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Christmas and the Autistic Spectrum Child---making it work!Jan 01 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line It's important to see Christmas and other holidays from the perspective of a child with autism, and to modify your celebration accordingly!
I've been thinking out this epinion in my head for over a year now. Having just made it through another Christmas with my older son, who has a mild form of autism, I decided to finally sit down and write out some advice for other parents who might be dealing with managing Christmas (or other such holidays) while parenting a child with similar needs! First, a few scenes from Christmas Past in our house. My older son has anticipated Christmas eagerly for months. He has counted the days over and over (obsessively), thought about what he would like for presents, drawn countless pictures with a holiday theme, eagerly picked out a tree...and I am so looking forward to Christmas morning, when all this anticipation will be rewarded. However, Christmas turns out to be, putting it bluntly, a disaster. My son opens one or two presents and wants no more. He is wild---throwing things around. He is super nervous---making the noises and hand movements we know so well as signs of extreme tension. Finally, he goes in his room and closes the door, leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces as best we can. After several such Christmases, I sat down and tried to see Christmas from his viewpoint. I realized there are quite a few aspects of it which are nightmarish for him. He hates surprises---as do most children with any kind of autism, and presents that are wrapped up are surprises! It's hard for him to express the socially expected reaction when he opens a present---to say the right things in the right way. Christmas day follows no routine---there are none of the usual parts to the day. Even TV shows are different than usual. Excitement has probably led to lack of sleep for him, and he's tired. The house is filled with many sounds, smells and tastes he's not used to. When I thought about it in this way, I realized easily why Christmas often turned out so badly in our house. I decided to make some changes in the way we celebrated. First of all, we greatly reduced the number of presents my son would be opening. He didn't enjoy having a lot, he has plenty of toys, and it really didn't bother him at all if his younger brother had more presents than he did, so we didn't worry about being "fair". Secondly, I told him in advance what almost all his presents would be. That reduced the surprise factor and let him just anticipate the actual present. I didn't wrap most of his presents---just put them under the tree on Christmas night once he was asleep. We also worked hard to keep some of his routines in place on Christmas. We got up at the usual time, ate a normal breakfast, got dressed, etc. We took frequent breaks from the day to do something "normal", like watch an old video or work on homework, even! I minimized the decorations and special food in the house. My son loves the tree, so that was our main decoration. We emphasized the religious aspects of the holiday, as my son very much loves going to church, singing carols and hearing the Christmas story. The rituals of church and the music are very calming and comforting to him. Often when I read books of advice on raising children with special needs, siblings seen to be forgotten. I tried hard to keep in mind that my son's younger brother deserved to have a special Chrsitmas too. He loves to open presents, so we gave him more (although the total value was the same for the two of them). We had some special foods for the holiday at times his brother was elsewhere. If my older son's behavior was causing a scene or really upsetting us all, I arranged for him to spend a bit of time with his grandparents who live upstairs, so the little guy could have a typical rollicking Christmas for a bit! I can't say this Christmas was without tension even with these modifications, but I can say it was much less tense than earlier years. I think a very big part of it was just recognizing the challanges that my son was facing in dealing with the season, and also talking to him about his feelings. We have made similar changes in our birthday celebrations, which have also helped! I would love to hear from others on how they may have modified holidays for their children with special needs. Happy New Year!  |
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