Autism Spectrum Disorder and Christmas can be complicated, whether it's figuring out the right toy for a child without speech or trying to get a verbal child to sit for dinner when there are presents in the next room it's always something! I've been on both sides of this and I'm so thankful that Alden has so much speech now and is picking up so much more at school. Last year he even talked a family member into doing presents BEFORE food, which no matter how my sister and I tried NEVER happened per our request.
Last night we took him to see Santa at the Zoo. He loved all the lights and the inflatables around the park and he told Santa what present he wanted four times to make sure he would get it right. He did have a mini-meltdown outside the carousel because it was closed but I convinced him to come on & see Santa and then get a toy before leaving. I still get upset when he has meltdowns but I am SO thankful for how much easier they are to deal with now that he's verbal and he isn't eating things he's intolerant to. Now instead of slamming himself in the head and screaming higher than a dog whistle he just says bad words instead. I can deal with bad words, at least he's talking, and he's using them in the correct manner. I'll take a "damnit" over throwing himself down protester style on the concrete and screaming until he is gasping for air any day of the week. He tells me what is wrong now even if he curses while doing so. Please don't think I'm terrible or that he doesn't get into trouble for using bad words, he absolutely does. He learned the curse words from a YouTube video and he KNOWS they get him into trouble. He just doesn't care.
Back to the holidays! One of the things I do that really seems to help is to prepare him days in advance for what we will be doing. I tell him where we're going and what is expected of him when we're there. This has helped him a lot with transitions in other areas as well but I find that during the holidays it is an absolute necessity. Holidays are exhausting for everyone and knowing what's coming is always helpful. We always do a Christmas Countdown starting on the first day of December which is also very helpful. He tears off a link and then counts them right before going to bed. The last night he'll remove the last link and all that's left is a picture that says "Santa Claus Comes Tonight!". That way there is no confusion and we avoid the "WHEN IS SANTA COMING?" question all month long.
Another thing that I do now that he's older is that he makes an Amazon and ThinkGeek wishlist with all of the things he wants on them. This would even work if your child is non-verbal but has skills such as pointing or using the computer independently. He also circles things in catalogs that he wants and of course now that he is very verbal if he sees something when we're out he will read what it say and tells us that he wants it.
When we have to travel during the holidays we pack things for the car to keep him entertained. The best purchases we've made are the portable DVD player and the TAG Reader from Leapfrog. He isn't much for coloring but I always pack crayons & coloring books just in case. He loves the TAG reader because it has games on it (he's reading above his grade level at this point so he doesn't really use it for that) and it has the characters doing funny things when you use the pen on them. If you do purchase a car DVD player I recommend getting headphones for it, mostly because we forgot his on our 9 hour drive to Disney World over the summer and by the end of the trip my husband & I knew every word to the "Young Dinos" story on the Mario DVD we'd just bought him.
The biggest thing to remember is to be patient, and ignore everyone when they offer useless advice because if you are around people ESPECIALLY older people it's going to happen. If I had a quarter for every time I heard "he needs more discipline", "have you tried x, y, or z", "maybe look into medication" I'd be one rich lady right now. Just smile and nod. Honestly, it's not worth the fight and they don't know what the hell they are talking about.
I hope some of these things might help someone else. I hope you all have an amazing holiday season and a wonderful new year!
(P.S. I know I've been slacking on this but you can find our latest Batman Elf updates over @ my Facebook).
