Celebrating With Comfort and Joy

The 1984 film Comfort and Joy, which won a BAFTA, portrayed the challenges of juggling social situations, dealing with the unexpected, and managing change. These are experiences many of us can relate to. For some individuals, even the thought of attending a social gathering, a family celebration, or stepping into unfamiliar territory can trigger significant anxiety.

Religious, cultural, family celebrations carry with them both apparent and hidden expectations. Successfully celebrating these events in a manner that feels both joyful and comfortable for our neurodivergent children generally calls for some forward planning and detective work.

Preparing

Make sure your child has as much information as possible about the upcoming experience, including how it may interact with their sensory sensitivities. Use resources like books and YouTube videos to show and explain what to expect during the event. Leave photographs and picture books around to help familiarise them with the idea, making the experience feel more approachable and predictable.

Memory and sensory play

Experience is explained as a complex interplay of internal factors like perception, memory, and emotional response. For many of our children, this translates into sensory reactions and requirements. Research explains that for many neurodivergent individuals, episodic memory and autobiographical memory can hold intense detail. This means that new experiences may be heavily influenced by a past experience.

For example, one child refused to go into their local village hall because on a previous occasion, balloons were being popped. One girl described the intensity of these remembered feelings as if in a 'time capsule'. For her, the emotional, sensory and physical intensity of the recollection, felt as real as the first time she had ever experienced something. Encouraging risk taking, vulnerability is described as Brene Brown as imperative to 'living a full life'. Being brave enough to encounter new experiences requires sufficient comfort, reassurance and preparation to make a situation feel tolerable and, hopefully, even enjoyable. One partially hearing, autistic young lady shared, that for her a loud and brightly lit disco was the best experience ever.

Sensory comforts

Being aware of the sensory experiences that bring comfort and joy to a celebration or event can be a successful segway into an enjoyable experience. Providing appropriate activities and personal comforts for coping with music, lighting and smells, while including your child in the choices, ensures appropriate and child focussed decisions, rather than expectation-driven ones.

Participation

One family agreed a 'divide and conquer' approach. Taking the rest of the family along for the duration of the gathering, whilst one parent brought their child for the final 20 minutes. Abandoning rules, expectations and attempts to please guests or extended family members, or to fit with cultural pressures is not failure, it is about kindness. Kindness to yourselves, gentle on your children, and realistic regarding expectations.

In her book Low Demand Parenting, Amanda Diekman reminds us that comfort and joy is about focussing on what we can do, and what we can tolerate. Being aware of the permeators our sensory system, currently present and working towards an agreed extension of attendance time, participation and involvement in celebrations as success allows, one step at a time.

Takeaway tips for celebrations

• Lower expectations to relieve anxiety
• Identify sensory needs and ways to support them
• Keep your child well informed and reassured. Introduce photos, videos, books of anticipated events and ceremonies
• Offer structured time away, quiet space and unstructured sensory breaks, fiddle toys and ear defenders
• Be flexible with duration, attendance and expectations