Dear fellow parent,

By now the season has fully arrived.
Calendars are full, expectations stretch, and somewhere between the shopping lists and school concerts, we can feel ourselves speeding up again.

So this week, our compass turns gently toward A — Adapt.
Adaptation, in Lead Together language, isn’t about doing more — it’s about letting the way we move through the world adjust to what’s real, kind, and human.
It’s about discovering that belonging can happen even when things don’t go as planned.

In Internal Family Systems® (IFS) practice, we learn that we are made of many parts — all trying, in their own ways, to protect us.
December wakes most of them.
The Planner who keeps everyone organised.
The Pleaser who wants peace at the table.
The Performer who hopes the house will finally look like the picture in their head.

They all have good intentions, even when they exhaust us.
When I notice them taking over, I pause and say inwardly:

“Thank you for caring so much, Let’s slow down together.”

It’s amazing what happens when we stop fighting those parts and simply offer them a seat by the fire.
They give space for presence to return.

That is adaptation — not fixing ourselves, but shifting our internal stance from control to companionship.
From doing Christmas to being here for it.

Occupational Therapy sees adaptation as asking ‘what does participation look like for me in the current environment?’ IFS invites us to include the inner environment too.
Both lead us back to the same idea: presence is participation.
We don’t need to add anything; we need only be.

So this week, if you find yourself caught in “shoulds,” experiment with letting something remain undone.
Bake one less batch, skip one event, sit down mid-task and notice your breath.
Your children won’t remember the perfect menu — they’ll remember your face when you finally sat because you’d stopped rushing.

A Glimpse Ahead

Next week, we’ll arrive at the “D” in our L-E-A-D framework: Discover — rediscovering wonder and belonging as the year turns toward its close.

Before you close this email, take a breath for yourself, and a breath for your child.
Not the child in matching Christmas jumpers — the child who called you into love big enough to include imperfection.

May we adapt by welcoming every part of ourselves to the hearth.
May presence do the work our lists can’t.
And may the ladybird, tucked deep in winter moss, remind us that even stillness is part of the season’s rhythm.