Tis’ the season…to be stressed out! The Christmas season is stressful for most people. There’s the shopping in over crowded stores and malls for that perfect gift, stressing about money or the mounting credit card bills. Maybe you have the stress of balancing, or arguing, over which families homes you are going to celebrate at or how you’re going to accommodate everyone in your home on Christmas Eve.When you have a child with Autism, all these stressors are magnified tenfold. While Wal-Mart tends to already be a stressful place for a lot of Autistic children (high, open ceilings with tons of fluorescent bulbs), add in 20 times more people, even more noise and chaos, and the bell ringer from the Salvation Army that our children become so fascinated with that we can barely tear them away without a meltdown. Then we start worrying about how our child will handle going to someones home for a Christmas party where there will be so many people, and so many strange people. “How will my child react? How am I going to deal with questions, stares, etc when he has a meltdown? What will I do when he shows no interest for his gifts?” Just thinking about all those obstacles and past Christmas disasters can send me into a panic attack! How about you?
It really doesn’t have to be this stressful for us. As in everyday life with my Autistic children, I have learned to find ways of turning most everything we do into a learning experience/therapy for the boys...
2 comments:
My girlfriend is the disability specialist at the local university. So I am a little removed from it, but I have ended up learning a lot about Autism and many of the stories of how autistic people act. I sympathize with your stress, I hope the season goes well for you.
Thank you! Actually, with all the preplannng our holidays were magnificent...I was so extremely thankful.
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