TACA is looking for your advice/experience on surviving the holidays. This can be a difficult time for a child with autism and stressful for parents and caregivers as well. Please fill out all sections of the form below to share your advice/experience. We would like to hear all of your ideas and strategies that have gotten you through this time of the year. Some topics might include:
- How to deal with the noise/crowds/people in costumes (Santa!)
- School parties
- GFCF friendly holiday treats
- Do you have social stories that you use?
- GFCF infractions
- School vacation time/change in schedule
- Questions from family and friends
- Sharing gifts
Here is an example:
Family sneaking children non-GFCF food!
Our first GFCF Christmas made us very nervous. We were pretty new to the diet but determined to do it and do it right. Our children are *lucky* enough to have 7 sets of grandparents who all wish to occupy the favorite grandparent role. So we developed a two part plan to address this situation.
#1 Work with our sons' ABA tutors to help the boys understand what they could and could not have (they could not have anything that wasn't given to them by mom or dad!)
#2 We invited all of the grandparents over for a mini lecture given by my husband that gave an overview of the GFCF diet and why we were implementing it. We knew that they all loved the boys and once they understood the reasoning and logic behind the diet they would support and uphold it. We also gave them all a copy of Dr. McCandless' book, Children with Starving Brains!
Not all of the granparents "got it" but they have all been extremely respectful of our choices and fortunately we have never had one of them involved in an infraction.
Melanie, Visalia, CA.
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