Helpful Holiday Tips

Having all of your family together can be a very stressful time for anyone, especially if you have autism or any other disabilities. Some family members are very open to it and welcoming, while others might not be. There are a lot of extra stimuli around during this time and extra people, making it very hard to find a place to calm down.

During the holidays everything in a person’s environment changes both inside the home and outside it. There are added lights, decorations, sometimes smells, if there are candles, and the weather is changing around this time. Someone with autism would be very on edge with all of these changes.

There are some things you can do to help prevent a bad situation. You could help by making it more routine. Make Christmas day seem like a normal day by creating a loose schedule of events so the child does not get upset. Try to stick to as much of a normal routine as you can.

Putting the decorations little by little would also help, so that everything in their environment does not change all at once.

Autism Speaks has some great tips on how to minimize issues during the holiday. They had some I would not have ever thought of. Some I agree with and actually used, while others I would not suggest. One of the main ones I could see causing problems is having them open presents early or practicing opening presents as they put it. I could see a child wondering why they could not open all of their presents then or expecting more on days it was not a holiday.

http://www.autismspeaks.org/news/news-item/holiday-tips