For PDA kids, birthdays are surrounded with loads of traditions, demands and expectations…
- The build-up of waiting to receive gifts and pressures to act a certain way when receiving them.
- The expectation to have a party that comes with high social and sensory demands.
- The demand of joining in with structured party games, often with prizes involved.
- The tradition of everyone singing happy birthday and watching them blow out the candles.
- Even just the expectation to have a good time.
Our PDAer recently had a birthday, and these are some of the accommodations we put in place.
He knew exactly what presents he was getting from us. He even helped pick out and wrap some of them. He opened a couple of presents early, in the week leading up to his birthday.
Our PDAer requested a party at our house with all of his friends (eek!) we were hesitant, however given his enthusiasm, we decided to run with it, giving him control over all the details. Anxiety started building in the week leading up and we scaled the party back to just the grandparents and his 2 best friends.
We staggered everyone’s arrival times to reduce overwhelm. It also meant that he could open presents and play with gifts straight away.
Our PDAer couldn’t wait for the piñata so we did this before any of his friends arrived.
He chose not to have us sing Happy Birthday. We simple just cut the cake.
The party was short with a designated finish time. When we could tell our PDAer had reached his limit, we set him up watching TV in a back room while we ushered everyone out, there was no expectation for him to come to the door to say goodbye.
Afterwards, we had a restful afternoon with lots of opportunity for 1:1 play and didn’t make any plans for the rest of the weekend.
Lots of simple adjustments that meant he had a wonderful day.
The big takeaways, we kept the emphasis on meeting our PDAers needs and tempered our own expectations around how birthdays should be celebrated.
How do you manage birthdays at your house?
