In the Lost and Tired household, Christmas and Autism don’t always go well together. So those begs the question.
What do you do when Christmas and Autism don’t mix?
I would be naive to to think that my family is the only one out there enduring this struggle. However, I don’t like to speak for other people so I’ll only speak to my experience.
For my family, Christmas and Autism don’t play well together.
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To hell with Christmas. It's just a nexus of stress and chaos. My advice is to throw it out and use the day off work, school, etc. for flexible homemade enjoyments.
When any holiday gets overwhelming, we step back and see what we can do to take some anxiety out of it. We set a rigid schedul for the day, presents from 8-10, breakfast, then more presents if there are any. Go outside at 11 to play with outside toys… etc. Then I put it all into a scheduler so soren can go through whenever he needs to. We also spread it out, we saw the grandparents last weekend. tomorrow will just be intimidate family and Santa. My MIL took a slightly different approach on her day, they opened a present, then played with it till bored, then opened another. She said that kept most of the meltdowns from happening (long story but she takes soren for the day when we visit, we aren't welcome in their home). Finally, once meltdowns start occurring, we choose whichever path at that point will alleviate them or cause them the least, because its a holiday and nobody wants to deal with them on holidays.
Know tomorrow will probably have meltdowns and arguments but I hope you have a peaceful day full of goodwill and fun.