b/day problem

[tjw]

hi

can any body suggest anything to help me in this matter, my ds george will be 7 in sept and for the last year he has been saying he is not having a b/day, he is a bit like this with each b/day over the last few yrs, but this time he is realy getting upset about it, i keep asking him why it is so upsetting when he will get new toys and presents ect and have tryed all the well you no so and so is 7 now and they havent changed, but nothing is working , he wants no presents no cake nothing, and when i mention the dreaded date he crys and i mean cry, my heart feels like it is breaking i cannot let the day go by with nothing, he has never had a party for his b/day so i no its not that because he couldnt cope with one, all i am getting out of him is that he dosnt want to get taller!!!!!

if anybody has this same problem and have worked a way round this your advise would be great, thanks for taking time to read my post.

bit sad at mo

theresa x

[NobbyNobbs]

perhaps have a look at things you might have said relating to 6 year olds being able to do them. i got very upset as my 6th birthday was approaching because i loved the drink 5alive, and thought that you could only drink it when you were 5! if he's saying he doesn't want to get taller he might be afraid that he won't be able to do/have something he likes, even something like hugs or playing on a 'baby' toy or thing at the park. i also got very upset when i got to the age that kids started saying father christmas wasn't real because i thought if i knew he wasn't real i wouldn't get a stocking anymore... sometimes logic isn't so much fun. try reassuring him that nothing will change at all, even going into detail (clothes, toys etc)

 

if he's really insistent that he doesn't want anything done, perhaps buy him presents, but dont wrap them and then give them to him after his birthday one by one as everyday things. once he's past the dreaded day he might feel a bit better about it all (he might even then want a late birthday celebration)

[bid]

Theresa <'>

 

Would he maybe like his birthday to be a 'special' day where he gets to choose what he does, the food, etc, rather than a specific birthday present? Is there anything linked with a special interest that could be a day out? Maybe you could have cup cakes iced with letters to spell out his name rather than a big cake, etc. Would keeping his cards in a pile he could look through when he feels ready rather than set out be more comfortable for him?

 

That way you would still be marking his birthday, but in a low key way that is easier for him to handle?

 

Hope you can find something that feels special and nice for all of you <'>

 

Bid

Edited August 8, 2009 by bid

[tjw]

hi

thanks for the replys, i cannot think of anything about being 6 which is triggering this , he seems so upset about 7 the closest i have got to it is the juniors at school he says he is not going to be a junior and i keep telling him he isnt because he is to young, i keep reasuring him that nothing will change but he is not in a very good lisening mood latley, he just keeps making funny noises when speaking to him or says he isnt lisening, i think the cup cake idea is great and will offer to do this with him, i have also told him he can do what ever he likes on this day but he will not do anything he wants no presents or cards and says he will have a present at xmas, i think the giving him the presents after the day is a good idea as well, my dh thinks it is something to do with death and growing old because he keeps asking his nan if she is going to die and then starts to cry, he is also into churches and graveyards at the moment which he has never been into b4, he loves wwe and we have asked him if he wants anything to do with this ( we no he is desparate for the full scale ellimination chamber sorry you have to be into wwe to no what i am going on about ) but he is also refusing this for a present, we have always keeped his b/day low key due to this but we have always had a cake and prezzies b4, i dont realy no what to do i am dreading the day getting closer, but thanks for the replys and the hug bid.

theresa x

[bid]

I know as a child I used to find the whole idea of geting older terribly unsettling and I would cry about everything changing.

 

I don't know if anyone else remembers the very last story in Winnie the Pooh, where Christopher Robin is going away to school? Well, that used to make me absolutely howl as a child, the whole feeling of things changing unalterably.

 

If I read it now I can still boo!

 

Bid

[tjw]

hi

he keeps asking me if he can be peter pan bless him, i just dont no how to explain the getting older thing anymore. he wont accept anything i say at the mo.

theresa x

[Cat]

hi

he keeps asking me if he can be peter pan bless him, i just dont no how to explain the getting older thing anymore. he wont accept anything i say at the mo.

theresa x

 

There are some things that even we Mothers can not change and getting older is one of those things. I had this with both of my autistic sons. The youngest was actually your sons age when he said that he did not want anymore Birthdays because he did not want to get older. He did not want to get any bigger. He wanted to stop growing. I tried and tried, just as you have to explain things to him to make him feel better but nothing I said made one jot of difference. The issue was change even hidden change like being a year older. You might not look any different on your actual Birthday but your age has changed and you have gone up a number.

 

After trying everything, and I do mean everything, with my son I decided the only way to go was with total honesty. I told him that we could scrap the pressies, a cake, a party and I could even make sure that on the day that no one even mentioned his Birthday but that was not going to to stop him from being 7 years old on that day. I said that that is how we measure time and we can not stop time from happening just because he did not want anymore Birthdays and wanted to stop 6. I can not say that he was happy with this but that is the way things are and as I have said there are some things that even we Mums can not stop from happening.

 

In addition I would like to add that my eldest hated having to have any fuss at all on his Birthday he just used to like it to come and go with no pressies, cake etc. Yes it was upsetting for me and the rest of the family but is was how he coped with changed and that was more important to me than having to mark the day in a way that he found difficult to cope with. It is only another day and it is our expectations and not the child's that we usually try to adhere to. We actually tend to do Birthdays in our house the day before so we get the gifts and everything out of the way so that the actual day itself is just a normal day. I have no idea why this works but it does.

 

The youngest did celebrate his 7th Birthday after all because after I had made it clear that no one could stop it from happening, and after I also made it clear that I was no longer going to be engaged in conversations about something that I could not change for him,I know that that might sound really harsh and it did upset me but I ran out of places to go with the conversation. He decided that if he was goint to have to be 7 anyway that he might as well be 7 after all. Growing older is something that quite a few children on the spectrum find it difficult to handle and for my eldest it was linked in with growing old and dying. It can be very painful for the child and for us to find a way to live with the fact that we all age. I found just being honest was the best way for us to go. But of course being sensitive and caring at the same time.

 

Cat

Edited August 9, 2009 by Cat

[bikemad]

Couldnt read this n run cos my lad is the same...he turns 10 in a few weeks n is really uptight and upset over it n say he wishes he could have stayed younger, dont want to grow up or get older or bigger, wishes he was still 4 or even a little baby.....no idea why n no idea how to deal with it tbh.....he dont 'do' birthday partys for him at all....ironic thing is tho he dont wanna get older but on the day he likes to go for a meal at a really grown up restaurant with me n his dad.