Celebrations can be a time of stress, triggers, unsettlement and lack of routine - the last four things a newly adopted child needs! Our first birthday with our adopted son was his fifth birthday. He has had 4 birthdays in different settings and stages of his life, each with its own experience, some we know nothing about.
I am sure the 'perfect birthday party' book would state, lots of decorations, piles of presents, surprises at every turn, a party with all of his and your friends there - this would be Moose's worst nightmare (at the moment)! We aren't trying to create the birthdays we see on TV shows, we are trying to give Moose a special day, that he can remember.
We toyed with so many ideas and had a number of back-and-forths about what we should do. We knew his birthday was coming up within 6 weeks of him moving in with us. We thought about moving his birthday back a few months, he wouldn't have known any different. We talked about a mini family gathering, we talked about doing it just us at home - we also talked about skipping it altogether. All based on how he was settling with us.
In the end, we went with a couple of family members to the park, and then back to ours for some cake. Here are some things that we did to make the day smoother for Moose, and to try and help him enjoy it the best he could.
1. Moose helped us decorate.
We wanted a few decorations, I bought a £15 pack on Amazon, and they were pretty effective! The day before his birthday (after we introduced the idea of his birthday to him), we got the decorations out and he helped me put them up. This meant he was able to process the change in the look of the house. He watched as I blew up balloons and he passed me the tape to stick up the other decorations. He helped decide where to put things too. We decided to put all of these in one place, in the dining room. So from a photo, it looks like we went mad with loads of decorations, if you had your back to that one wall, you would see nothing. So he was still able to use his playroom and eat his dinner, without anything 'out of the norm'. We had the cutest 'photo shoot' in front of the decorations the next day! He still looks at the pictures and shouts "Moose's Birthday"!
2. Cards and presents were on his terms
After a normal start to his daily routine, we asked Moose if he wanted some cards, he said yes, and we chose our closest family members' cards for him to open. He opened 5 or 6 I think. We then asked if he wanted any presents, he said no, so we left it. We had 2 small presents for him upstairs if he wanted them, and a few presents from friends and foster carers. In the afternoon he opened a present from his grandparents, he was more interested in the physical opening, I don't think he understood that this was a gift, for him. Since then he has played with this present often, it was nothing about disliking it or not wanting it, I just don't think he got the idea.
Then over the following week every now and again we brought a present down and just said "if you would like to open this you can" he has slowly processed the idea that these are gifts for him, and now knows he can open something, and play with it, and it belongs to him.
3. No surprises
We tried to remove all surprises from the day, so he didn't come down in the morning to a pile of presents and when we lit the candles on the cake, he came and helped us get it out of the fridge. We tried to take the unexpected out of the day and drew his daily schedule to help him know what was next, just like we usually do.
4. Family in a familiar place
We only had 3 family members join us for his birthday. Two he had met in person before, the other on FaceTime. The idea was for a low-key day, no need to bring presents or go all out. Moose loves a garden picnic, so we stepped it up a level and went to a country park we go to a few times a week, with our same picnic rugs, we set up an area to have a picnic in the park. He knew the people, the place, and how a picnic works. He still talks about his birthday picnic in the park.
5. Space to chill
When we went to the park for our picnic we took Moose' teepee so that we could set it up on our picnic rug, creating space out of the direct sun for him to hide, but also it's a familiar little thing to have with us. At one point he went and shut himself in for a few minutes to regulate. When we came home there was no pressure on him to play with everyone and socialise, he had access to his sensory room as much as he wanted and he spent some time up there and some time reading to himself inside whilst we sat in the garden. We try and remove all social norms of socialisation at times like this, whenever we can - we understand it can be hard for him - and to be fair we all need a break from socialising sometimes!
6. Presents from us
We bought him a toy kitchen, which I spent hours building in our bedroom the week before! Two days before his birthday, we brought the kitchen down, with no mention of birthday or presents, and asked if he could help us decide where it should go. (note - we had one space for it!). But he helped us clear toys out of this space so it could fit, and then we ignored it. We said to him you can play with it if he wants. It meant for him there was no pressure to play with it, no pressure of thanking us or anything like that - it was now just there, and his if he wanted to play.
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