Social Skills Activities for the Holidays

Holidays can be challenging for kids with autism and other social language difficulties.  October, November, and December increase opportunities for social gatherings with family and friends.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year Celebrations, and more have cultural and family expectations.  Dinnertime conversations and etiquette can be challenging for kids to navigate.  Reading facial expressions and body language can become even more complicated when routines change and different people come to visit. How you speak to your grandmother from out of town might be different from how you speak to your brother.  What can you do if you taste something at the table that you think is disgusting?  Is it okay to tell someone that you don’t like their gift?  Keep reading for some helpful social skills activities for the holidays.

1) Role-play and discuss scenarios that might occur around the holidays.  It is helpful to practice and discuss social skills situations ahead of time that could be problematic.  Here are a few to try:

• Practice greeting people.  This might include shaking hands, varying our greetings depending on who we are talking to, etc.

• Practice saying key phrases that are expected around different holidays – “Happy Thanksgiving”, “Merry Christmas”, “Happy New Year”, “Hannukkah sameach!”, etc.

• Role-play passing gifts, receiving gifts, thanking people for gifts, etc.

• Role-play and discuss how to politely ask for a break from the festivities to find a quiet corner to relax if needed.

• Role-play and discuss expectations for family meals, ceremonies, and celebrations.

2) Preview the social venue or event ahead of time

If possible, visit a church, synagogue, function room or other venue ahead of a celebration.  This can help in reducing anxiety and can help in planning quiet spots to take a break if necessary.  If you are unable to visit an actual location ahead of time, find pictures either online or possibly in photos of your own from previous years.  Discuss the location, the people that might be there, social expectations, and an anticipated schedule of events.  Write your own social story if possible to review. 

3) Practice conversational topic introduction and maintenance to address social skills over the holidays.  For many kids with social language difficulties, it is especially challenging to think of ways to start a conversation with people, and also difficult to stick with the topic.  Here are a few topic ideas that you can practice ahead of time:

• What are your favorite Thanksgiving foods?

• Do you think you would like to have a turkey as a pet?

• What football teams do you like?

• How is school going? (I include this here as something to practice answering because it is frequently asked by visiting relatives)

• Do you like to watch holiday movies?

• Do you like shopping?

• What holiday songs do you like?

• What are you doing for the holidays?  Over the school break?

4) To address social skills activities for the holidays, practice solving social problems that might occur around the holidays

• Imagine that you are at a family holiday party and your baby cousin starts to open one of your gifts.  Should you yell at the baby?  What should you do?  Why?

• Imagine that one of your neighbors made some frosted walnuts and brought them over to your house.  She really wants you to try one, but you don’t like walnuts.  What should you do?

• Imagine that you got a sweater as a gift from your grandma instead of the game you really wanted.  Should you get mad and yell at your grandma?  Why or why not?  What can you do?

• You want some carrots, but they are all the way at the other end of the large table.  What can you do?

• Your uncle just changed the tv channel from the movie that you were watching to a football game!  What do you do?

For more social problem-solving scenario ideas, read these.

Here are more Thanksgiving Language building ideas. 

5) For more ready-to-go Social Skills Activities for the Holidays, try these sets from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store:

Enjoy the holidays!