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December, 2005
Holiday Tips for
Parents
by Becky Lowe
Holidays truly make life harder
for our kids. Their routine is totally thrown off
course, we, the parents, are distracted by cooking,
decorating and shopping. Our kids are left to just
deal with the overwhelming sense of confusion. My
daughter is now 7 and after celebrating holidays
with Katie and our family, I have come up with two
very important tips to help make the holidays
easier.
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Do not over plan!
We all want to visit everyone and see everything
over the holidays, but our kids sometimes cannot
do all that in one day. Our first few holidays
after Katie was diagnosed, we tried to deny this
would affect her. We chased her around houses of
our friends and family, and we dealt with her
not sleeping because she was so over-stimulated
when we finally arrived home. Christmas morning
was a blur since she was so distracted by the
first present and wanting to open the box and
help Barbie escape all her bindings we ended up
leaving the remainder of the presents under the
tree. We now try to avoid doing too much in any
one day. We also try to have people over to our
home as much as possible. Katie copes with the
holidays much better when it is in her own
environment. Katie loves to bake and wrap
presents so I try to get her involved as much as
possible with those projects. This past year was
the first Christmas Katie was able to truly
enjoy Christmas morning. She opened all her
gifts and “ohhed” and “ahhed” over everything.
It was a joy to watch!
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RELAX!
The more stressed the holidays are for you, the
harder it will be for your child. It has taken
us 5 long years to realize our dream of a
“perfect holiday” is not necessarily the same
dream Katie has. We have learned to relax! I
remember crying myself to sleep on Christmas
after a horrible afternoon at my grandparents. I
realize now it was not Katie’s fault that she
had such a bad day, it was my expectation of the
holiday that ruined it.
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