Surviving the Holidays

The holidays can be tough for families with young kids, especially those of us with kids who don’t do especially well with change. Traveling, new people, new surroundings, new sensory input, lots of activity, stressed-out parents…it’s enough to make most young kids act like crazy hooligans. Our 6 year old has always had a hard time over the holidays. The lack of structure and unpredictable schedule is challenging for her, but the sensory overload that results from rooms full of people, new foods, lots of commotion, and pent-up excitement is more than her tiny little self can handle. Her coping mechanism is to scream, cry, yell, and stomp. Always has been. It’s very effective. As soon as I hear the screaming begin, I know it’s time for her to take some time alone in a quiet room with a favorite book. But I can’t tell you how many times I have wished that we had known how to help her cope with her sensory overload BEFORE she reached screaming/crying/yelling mode.

 Then along came Jude. This year we knew the holidays would be especially tough for him. New people and new surroundings can be almost too overwhelming for him, so we knew we would need to do some major preparation before the holidays arrived. Thankfully, we had the help of a team of professionals to give us ideas and suggestions. We used their ideas not just for Jude, but also to help prepare Clara for the upcoming chaos. After implementing these strategies, I’ve become convinced that most young children, not just kids on the autism spectrum, could benefit from these ideas. I just wish someone had given me these ideas when Clara was younger. It might have saved us from pulling our hair out every year over Christmas break!

So for those of you with young kids, file these ideas away until your next out of town trip, or next Christmas, or any time you know there will be a major change affecting your child’s schedule. It just may prevent a few premature grey hairs…


 --Social Stories: This is a fun little tool that we’ve started to use fairly often around our house. Any time we will be doing something out of our normal routine, we write a social story. It helps prepare Jude for what’s coming so he is not surprised when the time comes. For a kid who likes predictability, this is a simple way to ease him through transitions.

 If you’re not familiar with social stories, here is a short description of what they are and how to write them: How to Write Social Stories. The article focuses on using social stories for children with autism, but they can be helpful for any young child, since children generally struggle with visualizing new things. Writing social stories is a new skill for me, and I’m certainly not an expert, but here are some examples of social stories we used over the holidays:

Christmas Tree Social Story

Opening Presents Social Story

Going to Grandma's House Social Story

Going Home Social Story

 --Opening Presents: This can be an overwhelming experience for little kids. I've stopped counting the number of friends who have told me that their 2 year old or 3 year old or 7 year old melted down on Christmas morning right in the middle of present-opening. It's even more challenging when there are cousins and aunts and grandparents around - more people make for more presents, more chaos, more sensory input to process. So this year we spent lots of time preparing for Christmas morning. We started with the Opening Presents Social Story so Jude would have a visual idea of what to expect. Each child's present was given a specific colored tag. Jude knew that any present with a blue tag was his, so he could only open presents with a blue tag. I put 3 clear plastic bins on the floor next to the Christmas tree. Each child has his/her own bin with his/her picture taped to the front. After opening their presents, they put their gift in their own special box. We had several practice present-opening sessions leading up to Christmas morning. I bought the kids several small but fun gifts (like light up toothbrushes, rocket straws, Play Foam, Boing Putty), and wrapped them before Christmas. After reading the social story, we sat down by the Christmas tree, and each child got to open 2 presents, then follow the steps of saying thank you and placing the toy in his/her box. After we finished opening gifts, the kids could choose one gift from their box to play with. We did this 4 times before Christmas. The kids ended up opening all their presents from us before we left on our trip. That way there were fewer gifts (meaning less overwhelming) to open on Christmas morning at Grandma's house. I think we'll do this every year from now on - open gifts a few at a time in the days leading up to Christmas. Who says they have to wait till Christmas morning??

--Pictures of Family/Friends: About 2 weeks before traveling, I printed off pictures of every family member’s face who we would see on our trip – 2 different close-ups of each person. I laminated the pictures and cut them out. Since we don’t see many of these family members often, we went through the pictures a few times with Jude and Clara to make sure they knew everyone’s name. Then we played a Family Memory game with the cards. The kids thought it was fun to try to make a match with their own faces, but while they were playing they were also becoming familiar with the faces. When we arrived at Grandma's house and were surrounded by “new” people, Jude knew exactly who they were, which made it less overwhelming and more exciting. 

--Pictures/Video of the House: A few weeks before our trip, we asked Chris’s parents to email us pictures of their house – anything that would help to make the house feel more familiar when we arrived. His mom sent pictures of the outside of the house, the breakfast table, the toy room, the family room, the bedroom…any place where Jude would spend a considerable amount of time. She also took us on a video tour of their home, starting at the front door, walking through the living room to the kitchen, to the family room, to the breakfast room, up to the bedroom where he would sleep. We looked at these pictures and watched the video several times before the trip. Both Jude and Clara thought it was so much fun. Then when we arrived, we entered through the front door, just like in the video, and Jude asked Grandma to say “Hi, come on in! Welcome to our house,” just like in the video. He knew exactly what to expect, pointing out little details, like the bunny in the corner and his blue chair at the breakfast table, that he had noticed in the video. He was so excited to explore the house, and not at all overwhelmed since it was already familiar to him. I was amazed at how helpful the pictures and video were, and now I only wish we had done this years ago!


 --Visual Schedule: We use a visual schedule at home almost every day. Visual schedules are great! It helps Jude visualize what's coming next in his schedule (hence the name....). These are especially helpful during transition times at home...coming home from school and transitioning to lunch and nap time, bed time, getting dressed in the morning, etc. The picture below is one of the visual schedules we use.  The pictures are laminated and have velcro on the back. They attach to a strip of velcro on a laminated piece of card stock. Sooo easy to make. We put the pictures up to tell him what's coming next. The schedule below shows what we do when Jude comes home from school: eat lunch, use the potty, read books, go to bed. After he finishes eating, he loves to pull off the "eat" picture, then put it in the "all done" pocket. He says "All done eating! Now it's time to go to the potty!" And he happily marches off to the potty. We can rearrange the schedule with different pictures, which is especially helpful when we're doing something out of his normal routine.We also have a giant strip of velcro attached to the toy shelf in the play room. That helps him know what to expect after play time. We can tell him "We're going to play for 5 minutes. When the timer beeps, we're going to clean up our toys, wash our hands, then eat dinner." He points to each picture, tells me the steps we're going to do, then marches off to play until the timer beeps.

We took the schedule along with us on our trip. It was especially helpful while we were away from home. Jude's therapist encouraged us to keep our schedule as predictable as possible while we were away. Obviously our schedule is different when we're visiting family, but as long as Jude knew what was coming, he  did well. When his schedule is predictable, even away from home and in a strange environment, he feels safer and more confident. He feels less overwhelmed, and he has fewer melt downs. I think every parent of a young child needs a visual schedule, or 2 or 3!

Here are some of our other visual schedules that we use at home. These were great to take on our trip because they were familiar to Jude, so he felt confident and secure following these routines. These are also great to use at home during his times of non-compliance and temper tantrums. When he doesn't feel like using the potty, he is more likely to comply if I say "Touch number 1 on your potty pictures. What does number 1 say? Pull down your pants...right! Do you want to pull them down or do you want me to do it?" Can you tell that I LOVE visual schedules???

Get Ready for Bed Schedule

Get Ready for School Schedule

Potty Schedule

We are certainly not experts in the field of autism, but with a lot of help and guidance, we've become fairly proficient at figuring out what helps our kids. These ideas may not work with all kids, but for kids who like predictability and structured routines, these are some pretty great strategies. I'm awfully thankful for Jude's very brilliant therapists!