With the holidays fast approaching and many people spending time with their families, here are a few tips that might help the holidays go a bit smoother:

• Include your child in the decorating of the house as much as possible.  This allows for a gentle introduction to the changes in the house’s appearance and helps your child to feel included in the holiday spirit.  Think about including items that are “free to touch” decorations as opposed to the many that he will not be allowed to handle.  A small fake tree with unbreakable ornaments without hooks is ideal.  He can have fun decorating and redecorating this tree year after year.
  
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• Try to keep some routines for your young child even if you have company or are visiting relatives.  Young children still need routines and their sleep!
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• If your child has a special diet, offer to bring your child’s food with you and do this even if your relatives say they will take care of it.  Unless you have experience of special diets it is easy to think you are providing a gluten free diet when in fact you aren’t.  I learned this when a friend made a vegetarian meal for me and later explained that the meat had been taken out of the food.
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• Explain to relatives the best way to communicate with your child.  You don’t need to give a lecture, just explain the “less is more” principle of not overloading with too many words at once, particularly when they want to converse.  If your child is signing, teach them a few signs.
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• Put therapies on hold.  Unless your therapist has indicated that certain interventions are necessary to be repeated every day or they are needed for survival, forget them for a while.  If they don’t fit in easily to an everyday routine, put them on hold and enjoy your family.
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• Help your child to wrap some presents. A beautifully-wrapped present is a pleasure but a present wrapped by a child is the best (OK, I might be on my own with this one.)  But think of this, there are so many great skills involved in wrapping a present.  There is eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, visual perception skills, and problem solving skills.  Just one thing to keep in mind, though.  Research has shown that many people with Down syndrome have difficulty with both visual     acuity and finding objects against a background (see     http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/optom/eyeclinic/downssyndromegroup/pastresearch/currentpastresearch.html for info on vision) so     taping the wrapping paper is difficult when you can’t see the join.  Try bending over the edge of the wrapping paper so that there is a white line to tape against the design of the paper. 
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• If you have a fussy or poor eater, remember to not overload his plate with food.  When there is a plentiful buffet there is a tendency (for all of us) to put too much on our plates.  Apart from not needing as much food, having smaller amounts of food on the plate is less intimidating to a young child and he is more likely to eat.
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• Teach your child Christmas songs.  This is a fun activity and one that preschools tend to routinely include.  Music is fun for all and motivating. The “la la” in Deck the Halls is a great oral motor exercise, too!

Most of all, HAVE FUN!

© Ann Haig Wheeler, DSC 2009

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