How has your ASD child coped today.

[JubileeTrifle]

ASD teen has had major meltdown. Refused Christmas dinner and then refused to eat with us at all. Cried about all the issues in her life.
Ate her beige dinner and has calmed down. First year she hasn’t sat with us. Sad.

Bless you all…

14yo DD doesn't have a diagnosis yet but she has been in her room most of the day. She did wear her Xmas pyjamas. Slight fail from Father Christmas as she scoffed all the stocking chocolates in the morning and wouldn't eat Xmas dinner until gone 4pm, by herself.
No meltdowns though. I've let her get on with it.

Ds has done really well, although it helps that we don't have visitors so he can do what we wants.

He went to midnight mass last night, so got up about 10am. We asked him to turn the meat down at 10:45 (while we were at church) which he did.
He waited playing computer games for his sisters to wake (12:00) then opened his stocking presents (very quickly). Retreated clutching them back to the computer and reappeared for lunch.
Helped with washing up with only a couple of sarky comments about how he'd already helped (ie by switching the meat off). Then we opened presents from each other.
We have presents from outside the family tomorrow.
He's now pestering to play Cluedo, then I'm going to suggest we sit round and listen to the BBC version of "The Dark is Rising". He'll probably moan about it but I'll bribe him with chocolates and he'll pretend he isn't interested until the end of the episode when he'll say something like "might as well listen to the next". The last episode isn't out yet, so that might get him a bit stressed when he realises, but I don't think he'll want 7 episodes back to back anyway.

My son with severe autism and SLD is 20 and has been gradually engaging less and less in Christmas as the years have gone by. He wants the same routine as always, the same outing in the morning, the same food at the same time for lunch and isn’t bothered in the slightest about presents. We kind of do Christmas round him, which is sad for us, but is what keeps him happy and calm.

My 10 year has done really well. It‘s just been immediate family though - I said no to visiting my parents today and we are going tomorrow instead, for a short visit, which they understood.

She loves buying presents and had spent ages picking out things for us and her siblings (she made the list and started in October) and she had wrapped them all really nicely, but was panicky giving them out and kept apologising for not being good at choosing presents 😌

We always do the same things at the same time on Christmas Day, including watching the same film at the same time every year, so it naturally ASD friendly I suppose. She leaves the table when she likes and spent part of it sitting in another room with her food and didn’t eat much of the food she had chosen, but seemed okay and her older sister popped in, taking her plate of food too, and sat with her.

Things like that are the reason I don’t want big family dinners, I want her to be able to do what she wants without having any older relatives raising eyebrows.

She retreated to her room at about 7pm, and when I went to check at 8pm she was fast asleep, wearing a lavender eye mask she got for Christmas ☺️. That is very early for her, even though she’d taken her melatonin. Maybe the eye mask actually helped , or perhaps just tired from the build up!

Might he be sickening with something? Strep throat?

We've always got at least one of us ill at Christmas.

DS7 went to sleep at 1.30am and woke up at 3.45am, he is still awake! Hes had several meltdowns, thrown a board game at my mum and spent the day torpedoing or shooting his sisters new barbies and LOL dolls, so basically just a normal day 🫣

@Thenose any insight as to how you have managed that?
Any tips for those of us whose day has been tough?

It's the amount of management and thought that goes into every single interaction and activity though. Exhausting. I'm wiped out.

We've had to remove almost everything I love about Christmas. We can't see people, or do phone calls. I manage what presents are handed out in what order, because getting that wrong will ruin the whole day. It's remembering that they wants lights on the tree, but not switched on. That they want exactly the right amount of help with their Lego. I need to check that their tablets are charging throughout the day. Making sure to offer food, but not too often or with the wrong phrasing. That DD can't comply with her dad's requests, and probably not mine either today, and forgetting even a single time will lead to a massive meltdown.

So overall as I said, a good day. But so, so exhausting.

Pretty good for my 5 year old but I realise that we don’t have expectations to be met. She sat for the meal with us for a few minutes and ate the extras I’d done for her (baked potato and sweet potato). I was a little sad she didn’t stay longer but not much. She loved her main present which is what she’d asked for. Mainly she’s been happy all day but we’ve had no guests, we’ve been at home, she’s not brushed her hair. We just keep it as simple as possible.

Yesterday was a nightmare though! Too
Excited maybe.

and the day before I took my other child to a party and looked on in awe as the organiser hoovered up after and used air freshener spray. And all the kids were happy and fine with the hoover and the smelly spray! Just made me reflect on the ease with which people do things which we, parents / carers of autistic kids, cannot and we have to anticipate problems at every turn to keep the stress levels low.

@VikingLady you’ve expressed that so well. That is why I’m so tired then!!!

My asd teen is pretty good at knowing when he has to step away. He got a new instrument and a computer game for Xmas so has been taking himself away periodically to play with them. We are playing boardgames and he comes and goes as he wishes and we just adapt around him. No pressure on him to do anything and he's welcome to join us when he wants.

DS12 only diagnosed two weeks ago but was no surprise. Coped really well. Got model fighter jets as a present so was working on those. Spent day in pjs, hasn’t eaten much but has food sensitivities which keep me awake at night worrying over. He’s now fast asleep on the couch beside me for the past hour. We were supposed to be watching a Christmas movie 😆😴

10 Yr old asd here and it's been the first christmas to run so smoothly. I decided no rules or expectations so both of us still in last nights pj's, no roast cooked, pure bliss. I did a buffet that could be eaten when wanted, all sweets allowed but none eaten. Absolutely engrossed in the gifts. Never had a Christmas like it, been up since 1am but it doesn't matter. Just don't want it to end. Will do christmas like this every year now

Oh bless you, some days are tough going, and always feels worse when you have invested so much in it.

I'm not sure how old your DD is, my ds is 14 and I have just looked at my FB memories, the last 5 years or so have all said the same thing, that the day has been ok because I just let him do his own thing. I have two others so there needs to be stuff for them, but he just pops in and out as wanted.

it is certainly one of those situations where less is more. Tomorrow is a new day and all that.

Ours had highs and lows.

Things that worked well were not putting anything on his plate that he doesn’t eat. Every gift from the whole family they ran through us first, so no random shocks. Let him leave the table once finished. Let him eat nonstop treats. Got him a few things he loves.

Less good was the period after the Christmas dinner when he went upstairs for a few hours and got stressed about not being able to work one of his video games. I think he started to feel a bit lonely and isolated. Persuaded him to come back down and play Risk in the end.

On the whole I think it wasn’t too bad compared to previous years.

It's really not just you! We've pretty much stopped socialising with neurotypicals now. They make us feel so bad!

Very well indeed. A lot of excitement of course, pizza for Christmas dinner and a lot of running around and diving at people, but fortunately he’s still small enough at 7 not to hurt anyone…! Hoping we’ll be able to find some less physical excitement coping strategies before he gets much bigger mind you. Demanded to go to bed quite early as I think it had got a little bit too much, but that’s fine.

It's exactly this @VikingLady the mental effort to keep things on an even keel and intervene when it looks like things will overwhelm her. Also stopping others expecting too much of her!

I am SO here for this!!

The thing is, nobody in our family is actually neurotypical. My DPs and ILs are undoubtedly autistic, but undiagnosed. They do have a lot of internalised ableism going on though, so there are still a lot of neurotypical expectations. Hence why we don’t do visits. DMIL thinks she is “just a bit eccentric” - I hate to break it to you…😂

She's done ok today, I was worried how she would cope as she has been living with my parents the last few months (she's 18 and relationships have been strained).

She arrived yesterday and had bought gifts for us, loved her gifts today and has been happy and smoky but did start to approach meltdown when DH and DD2 were getting a bit rowdy and joke play fighting.

She took herself off to bed a couple of hours ago but said she was just exhausted and had eaten too much.

All in all a success I think!

My DD has had a great day. She started opening her presents last night and finished them off this morning. We went out for an Indian for lunch and they made her a plate of fish fingers and chips, which she wolfed down. She’s only just started to get used to spices food. I snuck off upstairs about 4.30 for some space and she quickly followed me were we snuggled in bed and she fell asleep for the night - she’s usually a late sleeper

Interesting to see how many find sitting at the table a problem. We have a sofa in the dining room, so DS always flops on there almost as soon as his knife and fork are down. I always thought it was a him thing but perhaps it’s an ASD thing, and sitting for a meal is quite intense.
I’m a very informal host and our room layout means he can just do his own thing but still be part of it.

Our Christmas is low-key anyway as there's only ever myself, DH, DS (13, ASD, SLD) and BIL. DS quite likes a roast dinner so we had the full shebang. He coped pretty well with the day, waking at around 9am uncertain what to do with the wrapped items on the foot of his bed; and was cajoled into opening some of his presents. As usual he loved the first big present (a keyboard) and nothing else has lived up to it since. He's still got half-a-dozen gifts left unopened, Christmas often runs into a second and sometimes even a third day to go at his pace. It's been a chilled day for us all.

Great until 10 minutes ago when he started hitting himself and threw himself to the floor. He's non verbal so difficult to know if there was a trigger but don't think there was one.