Whatever your culture, beliefs or traditions, if you are living in the UK at this time of year it is a season of celebrations and events that you will be unlikely to be able to avoid. From Diwali and Halloween, to Bonfire Night and Christmas, our lives will be filled with costumes and clothes, food and drink, decorations and fireworks, traditions and stories. As our days become colder and darker, many welcome the sounds and colours to brighten otherwise grey days. The opportunity to socialise, relax and enjoy the moment for all its wonder is welcomed with excitement and anticipation.

But what about those adults and children who are, for whatever reason, neurodiverse? As well as making up a significant percentage of the population, there are likely to be larger numbers involved in home education since the very nature of these difficulties can be in direct conflict to a school environment.

Whether in school or not, it is likely that how you approach these celebrations will be determined by your child’s needs, as well as your own needs and abilities. This can often look very different to what is considered the norm, or even to your own expectations.

While all parents will be able to recount endless stories of “epic fails”, where kids have behaved completely differently to “the plan”, for some families the issues that arise will be far more traumatic than the embarrassment of parents telling a funny story of when their child was younger and cried when they saw Father Christmas, or fell asleep during the pantomime, or ate all the chocolates on the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.

For children with sensory needs, social anxiety, a need for structure and routine or a fear of the unknown, this time of year can be filled with more anxiety and stress than any other. And, for those families, this season of “change and excitement” can seem never ending before normality and a degree of control over the environment, and any sort of enjoyment, can return.

So what can be done to help to make this time of year as fun and enjoyable for all, even the neurodiverse amongst us, with opportunities to learn and engage with the world at a time when it is so unpredictable and unfamiliar? And how does home education affect this?

Perhaps, most importantly, to navigate this time of year you need to have an understanding of your child’s needs and to accept that they will impact on everything, and not always in the expected way. This will help you to have a realistic idea of what you hope to get out of the experience. Knowing that your child does not like interacting with strangers, or fears loud bangs, can help you to know what events to avoid or how to prepare for them if they can’t be avoided. Playing calming music in the house during fireworks, allowing them a choice over clothing and keeping known and familiar foods available might be all it takes to ease the anxiety for the whole family. For others a practise run of interactions might reduce the fear of the unknown or a social story can help them to understand the event and their role in it, enabling them to engage on whatever level they feel comfortable with.

Those who home educate are probably already ahead of the game in this respect. Daily life will already adapt and bend to the needs of your family. And you have much more flexibility to engage as much or as little as you feel able. Gone are the compulsory school plays, special lunches, costumes and non-uniform days that can result in upsets or refusal to attend. Busier times in shops or public spaces can be easier worked around, with advantage taken of less chaotic times. I am very much looking forward to the choices we can now make and being able to take the time to learn how they would like to approach the different events and opportunities, in the absence of expectations and demands. I’m already looking forward to it all much more. Another way that home educating feels every day like a breath of relief.