I’d really love your expertise on the turkey this year, but I’ll handle the potatoes myself.” This validates the father’s competence while clearly establishing the son’s adult autonomy.
- Challenge the Emotional Rulebook: Men often adhere to the rigid schema that ‘Real men don’t show weakness.’ Challenge this cognitive rule. Instead of asking, “How’s work?”, which invites a defensive, performance-based answer, try an open-ended question designed to elicit genuine emotion: “What’s the best thing that’s happened to you recently, and what’s been the most challenging thing?”
- Engage in Purposeful Rituals: Move beyond passive time-sharing and invest in activities that promote non-verbal co-regulation. This could be a traditional family ritual, or a new shared tradition like putting on the same old film or going for a specific Christmas morning run. The consistency of the action provides a predictable, emotionally safe space for connection.
This Christmas, let us encourage fathers and sons to shift their focus from the performance of a perfect holiday to the authentic connection within their unique relationship. By understanding the profound, lasting impact of their bond and choosing emotional connection over emotional withdrawal, they can forge a genuinely warm and meaningful festive experience. This process is not about perfection, but about embracing the complexity and vulnerability that define the strength of their enduring tie.
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