Christmas time, the most
wonderful time of the year! Or is it?
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| Choosing a Tree, 2015 |
My fifteen-year-old son Tate has autism. He is excited
about the approaching holiday. He does look forward to Christmas, but not for
all the same reasons many of us do.
For many of us, Christmas means family gatherings,
jingling bells, shopping, baking, visiting, wrapping, music, colorful lights, evergreen
trees, and maybe even snow. The wonderful smells, sounds, and sights are a
welcome vacation from a regular routine for the majority, it seems.
But for some of the autism community, the festivity
assaults the senses and causes distress. The gatherings are too invasive, the
smells and sounds disturbing, the sights unsettling, and the break in routine
almost agonizing.
Parents, who long before a diagnosis, may have dreamt
of Christmas photos with Santa, trips to seek out the perfect evergreen, and Tonka
trucks under the tree, come to accept a different reality. The Santa at the
mall terrifies their child, a trip to a tree farm is out of the question, and
that Tonka truck is only ever used upside down, to spin the wheels.
There will be no big feast on Christmas day, eaten
around a large table, surrounded by family, for the family member with autism.
He has a different kind of Christmas. He wants --No. He NEEDS-- to eat in his
room. Alone. His cousins ask why he won’t play with them. His grandparents
wonder why he cannot hug them. Some relatives raise their eyebrows at the way
he’s being so “coddled”. It’s hard to understand if you do not live it.
And then, there’s the gift giving and receiving. Some
of the things my own son has asked for over the years are challenging
to find. The ring from “The Lord of the Rings” movies is a current wish. A
hover-board (that really hovers) like Michael J. Fox rode in “Back to the
Future” is on his Christmas list this year. The tablet of Ahkmenrah that brought the displays to
life in the “Night at the Museum” movies was once on his list. Of course,
I can often find reproductions of these kinds of things and those are sometimes
accepted without disappointment. A friend crafted a replica of that magical
tablet that brought the museum exhibits to life, and Tate loves it. I am
dreading the day he asks for the invisibility cloak from “Harry Potter”.
There are some things even Santa cannot do.
Many children with autism are similar to my son and
very interested in movies and the props. A lot of kids with autism become very
focused on other things. I commonly hear about preoccupations with dates and
history, technology, video games, math facts, dinosaurs, trains, super heroes, weather,
or ocean life, to name a few.
Some people with autism have interests that are more notable.
My own son is captivated by our washer and dryer, but had a love affair with
the vacuum when he was small. We had very clean floors for years. Now our laundry hampers are never allowed to become full. I have met several in the autism community who have
similar stories about their children and a fixation on household appliances though, so this is
not really rare it seems.
However, interests can be more unique. Two different people have told me recently
What are some of the things your children with autism
are interested in? How many mountains have you moved in the past so that your
child could have that special gift under the tree? We want to hear your
stories.
If you liked this post, you might also like to read about another holiday: When Halloween is not about the candy
