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...