A SEND Family Christmas

The festive season is now upon us. It can be both the most magical time of year and the most stressful at the same time.  For some of us SEND families Christmas brings change to routines and large family gatherings which can often be very difficult for our children.  So I wanted to share some great advice and activities to get us through the holidays from our wonderful SEND Bloggers.

Surviving a SEND Christmas

PDA Parenting has a really helpful Christmas Survival Guide full of tips to get you through the festive season. One piece of Danielle’s advice I wish I had used earlier was to brief families in advance. 

‘Brief families in advance – and stay true to your family strategies that work for you, try to not worry when family members expect you to do it differently. We need to have confidence in our own ability to know what works well for our kids. ‘

PDA Parenting

Our Altered Life gave us some great tips in 13 ways to survive the school holidays when your child has additional needs. The best tip being ‘schedule in regular chill days and do not feel guilty for them’. It is a holiday after all!

Steph’s from Steph’s Two Girls offers some advice specifically for families on helping children with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) over the festive period.  In How to help a child with PDA at Christmas. My favourite bit of advice from Steph’s post is to ask yourself ‘does it matter’.

The Additional Needs BlogFather takes a new look at the Christmas story of Mary and Joseph heading to Bethlehem. Mark looks at the story as a metaphor for additional needs families in How the Christmas Story is like the Story or an Additional Needs Family.

Over at Rainbows are too Beautiful the focus is on how to adapt your home in Getting our autistic home ready for Christmas. Ann looks at the need to have a safe space because ‘when it gets busy our kids need somewhere that they can retreat to.’

For us a big part of preparing for Christmas and helping the kids understand what will be happening is to use visuals.  Some free visuals are available in Christmas Day Visuals from The Autism Page.

Finding the right gifts

It took me a while to realise that the best SEND Christmas presents for my boys were sensory gifts. Stories About Autism shares some great ideas for gifts in their latest post. It includes lots of great sensory presents in 25 Christmas Present Ideas for Autistic Children.

As for gifts for me I think like most parents a lie in on boxing day will be perfect! Miriam over at Faith Mummy offers some great advice in Five Christmas Gifts to give to a Special Needs Parent.

Festive Activities

Books are such a great way to help our children prepare and understand Christmas.  Down’s Side Up has some fun recommendations in What are you reading with your children this Christmas? My kids also really recommend Father Christmas Needs A Wee, it is a fun counting book that keeps them entertained.

Crafts are always big this time of year and one we enjoyed doing was Not One Rudolph, But Two! – An Easy Christmas Craft from Sensational Learning with Penguin. Malin also has some festive themed Playdoh mats that will likely come in handy.

One of my favourite activities over the festive season is definitely baking.  Mummy Est. 2014 has a post on Gingerbread Biscuits: Baking with an autistic child. I think I might have to try some gingerbread bakes this week!

I hope something in this post will be helpful to you. Wishing you a wonderful time over the holidays this year.

More SEND resources

• SEND reading suggestions
• Understanding developmental milestones with SEND children
• SEND: Tips for managing expectations and setting small goals
• How SEND families plan for Bonfire Night
• SEND: Helping families cope with anxiety and change