1. Talk to your family about what to expect.
Not everyone knows what it’s like to face the holidays when you have kids on the spectrum. When Holly Bird’s grandson was a toddler, her extended family just kept saying her grandson was in his “terrible twos” when he would act out. Her grandson wasn’t diagnosed with autism until he was four. But it was clear from his early days that he would not experience the holidays like the rest of the family, she says.
“It took us a while to get the rest of the family to understand,” says Bird, a retired health counselor in Arizona who writes a blog about her family’s adventures. Her family advised her to utilize disciplinary tactics like “time out” to get her grandson to listen, Bird shares.
It took some communication to get everyone on the same page about how to make holidays successful for the entire family.
“The biggest thing we try to do for the holidays is to make sure the family knows that when we’re together as a family, it isn’t all about the child with autism” and the whole family responding to the child’s behavior, she says. “It’s all of us being calm and … him just being able to do what he regularly does” in his normal routine.
Bird communicates with family members who are coming in from out of town with a phone call, email, or text message to let them know how they can adjust for her grandson’s special needs.
Katie Koole-McCurdy, a Michigan mom who has two boys on the autism spectrum, started writing about life on the spectrum while preparing for a family reunion several years ago. She experienced the same feeling about needing to communicate what was happening.
Her oldest was three at the time and had sensory issues and needs beyond what her family had experienced.
“I was like: I’m going to go to this family reunion. I’m going to get all these questions, or they’re going to judge that my kid is acting very differently than what is typical,” Koole-McCurdy says. “I have no shame in this. I’d rather just explain to everyone what’s going on.”
Seven years later, she still runs The Maseman, “the musings of two normal parents to two normal boys. Because normal is relative.”
This content was originally published here.