In this week's episode of The Autism Mums Podcast we're talking about something that many families find really tough, the Christmas season. It's a time that's meant to feel magical, but for many of our autistic children, it can actually be really overwhelming, unpredictable, and stressful.
Key Takeaways
Understanding Christmas Overwhelm: Many autistic children find the Christmas season stressful due to changes in routine and expectations.
Addressing Pre-Christmas Challenges: Difficulties can arise well before Christmas Day, with alterations in school activities and the build-up of holiday expectations.
Communication and Preparation: Clear communication about what to expect can help reduce anxiety in children. Discussing plans with them beforehand is crucial.
Adjusting Traditions: Families may wish to consider adapting their traditions to better suit their child's needs, such as avoiding large gatherings or adjusting meal times.
Managing Social Expectations: The pressure to participate in Christmas events, such as school plays and gatherings, can cause significant distress for neurodivergent children.
Sensory Sensitivities: Decorations and festive environments can be overwhelming, emphasising the need for a personalised approach to celebrations.
Flexibility on Christmas Day: It can be helpful to allow for breaks and personal space on Christmas Day, adapting activities to match children's comfort levels.
Creating a Supportive Environment: Setting up a calm and understanding atmosphere at home can make the season more enjoyable for neurodivergent family members.
Encouraging Open Dialogue: Encouraging children to express their needs, such as using visual aids to communicate comfort levels, can help.
Finding Joy in Simplicity: Embracing a less traditional Christmas that meets individual family needs can be just as fulfilling as adhering to societal expectations.
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Transcript
Victoria
Bennion: [00:00:00] Today
we're talking about something that many families find really tough.
It's the Christmas season. It's a time that's meant to feel magical,
but for many of our autistic children, it can actually be really
overwhelming, unpredictable, and stressful.
Natalie
Tealdi: We're gonna talk through some of the common
challenges that come long before Christmas Day. What happens on the
day itself, and what we've learned works for our families. Hopefully
it helps you feel a little more understood and a little more
supported this year.
Victoria
Bennion: For many of our children, the struggles start way
before Christmas day when everything starts to change. Routines are
different expectations, the look and the feel of a school. For one of
my children, these struggles were really apparent from preschool age
and they had a lot of trauma to work through in subsequent years of,
it sounds awful, doesn't it?
But the trauma from Christmas,
from doing Christmas at school every year.
Natalie
Tealdi: I know it's something that you think will be
really fun and I know that's where it comes from. It comes from a
[00:01:00] place of yeah, let's be a bit
more relaxed and make it really fun for the kids in a build up to
Christmas. But actually for some children it's just horrific.
Victoria
Bennion: Absolutely. And for some it is fun. I think worth
acknowledging that, but for our children, it's really not fun. I
remember there was an instance we went into school and they were
completely off timetable and. He was having so much anxiety. And I
said to the TA on the door, can you tell him what to expect from the
day? What have you got planned? And she said, oh, you know, lots of
fun things. And I thought we might as well just go back to the car
right now. He was horrified.
Natalie
Tealdi: Yeah. It's that not knowing what's happening,
isn't it? And everything being different and looking different.
Victoria
Bennion: The decorations there was one year the PTA did
this lovely winter wonderland outside the school and it was a
surprise to the children as they came in and we walked up the
pavement and there's all these oohs and ahs and there was a snow
machine and people dressed [00:02:00] up
and my son was completely white. Really, really anxious. I think he
made it into school, but he couldn't speak. He was just absolutely
horrified by it.
Natalie
Tealdi: Yeah, what used to upset my son was the Christmas
jumper days, so not wearing a school uniform that really upset him
because, you know, when we go to school we wear uniform and that's
just how it is and well, why are they changing it? And that creates
anxiety and uncertainty and it is things that are supposed to be fun
and that are fun for a lot of people, but not others.
Victoria
Bennion: Yeah, and actually when, I didn't know back then
that. Change had such an impact. That was in my oblivious era. But
actually when you think about it, there's so much change, isn't
there? Another pressure that I know my son felt was the Christmas
plays every year, and that's when I noticed it at preschool. It was
the first play and all the family were coming in. It was gonna be in
the village hall, and. I know my timekeeping [00:03:00]
isn't always the most amazing,
Natalie
Tealdi: No comment.
Victoria
Bennion: No come on. We were. We were not early, put it
that way. We were not early. But the reason we went early was because
he kept taking off his shepherd's costume. I kept putting it back on.
He kept taking it off and in the end I took him to the village hall
and took him to the room where all the children were and handed them
the costume. And I said, I can't. Get him to wear it. It wasn't that
he protested really loudly, he just kept taking it off. Looking back,
I feel so bad about that, that whole event, but I remember taking my
place in the audience.
Were you there? Did you come?
No, He must have been working.
So it was the wider family and, he was holding onto one of the
preschool workers' hands. She was lovely with him and he was wearing
his costume and they led them round and they sat up on the stage and
I watched him just sit on the stage frozen. He didn't join in. He was
supposed to do a dance. He didn't get up and do the [00:04:00]
dance and. I've just felt so awful for him. And in later years when I
knew that how much of a struggle that was for him, I looked back with
even more horror that he'd had to go through that. In fact, one of
the mums had a recording of it that I saw a couple of years ago, and
watching it back, I actually had to leave.
It was from a good place, but
looking at, oh, how cute are they? And all I could see was. Just the
terror. The terror in his face, and then the guilt that he'd gone
through that and I hadn't known.
Natalie
Tealdi: I think when you know, years later, things look
very different in their. I know I've looked back at videos and
thought, oh my gosh, he's really struggling there, and I had no idea
at the time. I didn't understand.
Victoria
Bennion: Yeah.
Natalie
Tealdi: But also I think with those plays, it's something
that you really look forward to as a mom and a parent.
Like just seeing them all cute
and dressed up. And it's something that you really look forward to
seeing, isn't it? And I don't think [00:05:00]
we've ever had a successful one
Victoria
Bennion: No.
Natalie
Tealdi: with either of mine.
Victoria
Bennion: No, I don't. I'm not sure that we have two. I
think the one in reception, I seem to remember they dressed up as
animals and that. Was the only one that he participated in. There
wasn't a stage, so maybe that was why. But they were down on the
floor just in front of us and I think they sang a song and I feel
like he joined in, but I wouldn't wanna see a video of that.
I think I'd spot struggles.
And that is something. From a parent's point of view, letting that
go, that expectation because, no, my son never participated in any
place after that. That was it. And they used to take him out of the
room.
He wouldn't join in the
rehearsals and they'd give him other things to do, which is good. But
he said when he was at his alternative provisions, so that would've
been when he was in year four, they. Approached me one day when they
were putting the decorations up and they said he's completely shut
[00:06:00] down, disengaged, didn't want
to do it. And that was really when we began to unpick the
difficulties around Christmas. So there is the decorations growing up
and again, when we put them up at home, he doesn't get involved in
that. Not at all. My daughter does and. Everybody else, and he hasn't
ever said anything, but I don't think he likes it very much. And they
did some work with him at his alternative provision to try to unpick
what the problem was around Christmas. He did mention the place and
he said, everybody expects you to get it. All right. Everybody
expects you to smile. And it was all the weight of that expectation.
Natalie
Tealdi: All those demands,
Victoria
Bennion: Demands. Yeah. All those demands, which luckily
are not there at specialist school, but they did take some unpicking.
Natalie
Tealdi: Yeah, and I think we've talked before about the
grief and how that can come up now and again, and I think this time
[00:07:00] of year is one of those times
well, it certainly comes up a lot for me because I think you have
expectations. Of what life will be like, don't you, for Christmas and
it's just different.
And it has to be different,
and you have to let go.
Victoria
Bennion: Yes you do. Yes you do. I think I'm at that point
where I've let that go. Last year was our most successful Christmas,
I would say. I don't know what your son's attendance was like and the
lead up to Christmas, but actually the last couple of years, my son
was at mainstream school. He missed the last week.
We just cut it and as it was
just getting more unpredictable. As the tone went on, he couldn't go
in, so we, she used to start Christmas early.
Natalie
Tealdi: Yeah, that was the same for my son and even more
so that they had put the stage up in the hall and that's where he
used to have his sensory breaks so he couldn't have his sensory
breaks. At all, which really upset him massively. And the only choice
was outside and you know, is the weather. [00:08:00]
This time of year is not great.
So yeah, we did, we started
the holiday early.
Victoria
Bennion: I think that's all you can do, and you hope that
the schools understand. Certainly when my son was in year three, year
four, there was an understanding that it was difficult for whatever
reason, and they accepted that he wouldn't be in those last few days.
Natalie
Tealdi: Yeah.
Victoria
Bennion: How about Christmas Day?
Natalie
Tealdi: Christmas day is usually really tricky for us,
actually. We've taken away demands such as sitting at the table for
food. We don't do a roast anymore, because neither of my children
really like roast dinners. And my son sits on the Sophie usually
Anyway, so what we've done in the last. I think two or three years is
we do a buffet and then we just get bits of what everybody likes, and
then they can come and they can pick at it whenever they want.
And that works really well
because there's no demand
Victoria
Bennion: a nice idea.
Natalie
Tealdi: [00:09:00] yeah. It's
the presence that are tricky as well. I don't think we've nailed this
one yet. I know there's some people who don't. Wrap presence. Do
they,
they just, appear and that can
help reduce that demand? I think
Victoria
Bennion: something that we used to do that I realize now
is another horrifying thing for my son was my in-laws live. Miles
away, and we don't usually see them for Christmas, so we would do a
Skype call or a Zoom call with them so that they could watch the
children opening their presents. Now I think, oh my goodness, the
poor thing. So we put an end to that. And my husband talked to them
and just explained that actually that added so much stress with, I
think it's knowing how to respond. To what you are opening and the it
is layered, isn't it? But I know that it doesn't work for him. We
keep our Christmases separate, don't we?
Because it is tricky for both
families and it's too much to join together usually on Christmas day,
[00:10:00] unless we meet for a walk.
We've done that before, haven't we?
We've met for a walk, but not.
doing it all together with all
the different needs to balance, it's, it's too much.
Natalie
Tealdi: Yeah, we always stay at home. Just us because it's
just much easier
Victoria
Bennion: Have you had trouble with the countdown to
Christmas as well of when is Christmas, when is it going to happening
with your son?
Natalie
Tealdi: Yes. So we've been counting down in previous years
from the beginning of November. So we've done a visual countdown to
the advent calendar and then that countdown because he loves
Christmas. Uh. Absolutely loves it. He gets so excited. He'll talk
about it in the summer holidays and sometimes we've counted down from
then.
It's that buildup. And then
when you get there, when it's over, it's like the Christmas day is
often like the catalyst for now it's over and now we can't handle it
Victoria
Bennion: What does that look like? Does he get very
dysregulated?
Natalie
Tealdi: Very dysregulated. Yeah. And he just needs space
time,
Victoria
Bennion: do you do in terms of [00:11:00]
opening the presence? Do you open them all in one go or space it out?
Natalie
Tealdi: Well, usually they're very lucky to have so much
that it takes all day to open them all or most of the day. Because I
think they like to look at them as they go as well. So it does take a
long time, but we're just led by them and what suits them. If they
need a break, getting 'em to have some breakfast is always a tricky
one, but that's helpful in helping them stay regulated.
Victoria
Bennion: What Time do they get up on Christmas Day?
Natalie
Tealdi: too early.
I, oh gosh, I think it was
five o'clock last year, which I don't like, I don't like anything
before six is too early. Thank you very much, because everyone's
cranky then as well, so you've got the tiredness on top
of just the usual trickiness
to
deal with.
Victoria
Bennion: probably not the best start. We made some changes
last year, so food again is a massive issue in our house. So we do
tend to eat at lunchtime. So is what worked last [00:12:00]
year. And again, food very much depends on the stress levels. Of the
child at the time. But last year what we did was we bought my son a
Christmas gingerbread man decorated, and a Christmas type brownie was
this themed, that was his lunch so we usually start with soup, a
consomme, which has a smell, that's why I mention it. So he didn't
come up to the table for that. It's hard for him often to be around
food. So though it depends how he's feeling. But he did manage to
come eat those bits with us and then he left. So that's eating
together. And I, I just took that as a win. He actually came and
joined us for a few minutes and he was happy. In terms of presence,
we did that slightly differently. Again, more because we were
slightly experimenting with what might make it easier and what could
be a potential problem. Because my son doesn't always [00:13:00]
communicate what is the problem. I dunno that he can. So the children
had their stockings in their bedrooms while me and mom walked the
dog. Again, they're a little bit later than yours are older, so I
think it was about seven o'clock, and then we came back from walking
the dog and about eight...
