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Are Your SEND Children Coping with Christmas?

For children with special educational needs, the festive season can be a time of anxiety not excitement, explains Adele Devine…

Adele Devine
by Adele Devine
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PrimaryEnglish

When I was little my father would sometimes suddenly exclaim, “Oh Christmas!” Usually it was nowhere near that time of year; “Oh Christmas!” was just my dad’s way of expressing stress.

Yes, Christmas is a time of celebration, gift-giving, surprises and joy, but there’s a big flipside to all the excitement. There may be financial stress, time pressures, family who land without warning – and that’s enough to worry us adults who know roughly what to expect.

So what must Christmas be like for the anxious child, who may not be able to question or understand?

Anxieties bubble

We may not see the stresses and anxieties all of the little changes throughout the day can cause. Some children show us they are worried through challenging behaviour, some may tell us, but there also those who quietly withdraw.

In her blog, A Slice of Autism, Michelle Myers, whose middle child is diagnosed with autism, uses a brilliant analogy of shaking up a bottle of pop to explain what she describes as ‘the delayed effect’.

She advises teachers to “imagine yourself as a bottle of pop. Your ingredients include autism, sensory processing difficulties, ADHD and a hidden speech and language delay. The world is a confusing place, and your difficulties are largely hidden to those around you – not many people understand things from your perspective.”

She explains how changes, little demands and additional pressures may not visibly upset a child, but the effect is like shaking a bottle of pop until they “get home and the lid blows off with the pressure – that’s the delayed effect!”

Michelle is talking about the changes encountered over the course of a ‘normal’ school day, explaining the way in which anxieties build up, but how much harder is it for children when we throw Christmas into this mix?

Case study

‘Christmas through the eyes of a child with autism’

Good morning There won’t be time today. We are decorating our class tree. We are supposed to be happy. It’s going to be fun. The teacher doesn’t talk through our schedule because “we don’t need to”. We are in mad ‘Christmas mode’.

Numeracy (Which is still up on our schedule) is suddenly ‘play rehearsal’. We stand about and listen to teachers talking and then moving us about. There is the awful singing and kids ‘playing’ random instruments. Why?

Staff absences Our teaching assistant is off sick with ‘flu’ and has not been replaced, so I have to wade through this minefield without my all-smiling, all-knowing guide… My eyes hurt, my head aches, but I’m not ill enough to stay at home – ‘attendance records’, the ‘importance of routine’ and all that…

Science We are adding glitter to snowflakes. I usually like science. Mrs White has been replaced by Mrs ‘?’, who seems to find fun in getting glitter everywhere… The mix-it-up kids take advantage and could do anything, any minute… She starts to shout. Shouting is my worst thing. Why is she punishing me? Injustice and pain!

LiteracyWe are making Christmas lists, but the things I so want are not in their catalogues. I need to go on the computer to make my list, but get an instant “No.” I try to get to the computer anyway because my list needs to be right.

Now the teacher is really cross and gives me a sad face to hold. I feel really, really sad and do nothing while the other children make their lists. “You won’t get presents if you don’t make a list” – that throwaway comment from the parent-helper feels like a knife stabbing my heart.

Santa’s watching “Santa is watching” they say and I know I’m not managing Santa’s “good”, but I’m trying so hard with all the noise, the change, the anxiety and the sensory overload.

Christmas fair Time to see Santa. I wait and I manage the noise, the smells and those flickering lights… I take the gift. I say “thank you”, as rehearsed. I endure the flash of the camera, shading my eyes with my flat present. And that’s when I realise – Santa has given me a picture book! After all that!

I feel so mad. All those strategies they’ve taught me about counting, deep breaths and asking for time out don’t help me. My foot flies up out of nowhere and before I know what is happening, I’ve kicked him. I’ve kicked him right in the knee and he’s hurt. I can’t look at him. I want to sink into the ground and disappear. I’ve kicked Santa! I feel bad – totally and utterly bad all through. And suddenly I’m hitting out at everyone because I’m angry with myself and I want them to disappear too.

Home I know that my parents are ‘disappointed’, but they say nothing. They let me be – not because they are soft or think kicking Santa is okay, but because they know me. They know I need some time to process, to think, to work the whole thing out and I already feel really, really sorry… It wasn’t even Santa that made me mad, it was the muddle, the confusion, the list and all that talk.

Still on the good list I might not manage ‘good’, see things or react as you expect me to, but I do try harder that anyone can know.

Christmas changes are hard to handle.

Listen to me, watch me and try to understand.

Give me time, give me unconditional love, get to know me as an individual and set me up to succeed because with your support, I can!

This passage is an excerpt from Adele Devine’s Flying Starts for Unique Children, published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.


Treats or triggers?

Keep the following in mind when planning your festivities…

  • Decorations – Anxieties of unexpected change and sensory overload
  • Presents – The unknown, waiting and potential disappointment
  • Santa – Stranger danger, confusion and getting on the ‘good’ list
  • Advent calendars – One window a day or one chocolate. Waiting!
  • Family – Social exhaustion. Moving things. Noise!
  • Food – Change in routine, strange smells and too much sugar
  • School plays – Noise, routine change, pressure and clapping
  • Parties – Noise, space invaded, social exhaustion and disrupted sleep
  • Surprises – Change of routine, keeping secrets and needing to know…
  • Fireworks – Noise, fear and no warnings or control

How to help

10 ways to ease children’s anxiety…

  1. Keep a decoration-free zone
  2. Have a dark den or sensory bolthole available
  3. Social stories explaining expectations
  4. Advance warnings about changes to schedule
  5. Reduce some expectations and allow movement breaks
  6. Speak to parents/carers and offer support
  7. Role play around gift-giving and reactions
  8. Add all changes to the visual timetable
  9. Find ways to reduce noises
  10. Listen and prepare to compromise

Adele Devine is a teacher at Portesbery school & director of SEN Assist.

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