Each and every year this time of year is a challenging one for our Theo. He goes through such a mix of feelings and emotions that he absolutely doesn’t understand. Part of Theo’s Autism is that he doesn’t understand feelings, his own or other peoples so when I can clearly see that he’s terrified at the loud bangs and frightening colours in the sky he can’t seem to comprehend how they’re making his heart race, they’re making him shake uncontrollably, why his bedtime means nothing to the people outside, why the gentle rocking back and forwards that normally calms him isn’t working because he’s still able to hear and see the frightening things. Thank goodness it only happens normally only once a year!!
This year we thought we’d covered everything. Unfortunately the blackout blinds in his room weren’t as blackout as we’d hoped and the ear defenders (that were new to him at home) weren’t keeping out all the sounds so it took until the silly o’clock hours to settle him down. Again Theo being against the norm the later that he settles in bed the earlier that he gets up in the morning! Joy!
Having a very narky little boy for about 5 days until all the fireworkers stopped playing with their toys Theo finally got a full(ish) nights sleep last night.
On the other side of things we’ve another problem when it comes to Guy Fawkes – Ali and Alex absolutely love the displays of beautiful colours, the bangs that give you that fright of your life even with knowing that they’re coming.
It’s a challenging time of the year however we hope that we’ll find something that will work with Theo that means that it’ll be a more tolerable time for him instead! Any suggestions are greatly welcome as we’ll no doubt have more fireworks at New Year!
Thanks for reading! Comments and suggestions are greatly welcome!
mandzmagee 