I orginally wrote this on my Facebook page for Christmas 2021. Now, a year later. I feel exactly the same…
A different year, the same sentiment!
If someone cannot respect or accept mine or my children’s ways of communicating, being, expressing, moving, eating, socialising (or not) …. Then they are not welcome! Because it’s my role to keep my children safe and teach them boundaries.
With Christmas scarily looming for many of us I thought I would post about safe places….. this isn’t a topic only relevant for the festive period and it’s something that’s very much in the forefront of my personal experiences currently.
We all need safe spaces, an escape from the world…. For neurodivergent people this is particularly important as the outside world is such an unpredictable place full of sensory and social surprises and demands many of which aren’t pleasant!
For me my safe place is my bed, for some it’s their whole home or their garden. For others it’s their bedroom and this is common for ND children and young people for whom only have this one space that they have full control over.
Christmas is a time of change… the outside world is darker, busier with people and delivers an onslaught of flashing, multi coloured overwhelm in the form of the Christmas lights that cover houses and buildings.
In school there is change… nativities, Christmas jumper days, special assemblies, giving teachers gifts and card exchanges all of which are often stressful!
At home… within our usual safe places… the changes can make us very unsafe… the changes to the environment. Lights, decorations, furniture moved to accommodate a tree which can carry about it an different smell.
Changes to food, expectations around what we should eat.
Changes to people. Suddenly people turn up with gifts that you are expected to be grateful for and open in front of everyone (which is massively anxiety provoking and awkward for many of us)
People invading your safe space! Or even worse you have to leave your safe space to go to homes of families members you haven’t seen since last Christmas!
And on top of all this everyone is expected to be “full of Christmas cheer” and no one had better be grumpy, upset, not in the mood to socialise or play charades…. Because then your deemed rude, boring, unsociable!! 
A low demand Christmas where we throw out the expectations and the “shoulds” is what I aim for. Where we all have the autonomy to say I’m done at the Xmas table and go to our rooms or to eat chicken nuggets with our pigs in blankets! Where visitors know and accept our boundaries and where we all have means of escape!
So if anyone can’t accept and respect yours or your child’s safe place… maybe you could politely ask that they leave the presents on the doorstep and bugger off. 