We have spent the last few years during the evening of 31
October sitting in the dark with no tv on and not being allowed to make a noise
as our two ASD children do not like the unknown quantity of Halloween. Costumes can terrify them and many ASD children do not like dressing up themselves, then our children worry if
the treats you give out are not seen as being good enough, a trick will be
carried out. Plus their lives are
governed by rules and abiding by them.
One rule that all parents teach children is not to talk to strangers,
therefore to explain to an ASD child who sees everything in black and white
that it is ok to knock on the door of a stranger and ask for sweets goes
against everything they have ever been taught.
Even as a parent, I am not happy with letting them do that, so I can only guess how confusing it must seem to them. They also struggle to understand why you would open the door and speak to someone you do not know.
We are lucky that we do not live on a busy road and so there
are generally only a handful of trick or treaters that knock at the door. Our children have already said that the door
is not to be opened on Halloween and we will respect that.
To help to prepare our children for the Halloween items that
they will see hanging up in houses or in the shops, I have made a sensory bin
that is full of stretchy skeletons, squishy eyeballs, pumpkin tinsel and
spiders, mixed together with rice and lentils.
Preparation is the key to everything when you have a child
with ASD.
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