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Everybody approaches the festive season differently. Some people want to spend it surrounded by friends and family, noise and light, and some people want to spend it settled down with a cosy coffee, watching their favourite films and relaxing in the comfort of their own home. Both are wonderfully valid festive choices! Yet the folks amongst us who are neurodiverse might be looking forward to the festive season with a little trepidation as it’s often a season where there’s additional stress and pressure to engage in ways that they wouldn’t usually, and it could prompt feelings of discomfort or worry. We’re all different, and what’s fun for one person could actually be pretty grim for another – so it’s important we explore how activities impact everybody, not just a neurotypical mindset.
The year is 2021 and we think it’s high time we thought about making sure that the most wonderful time of the year is wonderful for everybody – and this means thinking about how we interact with people and expect them to interact with us, too.
Some people with social anxiety might struggle with the amount of socialising they’re expected to do during the festive season, especially as a lot of it might be in situations they’re not particularly used to. If you open up your home to your family this year, there might be children there who want to read a book, or sit with pets instead of joining in with group games – and this is a-ok. The same goes for school or work parties – just because somebody isn’t comfortable going to the bar for a festive lunch or meeting up at an indoor play centre on the last day of term doesn’t mean that your social group isn't important to them. It might just mean that they’re uncomfortable in social situations, and would rather not put themselves through an experience they’ll find stressful or could trigger negative feelings.
Be considerate, and trust people to set their own comfort boundaries: Christmas often dictates a pretty big uptick in socialisation, and for people who need alone time to recuperate, it can lead to feelings of stress and burnout. Try not to organise a full calendar of events during the festive season, and leave people time to decompress – maybe consider moving some of your gatherings back onto Zoom, as some neurodiverse people are much more confident over the internet where they don’t have to leave their house to touch base with friends and family. Some people also find structured events less stressful, as they require collaboration rather than simply turning up and expecting conversation to flow – maybe try a Christmas quiz instead of a standard party.
It’s also a great idea to add on invitation messages that there’s no pressure to attend, or even to stay for a certain amount of time – it might seem like a small change, but it could be the difference between somebody having a good night or a bad one.
Christmas shopping, too, can pose very legitimate problems for some people. The media is predicting that 2021 is going to be one of the biggest Christmas seasons ever for in-person buying, with footfall numbers expected to trump those of 2019 by more than half. And this means busy shops, busy streets and very crowded scenarios – and for some people, it’s just too much. People who have Autism or ADHD can experience ‘sensory overload;’ a feeling when their senses are overwhelmed by more information than their brain can comfortably process, and it can often trigger a response of stress and panic. It can also be especially bad at Christmas, as places are usually busier and there often are lots of flashing lights- and not to mention the music blaring everywhere and myriad things to take in. And when it comes to sensory overload, it’s not just in shops and stores that there might be a myriad of triggers – they can exist in the home too. Sensory processing issues might make somebody feel like the flashing lights on the Christmas tree or the music you’ve got on in the background feel nigh on unbearable – so always be considerate of making little changes, such as turning things down or off, and set aside a quieter room to decompress in.
People with literacy differences can struggle at Christmas too. Addressing cards and holiday greetings requires a lot of reading and writing, and sometimes this means they might choose to forego Christmas cards altogether, or opt for a phonecall instead. It’s much easier to communicate organically when you’re not worrying about have you confused the last two letters of a zip code, or sent two cards to your Aunt Margery and forgotten your Aunt Margret.
And dyslexia at Christmas doesn’t begin and end with addressing cards either. Like people who struggle with sensory overload, they too can have issues with in-person shopping when it’s busy – labels are rarely printed in dyslexia-friendly formats, and if you need to keep track of a budget or check for something specific, it could end up being pretty difficult if you’re in a busy aisle with nowhere quiet to concentrate. So if somebody turns down your offer of heading out into town Christmas shopping this season, might not be that they’re not feeling festive – it could just be that it’s simply a scenario that doesn’t work for them.
There are hundreds of ways that being neurodiverse at Christmas might have an impact on how you experience the holiday season- these are just a couple of the most common that you might encounter with your friends and loved ones. The best way to make sure that your Christmas festivities are neuroinclusive is to communicate properly with those you’re planning to see and socialise with, and ask what accommodations you can make to make sure that everybody is comfortable and has fun, and you’re not running the risk of making somebody feel isolated or stressed. It’s a season to be jolly, after all, and after the past couple of years, it’s likely that many of us have reassessed our end-of-year priorities to include mental wellbeing and rest as well as getting into the holiday spirit together.
Let’s make 2021 a year where our holidays are all about all of us. You can find out more about neurodiversity at Christmas making your festive season neuroinclusive at Forbes.com; and there’s a great list of tips and tricks for making the holidays inclusive and accessible for neurodiverse children at NeurAbilities.
Happy Holidays!