22 APRIL 2025
In this article, Anne-Marie Harrison, Education Director from Ideas Afresh, shares practical advice on supporting neurodivergent children during celebrations. She explores how planning ahead, understanding sensory needs, and adapting expectations can help create positive, comfortable experiences for the whole family.
Children's parties, events, and 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 your child for what to expect
Many people enjoy the predictability of a schedule; remember to add ‘going home’ at the end’. A considered seating plan can help set up for success. If it is possible, try to do a site visit beforehand. Ensure the attendees are familiar with where the toilets are, the bar, buffet and how they will be able to access and exit the venue. Consider everything you ‘just know’ about the expectations of this particular event and how you might communicate this. For example, are you taking a gift that will be handed over? Is there a dress code? If so pre plan what to wear, if less familiar attire and practical to do so have a trial wear.
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.
Agree beforehand an exit plan. If tolerance of these environments is limited consider attending for the final X amount of time rather than the initial. This supports a feeling of success because everyone is leaving at the same time.
A short role-play session can help a child understand what to expect and feel more comfortable. Some autistic children may prefer gifts to be unwrapped, as the surprise element can be overwhelming. Clear or transparent party bags can also help reduce anxiety by showing what’s inside before opening.
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 and familiar 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.
Parties often mean less familiar foods. It can be helpful to have tried some of the likely food ahead of the event or consider taking your own familiar snacks and foods. As the famous saying goes 'Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance' and of course these 5Ps, hopefully sets the scene for a more enjoyable and fun experience.
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.
Consider the environment
Ideally attendees will be familiar with the environment. Sometimes an actual role play or practice run of selecting from a buffet, ordering a drink can ease tensions. Drink tokens can be helpful for individuals that find it difficult to keep track of the number of drinks. Taking a few familiar items and activities may be useful.
When air conditioning units are in use, consider how the environment may affect attendees. Some individuals may find the ‘white noise’ or the sensory flow of air soothing, while others may feel uncomfortable. If this is the case, it’s helpful to provide seating in quieter areas away from the units. For events with table settings, seating people at the ends of tables and near exits can also make transitions easier and support their comfort.
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