1. Use a calendar to prepare the child for Christmas. Things to include: holiday time from school & when school starts, days visitors will arrive, the day decorations and the Christmas tree will be put up and most importantly when and where you will open presents. Highlighting these times on the calendar will help your child prepare for the time spent away from school, and changes in routine, and home.
2. As much as possible keep a child's routine consistent. For example, if the child uses any visual communication tools, continue to use them as much as possible.
3. Include the child in preparing for Christmas. Look at Christmas decorations or trees together. Allow the child to assist in decorating or watch as decorations are put up. Allowing the child to participate in decorating may prevent negative reactions to changes in the environment.
4. Decorating can be highly stimulating and stressful. To make it easier for the child you may want to put up a few decorations each day to ease into the Christmas season.
5 comments:
Great ideas, I should post this on my fridge as a reminder!
Very good tips!
I hope you and your family are having happy days and nights.
Happy christmas and
Happy new year!
Very good ideas. Thank you for posting!
I would also add, for those new to this, "be ready to cancel holiday plans if your child just can't deal with it", because it always seems to happen at some point. (maybe that will get better in the coming years, but we haven't gotten to that point yet) This year the Christmas Eve program had to give because it just wasn't going to happen. That's life.
Hope your family had a joyful and peaceful holiday season!
Hi Bonnie~
As I was searching for something for my son, I came across this website, and saw Bonnie's Blog at the top! I thought, "Could it be?" and indeed it was! You are doing some amazing things! Who knew all those years ago in Steven's Ministry where you'd be today? Wow! Anyway, thought I'd pop in to say hi! Happy New Year my friend from those days!
Michelle E.
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