Holiday Survival Guide for PANS/PANDAS Families

NEPANS wishes everyone and their families a wonderful, healthy, grateful Holiday Season. Below is a Holiday Survival Guide for PANS/PANDAS Families with a few highlights from our board members.

Holidays are fun. But holidays are stressful even without throwing an autoimmune disease into the mix. Take a deep breath. These are your holidays, no one else’s. Holidays are not a litmus test determining how happy and successful your family is. The holidays get packed with activities pretty quickly. You can say no to events, you don’t have to drive into town to see the tall tree, your food is not going to grace the covers of a magazine, you are not going into the hall of fame if your kids act like angels, and that two page yearly recap you wanted to write up, well skip it.  The important thing is to be around family, spending time, trying to catch a breath and being thankful. That is when the little things matter; be thankful for the little things.

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In a Nutshell

• It’s Your Holiday. Be completely traditional. OR. Take some traditions but leave the rest. OR. Make completely new traditions. Just be realistic about what your family and your child with PANS is capable of and what will make everyone happy.
  
• Make a Plan. Make it reasonable, don’t overbook but plan something to make it special. And make a back up plan just in case. Try to plan time to relax.
• Prep for Change in Routine. The plan helps.
• Laugh. Don’t forget. It is very important.
• Be Thankful.

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The Family Gathering
We know our incredible PANS/PANDAS kids are dealing with an extremely tough disease. Some are great about rallying behind your family, understand the complexity of PANS/PANDAS and figure out ways to help out. But then there are others who just simply don’t and are flat out not supportive. So if we are gathering with family and friends, sometimes in order to make things work, we need to plan and put some supports in place to make them feel more comfortable, which in turn can make our children feel more comfortable. We also need to make plans that will support our children so they can enjoy the holidays to the best of their ability.

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