Reply to Birthdays are so hard in a house of neurodivergents

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[quote=Anonymous]Are birthdays and holidays hard for any other neurodivergent families? I’m a mom with ADHD and two kids, an older one who is 9 with ADHD and anxiety and younger one who is 5 with ADHD, feeding issues (a step above ARFID), and poss. ASD. My DH is not neurodivergent.

It seems no matter what strategies we use - preparing for birthdays with them, talking about gift expectations and feelings and disappointment ahead of time, talking and practicing strategies for managing big feelings regularly, having a few small toys to open for the non birthday child, trying very hard to make their day special (usually the kids wake up to a decorated dining room, a table full of wrapped presents, and their favorite breakfast, among other things), there are inevitably tears, disappointment, tears at gifts they don’t like, and big feelings and fighting between the kids. It’s so opposite from how I behaved as a kid (I was raised to suck it up when my siblings had their birthdays and I did) and my DH (he was the child of a single parent who struggled financially so birthdays were always very constrained) that as much as we both set our expectations on the floor for the day, the kids manage to eventually set one or both of us off with their behavior. We have tried years where we do less and the disappointment is even greater.

The kids have managed to make holidays, birthdays, and all holidays not about them (especially Mother’s and Father’s Day) fraught events that I have come to dread, despite putting in a big smile and trying to do my best to make it special for them. I wonder if anyone else struggles with this, because I feel like I’m completely failing at parenting. [/quote]

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