Mother's Day Vs Birthday
After Mothers Day I posted on FB that it hadn’t been the best day.
It hadn’t been great because my little one hadn’t been prepped at all about a different day and not only was it different, it was about me and not him!
So I challenged myself to have a better birthday and I can say it really was a great day. But to get to that point I had to put in some work. But it really was worth it!
1. Prepping for the day
This started the day after Mother’s Day. I was determined for it to be different. And it just started with conversations. Conversations about my birthday coming up and how birthdays are important days for some people and on those days we should treat them well and treat the nicely.
My husband also took him out on a special trip to buy me some presents. My husband used the opportunity to say that Mummy probably wouldn’t want a rocket for her birthday, can we think of some things Mummy might want!
We talked about it quite a lot, and expressed regularly how he needs to behave.
Because my birthday was during the holidays, we made a holiday picture time table and my birthday was part of that.
2. Taking it personally
This is such a hard one. It goes against everything in you. If any adult or Neuro-typical child behaved in the way my little one did, you definitely would take it personally and you probably wouldn’t speak to them for a while, because you thought they were quite mean, and unthinking. But as our ADHD nurse put it, you have to reframe it. It’s not him being mean and horrid (even though it is), but he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t know how to do this right, because socially speaking those skills are not honed yet. In some ways the whole day would have been far better if I hadn’t taken it personally. If I’d have realised all of this in the morning and not at my bedtime! If I’d taken it in my stride, then we would have had a better day. For my birthday I was half expecting it to go very wrong, so in some ways it was a complete shock and surprise when it didn’t. I altered my behaviour and tried to help him alter his.
Now I’m not saying his behaviour on Mother’s Day was acceptable. And at some points in the day there were some consequences for his behaviour. But like with all behaviour, we have to ask why? When I reframed the situation, I wasn’t as insulted and put out. Try it next time you’re in a similar situation. I hope it helps.
3. He struggles with these types of days.
We recently met with an ADHD nurse and she said something that hit me like a ton of bricks!! “Children with ADHD don’t like CHANGE!!”
Now yes I should know this, but it’s never been said in such a clear way. Now Mother’s Day is definitely a change. It’s not part of the norm and it’s very different. This is the same for children with ASD and other neurological conditions.
So you can either give into this and say well we won’t celebrate it let’s just keep everything the same and then you as the mum miss out (again!) or you can allow it to happen and either face the consequences or prep. I personally as the mum don’t want to miss out. I work so hard at being a Mum, I want to celebrate this fact!!
4. See it as a brilliant opportunity to teach social skills.
This is not going to be the only time in his life where he will have to put someone else first. As a child his friends will have birthdays, his family will have celebrations and when he’s older and gets married and has children, that’s a whole lot of putting others first. So this has got to be taught.
We’ve always had to break social skills down into small basic chunks to support our little one. And this should have been no different.
* Putting others first
* Respect others and their feelings
* Understanding how celebrating someone else might make them feel loved and special.
* Why we have special days
* These types of days are a regular thing
Now of course you don’t teach all this in one go. But you drip feed little nuggets. The very act of prepping shows that this is important. It takes time, it might take a few years of it not being great. But have hope!!
