With no room left at the big dinner table, she’s forced to sit at the “kids’ table” with three older boys and a spoiled nine year old girl from another family. None of them talk to her until the awkward silence becomes unbearable. This isn’t her family, and this isn’t her ideal Thanksgiving.

“They don’t get me, and they’re like, ‘why you are here?’” she said. “But I’m there because I feel obliged to; I like doing it for my step mom.”

Although junior Taryn Valley reluctantly sits through uncomfortable and sometimes even demeaning conversations with cousins with whom she has little in common with. This is how she spends her Thanksgiving holiday each year.

During Christmas she goes to Seattle, where both sides of her family live. She finds herself at a different place almost every day to see multiple relatives from all sides of her family, which includes her mom, dad, step-mom and step-dad.

“Emotions are greater when we travel,” she said. “Both of [my families? Parents?] want time with me so for the most part it’s a really big negotiation with who goes where.”

She loves all sides of her family, but the angst of transitioning between her two homes, during the holidays especially, has left her not only jetlagged from so much traveling, but also feeling sad that her holidays aren’t as relaxing as she’d hope they’d be. “Sometimes I feel like more of a package than a person. I think: I don’t need to be shipped around; I’m a person,” she said.

The holiday season is meant to be a time of celebration; however, many South students with divorced parents find the holidays as a time of struggle and stress. While many divorced families have gotten into the habit of dividing the holidays between parents, many kids still struggle over the transition from one home to another.

While senior Robyn Kaufman’s parents have been divorced for almost four years, the absence of her other parent during the holidays constantly lurks in the back of her mind.

“It’s hard because [my parents] obviously want me and my sister [to stay] with them, but neither one of them wants to pressure us to be with either one,” she said. “I think both me and my sister are kind of torn between transitioning from going with my dad and being [with] our mom also.”

It’s a strange feeling for her to have to consciously remember to call her mom on Thanksgiving or her dad on Christmas when she is with the other parent.

“There’s always kind of in the back of your mind that my mom’s not with us right now or I have to go call mom or dad,” she said. “Even while you’re having a good time, there’s always the thought that your mom’s not there or your dad’s not there.”

Like Kaufman, senior Maddy Burrows makes sure to guard her actions while seeing each of her parents during the holidays. When she stays at her dad’s house during Christmas or Thanksgiving, she often feels uncomfortable not being in her own room at her mom’s house.

“I always feel [bad] saying that [I prefer my own room] because it’s not like I want to be with my mom more than my dad, it’s just a matter of the atmosphere and the space and that situation,” she said.

Burrows’s family celebrates Epiphany, which she has found helps ease her stress.

“It works out nicely because we can sort of have two Christmases; one with my mom and one with my dad,” she said. “We switch off every year and keep the tree up during that time and we have sort of an elongated Christmas season.”

Junior Josh Penzias’s parents, like many others, switch off between every Thanksgiving; this year, he spent Thanksgiving with his mom and her family. Each Hannukah, he is able to celebrate with both sides of his family since Hannukah lasts eight days; however, he still finds the holidays stressful, especially when his cousin’s on his dad’s side of the family invite him over when he is staying with his mom.

“There are some things that I don’t want to say in front of my dad with my mom around,” he said.

Penzias’s circumstances are different from those of many other students with divorced parents in that he has a twin brother, Greg.

“Having a brother definitely makes it [divorce] easier to deal with because the pressure of fulfilling my position is halved,” said Greg, referring to giving presents and talking during meals.

According to school psychologist Tracey Murphy, holiday stress can be heightened if the divorce is recent.

“It’s hard to adjust to the schedule accommodations kids need to make when it’s not something that they’re used to because it’s a new divorce situation, or if their parents live far apart,” she said.

She said it is common for kids to prefer one home or one parent to another, further complicating the situation.

School psychologist Andrew Aspel expressed a similar opinion, adding that school can often serve as a “safety net” for kids with troubling situations at home.

“They’re away from their family, they’re focusing on their school work and they’re spending time with friends,” he said. “For most kids school is kind of a safe place where you’re independent from your family.”

Murphy remembers a program she ran when she worked in elementary schools, called “Changing Families,” designed for kids with separated families. Around holiday time, she would create calendars for younger children to help them keep track of what house they would be at on different days. She said younger kids “like to be concrete and know what to expect.”

A crucial aspect of the program, too, she said, was the social interaction it promoted between kids with similar problems at home. This, she believes, relieves stress for kids of all ages going through difficult problems at home such as divorce.

“Kids, I think, really love knowing that other kids are going through the same struggles or similar struggles,” she said. “That’s why I think it’s more of a conversation amongst peers.”