Christmas is coming
and my son is getting stressed
He's looking at his budget
And feeling quite depressed
His wish is quite expensive
But nothing else will do
So he's wheeling and he's dealing
And now we are all stressed too
*
Ah, Christmas and the maths-genius Aspergic teenage boy. Son, 14½, is in "desperate need" of a new computer. Not just any old computer, a gaming computer. With a super-fast graphics card and at least an Intel i7 chip or equivalent. He has a laptop but it just isn't good enough for what he needs, apparently. And who am I to argue? What do I know about the games he plays and their demands on a CPU?
All I know is that he shoots stuff a lot and shouts or swears at his friends also playing online wherever they live and shouting or swearing back. I am satisfied these are people he knows because when I asked, he rolled his eyes at me and said, "No, I'm speaking to a 48-year-old paedo pretending to be a 15-year-old boy". Well, that's me told. I'd better shut up and crawl back to my old folks' bathchair.
So it's a gaming desktop or bust. That unpleasant noise is the sound of our bank balance creaking under the strain of the teenage Christmas. No longer are they interested in a Bob the Builder Play-yard or the Horrible Science annual and a chocolate selection box.
Techy teens have ceased caring so much about the quantity of gifts nestling, shiny and inviting under the tree. It's the build quality that counts and quality costs. And don't try to fob them off with some no-name brand either.
Son2 had selected his heart's desire, ignoring me when I mentioned the reviews weren't that good (because what do I know). Then, the other day he got home in a state of high anxiety when I said I thought Dad had already ordered it because he said... the reviews said the build quality was rubbish.
His long fingers flew over the keys as he first logged into my Amazon account followed by his father's to check (no secrets in this house). His taut shoulders relaxed when he realised no order had yet been made, largely because we're very disorganised this year and haven't really bought anything yet, unlike my lovely cousin Sam, who finished Christmas shopping back in July or something and has been posting Christmassy stuff on Facebook since October. I almost reported them to Facebook as 'abuse'.
Son1, meanwhile just wants the remaining cash from his budget because he has already chosen to spend a large chunk of it on tickets for McBusted for him and his 'lady friend' or someone, which will be the first time he's travelled into London on his own recognisance. As he starts his GCSEs in January starting with Maths, it will be a nice break.
I have received many Christmas cards already (thank you) but I refuse to open any until I'm ready for Christmas, which will be this Friday at 1pm when the school term ends and the joys of the morning routine are over until 2014.
What's pre-Christmas like in your house with your special needs kids or teens? Has it changed over the years?
Tania is an experienced broadcast and print journalist & author. She also runs a PR, web & social media consultancy, SocialOro Media.
Tania is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
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I am actually just writing my Christmas with special needs post, and tbh my teen is much easier these days. I guess the early days, when he was undiagnosed, and we were blamed were hard, so now knowing what we can do to help is easier. In saying that we have bought the latest games console which all the boys in our house are after, so does make things easier.
We are still having the computer issue, he really is in a pickle but what he wants is so much more than we can manage at the moment. My older son was a nightmare as a kid and now is a dream at 16 (most of the time!)
Raspberry PI. Cheap computer. trust me. We have one for my 10 year old daughter to open for Xmas. And it will run Minecraft.
Hi Jen, thanks for the suggestion. Guess what? So 2 was. One of the first in the country to get one after I saw it on a news item and immediately out our name down for when it came out. I thought he would be excited. But no. He played with it, lost interest. Sigh. http://www.notasadvertisedblog.com/2012/06/son2-brings-raspberry-pi-to-life.html this is room my other blog when we first got it.
Oh gosh Tania, we have all this to come with our two! Yikes!
And yes, your lovely cousin Sam should be outted publicly for over organisation of Christmas. It just won’t do 😉
We are preparing/bracing for our son coming back for a couple of days from his residential school. For many children with severe autism, they just cannot tolerate xmas. In fact, some children at his school can’t go home because the anxieties and behaviors become too unmanageable. We will keep it very low key, and have to be prepared to take him back early should the aggression and challenging behaviour go off the rickter scale!! For some of us, this really isn’t a great time of year, but we shall try our best 😉 Andrea