7th
Dealing with Halloween When Your Kids Have Autism
Our family doesn’t celebrate Halloween. However, we do celebrate other holidays where our twin boys, who have autism, have to wear a costume.
The Christmas program is one example. We try to approach it as casually as possible and let them overhear us talk about the costume rather than tell them they have to wear one. Or, I let them see me make or sew it and talk about it for a few weeks before the time comes for them to actually put it on. Then, we encourage them to tyr it on and offer a reward of some kind, but we never made them wear one.
In the past few years, though, they have been one of the Three Kings (Wise Men) in the Christmas play at church and they have enjoyed playing that role. Since I direct the Christmas programs, I picked one of their favorite little friends to be a wise man, too. They are good imitators, and they figured if their friend was up for it, they would be, too. That has helped a lot.
When the twins were about 4 they were shepherds in the Christmas play but didn’t want to wear the towels on their head. We made a deal with them just to wear it up to the stage — and then the lady who was helping them walked them up and right on off and they removed it. LOL. It was HARD for them, and there were some tears, but they did it! It was a tiny victory.
The boys don’t go to stores with me very much so they don’t see all the Halloween junk that’s in the stores. But they do see it in the grocery store and they do comment on it, but they know it’s not a holiday we recognize, and we talk about that. They seem fine with it.
We do have Hallelujah night at our church, and dressing up as a historical person is encouraged rather than a ghost or vampire or whatever. Sometimes the boys talk about dressing up as something but when it comes time to do it they don’t want to. They have allowed their faces to be painted before, though. Isaac is more into it than Isaiah by far. Isaiah has always been the one to hold back a lot more.
When it came to public school participation — they were in public school until 1st grade (did two years of Kindergarten) I just kept them home on the day of the parties. I was doing the teachers a big favor by doing that, anyway, and the school never complained about it.
I don’t know what the boys will be in the Christmas play this year. Last year we didn’t have any costumes and the boys just dressed in their new suits from when my husband and I renewed our vows. They do love to dress up in a suit because they see their dad wearing suits.
I am thankful we don’t have to deal with the Halloween chaos. Because we have a quiet party at our church and the kids do a pinata, and they get tons of candy from people in the church donating, we have it a lot easier than other families living with autism. My suggestion: just because other people recognize a holiday doesn’t mean you have to.
Life is hard enough. Keep it simple. Keep it sensory sensitive to your child’s needs. Like I need to tell you that. I think your child’s screaming or not screaming tells you all you need to know. But maybe it helps to know that someone gave you permission to skip the holiday altogether.
