Celebrating New Year's Eve with Special Needs Children
How to Help Children with Special Needs Have a Fun and Safe New Year’s Celebration
P.s. : The word parent represents any person who has the legal right over that child on this website.
There are a few great ways to help children with special needs ring in the New Year with a smile. Fireworks, loud music, bright lights, and busy crowds can be challenging for many children. They can give them overwhelming sensory input, and changes in daily routines can throw them off and lead to meltdowns. However, it does not mean your child can’t be a part of the New Year’s celebration.
Below are some ideas of what you can do to make the New Year’s celebration a fun one for your child, your family, and you.
Celebrating at Home
You can still have a good time celebrating at home. Here are some ideas on how to make the home celebration fun:
- Do your own time zone. Many children can’t stay up until midnight. And to be honest, many adults probably can’t stay up until midnight either. A lot of our children already have sleep issues, so why push. Instead of ringing in the New Year at 12:00 AM, how about ringing it in at 12:00 PM, aka noon.
- You can still make it fun. Bring out whatever makes your heart happy. Have hats, tiaras, confetti, noisemakers, snacks, sparkling drinks, and champagne.
- Have a count-down to 12 noon on December 31st. You can even watch live coverage of celebrations from all around the world such as the one on EarthCam website,
https://www.earthcam.com/newyears/. Or, you can put on a video from last year’s celebration, such as the New York’s Time square ball drop. You can still take that front-row seat, wherever you are.
- Take out your family's favorite games, or even surprise them with a new one, and make it into a game night.
- Get comfortable in your pajamas, have the popcorn ready, and make it into a movie night.
Going out to see the Fireworks Show
With some preparation and tweaks, your child can also have a fun and successful time at a fireworks event. Here are some ideas of what you can do to prepare ahead of time:
- Use online videos to show your child what happens at a typical New Year’s celebration to prepare them ahead of time. You can also create or find a social story online to explain what your child can expect.
- If your child is sensitive to loud noises, bring along noise-canceling headphones.
- If your child is sensitive to a large crowd, find a spot further away from the large group. Put on a picnic blanket, bring out the food and drinks, put on your party hats, and you can still have fun and watch those fireworks show from that spot.
- Keep it short. Let’s say your family and friends plan to meet up at 6:00 to save a good spot to watch the fireworks, hang out and eat together. If waiting three hours for the show might be too much for your child, plan for one of you to bring your child to the group closer to the showtime.
- Have a plan B if your child gets too overwhelmed by the crowd and noise. Decide ahead of time where to take your child in this case and who will go with your child. For example, you can then take your child to the car and watch the rest of the fireworks from inside the car. You can also prepare your child ahead of time that this is an option, and they can ask if they need to go to the car. If your child is a verbal communicator, you can practice for them to ask, “Let’s go to the car .”If your child is a non-verbal communicator, you can practice using a visual card or their communicative device.
- Bring helpful supplies such as your child’s favorite toys or items such as iPad, fidget toys, snacks, and drinks. For example, it is okay if they end up watching their favorite movie on an iPad while the fireworks show is going on. Your child is still right there among you.
- Make safety a priority. Plan ahead who is in charge of keeping an eye on your child. Have some type of identification if your child is a non-verbal communicator, or your child usually has trouble talking to strangers, such as an identification band.
And the most important tip of all, do you. Do what works best for your family, your child, and you.
Ask for help and be clear with others who will be there how they can help you and your child. Often, others do want to help. They just don’t know-how.
Wishing you a year filled with love, joy, and success in 2022!
Stay connected with me, so I can update you with any new info, tips and freebies.
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