Happy Holidays

I’m out of town visiting family for the holidays. Before I left town, I meant to summarize and link to some of the articles I’ve seen about how to manage holiday chaos if you or a family member has ADHD. Unfortunately my dental emergency and three different shifting deadlines intervened.  Oh well.

While it’s a bit late to implement some of my favorite holiday organizing tactics — like shopping online to minimize mall exposure — it’s never to late to put some of Terry Matlen’s advice into practice. She blogs at “Moms with ADHD”, and has some recommendations here and here about what NOT to do to keep your sanity over the holidays.

My fellow Squid Macs has some compassionate tips for managing the holidays with a special needs child. She emphasizes the importance of communicating your expectations to your child, and discussing your child’s needs with other family members. She also suggests that you don’t overbook your family, that you bring a “care package” of your child’s favorite toys so they can have a time out in case of overstimulation, and that you have an “escape plan” so you can leave before things get out of hand. A lot of her advice can be modified for adults too.

Health Central has some good tips specific to kids with ADD. For instance, try to maintain the family routine as much as possible, make sure your child understands that different households have different rules, and make sure you only accept invitations to events where you and your children will be welcome and comfortable.

My single best piece of advice is to be gentle with yourself. Some of your presents might not arrive on time, your house may not look perfect, and you might not get all those cookies baked. Personally, I started enjoying the holidays much, MUCH more the year I gave up once and for all on sending cards; it’s just one of those things that I never got around to doing, and caused so much stress it wasn’t worth it.

In any decent world, the winter holidays are about being with your loved ones, catching up with friends and family, remembering times past, and creating new memories. I hereby give you official permission to chill out. Relax, enjoy yourself, and have a safe and happy holiday season.

I’ll be back on my blogs in January 2010.