So, you are a SN family. Do you find the holidays difficult or pretty good? How about relatives, visiting, eating at other houses with a special diet, sensory issues and all the hub bub, etc? How do you help your little one(s) cope with the holidays so that they aren't overwhelmed? How do YOU cope so that YOU aren't overwhelmed?
I find them pretty good, but we have a very laid-back approach. Prior to the actual holiday, I host a Christmas at our house--everyone is welcome and all food served is okay on our son (autistic) and my (celiac) special diet. We live across the country from the rest of the family due to work, but occasionally people do take us up on the invite. However, no one actually stays here...they stay in a hotel nearby, so the kids can keep their routines. (on a side note, I don't pay anyone's way to come out or stay or rent a car) On the holiday itself, it is just me, my husband, and our three kids. We eat breakfast while opening the "Santa" and "from Mom and Dad" gifts. Then the rest of the day is spent watching Christmas movies and playing with the gifts. I don't cook a real meal, just snacky stuff. Decorations are play-with friendly, or at least won't break and cause injury. Actual opening can take a bit of time because we don't have the "must get through it" opening madness. If any of my children want to play with a gift they can, within reason (no, I may put my foot down on the chemistry set or anything with a zillion small pieces until later--like when the baby is napping).
I allow myself to skip things where I am going into it tired and don't have backup. This year's big latke party, for example, DH could NOT attend and I knew that the huge crowd plus it being the second holiday event of the day was just asking for a DS behavior meltdown that I'd be handling on my own with the two girls in tow. Not happening.
Within DH's family, where we spend Xmas and Thanksgiving ans Easter etc., the only accomodation we consistently have to make is to remind people to give DS space if it's getting too loud and to correct him or have one of us correct him instead of glossing over a misbehavior "because it's the holidays." (DS will escalate until corrected, everysingletime.)
My biggest suggestions is to go 1:1 during holiday things, either with your spouse or with another relative or familiar caregiver. All of my bad experiences during holiday times are directly related to my breaking this rule and trying to play 2:1 or 3:1 with a SN child in a crowded public space. (And Grandma's house can definitely be a crowded public space if your relatives are not pros at dealing with your SN kid as mine are.)
We keep it super mellow. We do usually travel down Island... my folks have a really quiet Christmas and aren't into crazy gift giving. My mom is a designer , so her house is really tastefully done up ( which sounds like a weird thing to say, but it really cuts down on the sensory overload). My dad has celiac and can't do dairy, which is perfect for GFCF kiddos. The bad thing is, the kids still get too excited and they get sick for Christmas every year. We have had a couple of admitted Christmas days with asthma. It looks like we may have a hospital visit for just that thing today... and the eldest hasn't gotten it yet( which by my calculations , puts us right around the big day!)
One thing that helped us was to have a little special solstice dinner , and the kids open a couple of presents then, something on christmas eve, and then the stocking and whatever is left... usually only a gift or two, on Christmas.
On the holiday itself, it is just me, my husband, and our three kids. We eat breakfast while opening the "Santa" and "from Mom and Dad" gifts. Then the rest of the day is spent watching Christmas movies and playing with the gifts. I don't cook a real meal, just snacky stuff. Decorations are play-with friendly, or at least won't break and cause injury. Actual opening can take a bit of time because we don't have the "must get through it" opening madness.
That's pretty much us, except we just have two kids. I do breakfasty things that can be eaten in the living room, and we go out to our favorite indian for lunch (I love that hindu's don't do christmas), but the word for the day is MELLOW.
We don't do a lot of parties and stuff with other people. We used to see my family for the holiday but stopped because it just wasn't fun for us. WAY to stressful. My ASD doesn't cope well with other children who are hyper and out of control.
I have two pieces of advice:
1. just say no. they will get over it, and taking care of yourself and your child(ren) is sooo much important than playing a role in some production that someone else has invested as meaning "we are having a happy holiday." That's really how I see many holiday gathering -- just big productions that others tie lots of meaning to. We have a choice about whether or not we want to be part of that -- just like we could decide whether or not we want to play a role in a play.
2. remember that the quality of the interactions that you have with your partner and child(ren) is more important that what actually gets done. We sometimes end up with a crazy list of things we think we HAVE to do, but none of it really matters. I think it is far more satisfying to just get a few of things on the list done, but be fully present with my immediate family.
I think being very selective about what you choose to do is crucial. My nephew has Asperger's and my brother and SIL have decided to skip one of the Christmas events this year -- SIL is a real introvert, she lost her mother last year and so this is a really hard Christmas for her. My nephew gets overwhelmed easily. So, they'll go to Christmas Eve with her family, stay home on Christmas Day and go to our family's celebration on the 26th. They're skipping Christmas Day at my aunt and uncle's. Very wise, IMO.
Feeding your kids before you leave and bringing food you know they will eat is also a good idea. My SIL used to do that. She caught some flack from my family, but I think it's a brilliant idea (it was before his AS diagnosis).
Have an 'escape plan' or a place where you can go if your child gets overwhelmed.
DS has a really hard time this time of the year. Normally we stay home as much as possible and allow him to just chill. We keep visitors here to a minimum. We had a family friend stop by yesterday for a few minutes (planned so we could warn ds) and he'll come back on Wednesday night for awhile (also planned so ds knows what's happening). When he's here ds is allowed to retreat upstairs and he knows visitors don't go up there so he's in his safe zone. We will go do dp's parents house for a little bit on Christmas Eve, but we will leave as soon as he starts showing signs of melting down. We only live 5 minutes away from dp's parents so it works out well. On Christmas day we stay home, but dp's parents will probably stop by at some point in the afternoon.
As for day to day stuff.... we generally allow ds to stay home. We don't take him out to stores or anything like that. DP and I take turns staying home while the other one goes out running errands and stuff. We did take ds to the movies yesterday, but even that wasn't the best. We originally were going to take him on Saturday, but he was having sensory issues and couldn't wear clothes so we had meltdowns about that. Yesterday he was fine with clothes so we took him to the movies, but then came home. DS will be spending a week with my dad after Christmas, but I'm not sure how that's going to go. Hopefully he does fine, but with all the changes in his routine I do expect some issues.
We go to the ils the day after Christmas. I don't think we ever saw them Christmas day because they didn't want to tear the children away from their presents;o) We used to go Christmas Eve, but that day is a lot of work with children so they suggested the day after. Thanksgiving seems to be decided year by year; this year we were a bit worn out from us going to school and ds' issues and stayed home on the day, then dh got sick so we didn't visit until the following week. If we do go for TG, dh still wants our own food which we do the following weekend. Ds is newly into board games which is a way to get him to sit for awhile when we visited this weekend; and there was a table set for them to color which worked well too.
We used to do the crazy holiday thing. My DH's family is crazy. We would celebrate with My FILs extended fam, my MILs fam, My other FILs fam, my DHs parents, & sibs, my fam, and usually would end up with both sets of grandparents at our house christmas morn. It was always crazy. This year we skipped his bio dad's fam, DH will take DS to his step dad's fam (DD and I will stay home). We will do xmas morn on our own, and then space out the rest of the days. My DD just has so much equipment, so when we go somewhere we have tons to pack if we are staying for any length of time. She also does not do well with crowds. I now frequently use the excuse, "we can't be around people with pets since she has a trach." to get out of half the events.
Handheld gaming system... seriously that is how we cope, he brings it everywhere, something I do not allow normally, but it means all of us can enjoy events together.
Handheld gaming system... seriously that is how we cope, he brings it everywhere, something I do not allow normally, but it means all of us can enjoy events together.
And, in a pinch, we give ds one of our phones (we have games on there that he likes to play). Way back before I was a mom, I used to look down upon parents who allowed their kids to bring video games to restaurants or whatever. Now I am definitely one of those mamas and am kicking my butt for ever judging them
This year, the plan is to literally spend all of Xmas Day in our pajamas. We'll do a quickie breakfast while the kids enjoy their stockings. Then the big unwrap, a leisurely day spent enjoying the kids and their new toys and a nice roast of beef for dinner. We're a small group this year - too small for a turkey - so we opted for a roast of beef with Yorkshire puddings and bread pudding for dessert.
I'm finding the lead up to the holidays difficult this year. Mainly due to my own issues. I had expected my DD (who will be 5 next Wednesday) to be all excited for Xmas this year. She's diagnosed with Autism Disorder - that happened at the end of August. I think her lack of emotion and reaction and even awareness has been hard to reconcile. I'm still in the process of coming to terms with her diagnosis and it seems to be coming to a head right now. I feel really ... I dunno ... just off and strange and cranky and impatient and everything. It sucks. It's hard for all of us.
Last year's Christmas Eve festivities culminated with my 3-year-old SPD son hitting sudden overload right when dh and I let our guards down, grabbing an antique glass ornament from my parents' tree, and throwing it down on the floor, smashing it into a million pieces. Right in front of my aunt, who was meeting him for the first time since he was a babe in arms. And then he screamed that he hated her. Ack. Yeah.
So, lessons learned:
Always, always when leaving a room, make sure we've passed off direct parental supervision to each other, even if he's in a room full of adults.
Remember that he can go from fine to overload in a split second, and that this kid is FAST.
(My parents' lesson Hang the fancy glass ornaments high.
We're blessed in that there wasn't a ton of drama over this. My parents joked about forgetting what it's like to have small kids around the tree and pulled out the wooden ornaments, and this year they invited the kids to come help them decorate the tree last week. My aunt was taken aback, but pretty much brushed it off as just a bad moment. And she really hadn't done anything to provoke him beyond reminding him nicely to be gentle with the ornaments when she saw him heading for the tree. He doesn't do strangers or authority very well and has no verbal filter. We've cut waaaaay back on how many "obligatory" family events we go to on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And dh and I went over how we reacted to ds's overload (poorly -- we were embarrassed and tried to make him apologize on the spot for a good 15 minutes, rather than removing him from the overload situation and giving him time to find his balance, and then addressing the situation) and what we could do instead to prevent a future overload from playing out that way and how we could react if something does happen.
Originally Posted by earthmama369
(poorly -- we were embarrassed and tried to make him apologize on the spot for a good 15 minutes, rather than removing him from the overload situation and giving him time to find his balance, and then addressing the situation) and what we could do instead to prevent a future overload from playing out that way and how we could react if something does happen.
Wow. Yesterday was a disaster for DD. She had about 4 melt downs through the course of the day. Was very anxious, intense, loud, demanding, harsh with her little brother, etc. At one point I had to just sit beside her on the stairs and let her scream (I put ear plugs in so I could stay there). She just could NOT handle the day. Not sure how to help her on her birthday which is on Weds. She wanted a party and based on how well she'd been doing the past 6 months, I have planned one. Now really not sure how she's going to manage it and hoping I can help her through it.
Yes to this. Last year at x-mas, my dd went to the cupboard, grabbed a can of something or other, and threw it at my neice, who was just a tiny baby. It hit her in the head. She had to go to the hospital for evaluation. It was terrible.
This year, I hosted x-mas. Since it was in my house, I was able to keep my dd calm. She was able to go to her room and close the door when she needed a minute to herself, and later when she needed a longer period of time to herself (she was close to loosing it), I put her in a quiet room and let her watch a short movie. Waaaay easier. No meltdowns. No injuries. And all without excluding us.
I just noticed Smithie's advice to keep the ratio at 1:1 for a caregiver and SN child. I really see the value in that and thought it bears repeating. Good words, Smithie. I'm going to use them tomorrow at the birthday party that DD has asked for. I am hoping we survive the day. I'm going to make sure a caregiver is glued to her At. All. Times.
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