How to Make the Holidays Easier with Your Autistic Child

Holidays are hard, no matter what dynamics you have in your family or how many children you have. Holidays with children with autism can seem even harder, but it doesn't have to be. The key to smooth running holidays is how much pressure you put on yourself.

First, I have to say stop looking at pictures of friends and family on social media. They might pose the perfect photo, but they find holidays as hard as you. Don't jeopardise your families happiness for the ideal; it quite simply isn't worth it.

There are various things we do to make holidays easier, especially Christmas. Strangely, the lockdown has been kind to us as it has relieved the pressure to visit family, something my little one can find challenging to cope with.

Food

When I tell parents to take the pressure off over holidays, one thing that comes to mind is this fantastic message I found about Christmas dinner. But, of course, it applies to all meals we stress about preparing.

It's a Sunday dinner, for goodness sake! The only difference is that you can open a bottle of wine before you open the kitchen curtains. We do it happily 51 weeks of the year; this time will be no different.

Turkey - It's a big fecking chicken that's all, 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes at 180 degrees. Get yourselves a meat thermometer £3 off the Internet poke it in the offending bird if it says 75 degrees or over its cooked

Stuffing - regardless of what Jamie Oliver says, you do NOT need 2lbs of shoulder of pork, onions, breadcrumbs, pine nuts and a shit load of fresh herbs to make stuffing. What you need is Paxo and a kettle!! If you want to liven it up, squeeze three sausages out of their skins and mix that in with your Paxo before cooking.

Gravy - Jamie Oliver is copping for this one as well. All you need is Bisto! No one has the time on special occasions to piss about roasting chicken wings and vegetables, adding stock and flour, cooking it for another half hour, mashing it all up with a potato masher and then straining the whole sorry mess to make gravy

Vegetables - Never mind faffing around shredding sprouts and frying them with bacon and chestnuts to make them more palatable. If you don't like them don't buy and cook the things! If your family only eats frozen peas, then that's good enough!

Roast potatoes - Yes, I parboil mine then roast them in goose fat, but Aunt Bessie also does the same

Trimmings /Pudding and the like - Aldi or Lidl, if birds custard is what your family likes, then that's fine.

Family - if they only want turkey with tomato sauce - good, leave them to it, it doesn't matter.

In our case, my eldest has a bag of Quavers for Christmas dinner, yes your read that correctly. She doesn't eat many foods, and I will not spend the whole meal stressing and trying to force-feed her a roast potato, more for me. What is important is having her with us at the table, so if she is happy to sit there with crisps, I am delighted.

Presents

Here are a few tips and tricks I have learnt over the four years. First, there is absolutely no point in wrapping presents. Why spend five hours wrapping them and another five persuading your little treasure to open them. Some children with autism do not like the suspense of not knowing what is in the box. Our little girl is getting used to it, others don't. 

You can get around this two ways, first, leave them unwrapped and on display for when they get up. Second, put them all in one massive box and wrap, that is if it doesn't feel right until some paper is torn.

Another major tip with presents, whether you are wrapping them or not, is to take them out of the packaging and set them up. We made this mistake at Christmas. She couldn't play with every present we unwrapped because it wasn't out of the packaging and had no batteries; you can imagine how quickly she lost interest. Fight the packaging the night before with something alcoholic in your hand; it works a lot better.

Routine

Routine is important for all children, especially those with autism. As a side note, it is also important if your partner is autistic; found this out the hard way this year. Now I am not suggesting a strict military routine unless that is your thing, but have some of their routines still in the day. The most crucial area, I would say, would be bedtime. If they usually have a bath, book and bed, stick to this; it helps them feel secure.

We also prepare our little one for big days with a countdown to the event, so she expects something different.

These are a few observations that will make any holiday or birthday easier. Part of parenting seems to be the constant guilt, did I do this right or wrong. Every holiday can seem like one long slide of shame when everything goes wrong. We ask ourselves constantly if we could have done things differently or better. If you feel like this, I will leave you with some words, my mum, a very wise woman once said to me.

Only good parents question if they are doing a good job.

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