The holidays are upon us.....it's a difficult time for us. The boys' schedules are disrupted and there and just so many more people.
Another difficult area for us is gifts. People always want to know what to get the boys for Christmas. For so many years, a lot of money was wasted buying the boys gifts that we thought they should want. Everyone wants to buy the toy that brings squeals of excitement and hours of enjoyment. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen with Nate and Noah. We wasted so much energy trying to apologize to everyone and come up with excuses as to why they weren't excited about the gift and yes, they would spend hours playing with it. We decided that it was time to end the facade.
We realized that the boys enjoy experiences more than toys. They love videos and their IPads. We now ask for ITunes cards and gift cards to their favorite restaurants. This makes everyone happy. The boys don't have the pressure of opening a toy that they won't play with and everyone knows that their money was well spent. Since everyone still wants the boys to open a gift, they wrap boxes of Pop Tarts and other favorite snacks. This also guarantees happy faces when the present is opened. It's also a relief now that my family understands that the boys need to open presents in shifts or they just let me open them instead.
So, I will now get on my soap box. If you need to buy a gift for a child with autism, I am going to give some suggestions.
1. gift cards to restaurants
2. pool together money to buy a therapy item: such as a trampoline, swing, adult tricycle, ipod (there are so many great apps for kids with autism that ITunes cards are always a good idea)
3. pool together money to join an indoor or outdoor pool or gymnastics lessons
4. find favorite videos and or video games
I just purchased a family membership to an indoor wave pool. Nate and Noah will enjoy this much more than the X-Box that we purchased last year.......another lesson learned.
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