WHEN IT DOESN’T GO TO PLAN……
Holidays are supposed to be about relaxation and switching off, but sometimes they bring moments that test us as parents in ways we couldn’t predict. On our recent trip around Europe, what should have been a simple task — changing money at a local kiosk — spiralled into an incident that upset us all, especially our son.
We knew almost immediately that something wasn’t right. The amount of money handed back was shorter than we thought, and when my husband questioned it this was dismissed. What felt like a convenient language barrier from their end, resulted in the person changing the money suggesting we were money laundering, given we were reluctant to sign the form agreeing to the exchange. Things became a little heated, to the point my son got upset.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, the cashier then chose to mock my son by laughing at him and making fun of him crying. It wasn’t just about being shortchanged anymore; it was about fairness, dignity, and the shock of an adult choosing to pick on an 8 year old. I felt my chest tighten, my heart race, and the injustice flare up in me as strongly as it did in my husband. Our children watched, and before I knew it, the whole family was caught in a wave of stress.
Psychologically, what was happening to each of us was clear. The brain had registered a threat — — and the amygdala, our alarm system, had fired. My husband’s fight response came out in his sharp tone and the volume of his speech becoming louder. My own response tilted towards flight: a desperate urge to get away and remove the children from the situation. Ultimately. we struggled to make rational sense of things, our bodies flooded with adrenaline and cortisol. This is the biology of anxiety: when fight or flight is activated, the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that helps us problem-solve and stay rational — essentially goes offline. No wonder none of us could think straight.
Children feel this even more intensely. Their brains are still developing, especially in the areas that regulate emotions. When they see their parents overwhelmed, their nervous systems take it as evidence that the world really isn’t safe. Our son wasn’t just reacting to the woman behind the counter, he was reacting to our reactions too. That’s why his tears escalated the way they did.
Later, back at our accommodation, I found myself replaying the whole thing with a sense of guilt. I wanted to be the calm anchor, but my son had seen our panic. But being a therapist I know that it is impossible to be rooted in logical responses all of the time. Psychology reassures us that children don’t need flawless parents who never lose their cool. What matters is authenticity and repair. So instead of pretending I hadn’t been upset, I named it for him: “I felt scared and angry too. My body reacted before my brain could catch up.” My husband admitted his voice had been too sharp and should have left the situation earlier. In that honesty, we were teaching something far more powerful than perfect calm ever could: that emotions are real, they can overwhelm us, and they can also be talked about and worked through.
That evening we gave the children space to process what had happened. They had their own questions: “Why did she laugh at me?” “Why didn’t you call the police?” The sense of injustice was alive in all of us. But rather than brushing it aside, we leaned into the conversation. We talked about how sometimes people act unfairly, and that it hurts.
My daughter explained that her tummy felt funny. That was a perfect description of the stress response. I explained it in simple terms: “Your brain thought we were in danger, so it made your heart beat faster and your tummy feel funny. That’s your body’s alarm system — it’s trying to protect you.” I shared what had happened in my body too, modelling the same response as being normal in that situation, and hopefully helping the children see that anxiety isn’t weakness, it’s biology.
Immediately after the situation we intentionally slowed down, allowing the body to see that the perceived danger had passed. We even found humour in little things, bringing safety back through laughter. These techniques work because they activate the parasympathetic nervous system — the body’s “rest and digest” mode — which helps bring logic and calm back online.
That incident wasn’t what we’d planned for our holiday, but it gave us a chance to teach our children something important. They learned that everyone’s nervous system sometimes reacts quickly and without reason. They learned that injustice hurts, but it doesn’t have to define how we carry on. They saw that adults don’t always get it right, but they can reflect, apologise, and repair. Most importantly, they learned that when anxiety takes over, it can be spoken about, understood, and soothed together and that we are all human.