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Thanksgiving comes with expectations: we expect the food everyone waits for all year, the family photo, the stories we have already heard more than once, and a table where somehow everyone finds a seat.
We also tend to have expectations for our children.
Come say hello.
Sit with us.
Try a bite.
Say thank you.
Stay at the table a little longer.
None of these requests seems particularly big on its own. But put them together, add a crowded house, unfamiliar foods, different schedules, louder conversations, new faces, and fewer opportunities to follow a normal routine… and Thanksgiving can ask a lot from a child.
Especially a child who experiences change, social situations, or sensory input differently.
Maybe Participation Can Look Different
It is easy to picture a successful Thanksgiving as everyone sitting happily around the same table. Real families rarely look that perfect.
One child may happily spend the afternoon surrounded by relatives. Another may join everyone for dinner but need to leave the table before dessert. Someone might eat turkey, stuffing, and pie; someone else may feel comfortable with only the familiar crackers brought from home.
That does not automatically mean the day went wrong.
From an ABA perspective, looking at what is happening around a behavior can help us understand it differently. A child leaving a noisy room, refusing an unfamiliar food, or repeatedly asking when it is time to go home is giving us information.
Instead of immediately focusing on getting them back to the table or stopping the behavior, it can be useful to wonder: What changed? What is making this moment harder? What could make participation more manageable?
Keep a Little “Normal” in an Unusual Day
Thanksgiving does not need a minute-by-minute schedule. But children who benefit from predictability may do better when they have some idea of what the day holds.
Before heading to Grandma’s house, you might explain:
“We’re going to Grandma’s after lunch. Your cousins will be there. We’ll play for a while, then everyone will have dinner together. We’ll come home after dessert.”
If dinner will happen much later than usual, offer the regular afternoon snack. If the house will be crowded, identify a quieter place where your child can take a break. If most of the food will be unfamiliar, bringing something they reliably eat does not ruin Thanksgiving dinner.
These are small accommodations, but they preserve something valuable: a sense that even on a very different day, there are still things your child can count on.
And About That “Thank You”...
Thanksgiving also gives us a good opportunity to rethink gratitude.
Of course we want children to learn to say “thank you.” But gratitude is bigger than producing the right words at the right moment: a child might say thank you verbally. Another might wave, smile, use a communication device, make a card, help set the table, or show appreciation in a way that feels natural to them.
We can teach social skills without turning every family interaction into a performance. And perhaps that is worth remembering on a holiday centered around gratitude.
This Thanksgiving, make room for connection, not perfection.
Prepare your child for the parts of the day that will be different. Keep a few familiar things available. Let breaks be breaks. Notice when the environment may be asking too much. And recognize participation even when it does not look exactly as you imagined.
Thanksgiving does not have to look perfect to be meaningful. Sometimes the moments we remember most are not the ones that went exactly according to plan, but the ones when everyone at the table was given the space to simply be themselves.
Arizona Office Acredited Organization