AIBU Santa and teenager with learning disabilities

[berryfull]

Apologies, but there’s no traffic in the SN section. Hoping to find some parents of SN teenagers !

My son is 13 and has moderate learning disabilities. The closer it’s getting to Christmas the more anger and meltdowns we’re seeing about Santa. He apparently still believes but I’ve occasionally thought he showed signs of not (for example earlier in the month asking me directly for what presents he wanted).

He’s at high school (albeit in a specialist base) so I presume he’s encountering people who don’t believe in Santa. For years I’ve taken a very relaxed attitude to the Santa thing, I don’t talk about it unless he brings it up, I don’t lie and encourage him
to believe. I drop lots of hints that it’s actually your parents without actually saying. I encourage and help him to buy and make for others and say he’s being a” a Santa”.

He does get presents and stocking still but I don’t ever make a big thing of them or out and outright lie. I just let him lead and silently smile. I’ve been hoping the realisation would just happen naturally and gradually , albeit at a later age because of his LD.

Today he’s suddenly panicking and desperate for me to write a letter to Santa for him and post it for him, filled with the stuff he got from Santa in previous years. We used to do this when he was little. He can’t write himself so he wants me to write it. He wants to ask for toys he’s outgrown and has loads of already.

I’m just saying don’t worry darling, I’m sure your Santa loves you and knows what you want and your Christmas will be wonderful. And staying calm . But I don’t want to write and post a letter with a 13 year old and then have to buy the childish stuff in the letter that he doesn’t need/won’t play with.

But because I won’t write a letter for him he’s very angry, rampaging around the house. It feels like there’s some processing going on, I’m not sure how to handle it. There’s lots of aggression and anger and screaming at me . I don’t want to give in and say ok I’ll write your letter and let’s post it. Neither do I want to tell him it’s all not true. At the moment I’m doing neither and trying to distract him and comfort him.

Can anyone relate? Anyone have any advice/ experience?

He’s still raging around the house. :-(

Atleast when he was little the Christmas meltdowns were less sweary and violent.

i can understand it, there’s months of build up. By now he’s exhausted. He’s been asking me since all the Christmas stuff appeared in the shops early November how many days till Christmas. So much so that I had to give him a November advent calendar so he could count off the days till his advent calendar to try and calm him
down. I really think Christmas is too much for him.

Hi OP, do you mind if I message you privately? I am in a similar situation and have friends on here so don’t want to out myself :-)

Please do

thanks everyone for your input on this today. Has been helpful!

shame there’s not more traffic on SN boards.

How did you get on, op?

It was all ok, but a bit confusing.

He got up and saw his dad at 430am filling his stocking. He went back to bed, but I could hear he was still awake, so I went through to see if he was awake and he had ignored his fulll stocking and was pretending to look at his phone. I said merry Christmas and he winced and sobbed as he pulled the covers over his head.

I barely slept worrying till his little sister woke up at 7. She went and woke him with excitement … “santas been”….. he got up and started opening his presents and then got swept up into it. Since then he’s been full of the joys, all Santa this and Santa that.

so I’m none the wiser

Could it be- like a toddler who doesn’t know how to stop a tantrum, that he doesn’t know how to give up the idea of FC? That he doesn’t know how to ‘Christmas’ without it?