Eid Celebration by the Autistic Children

Eid celebration by the autistic children may not be full of enjoyment and happiness like the normal children of the society due to their limitations and challenges. All children of the Muslim religion wait for this Eid day as they receive lots of dresses and gifts from their parents and the relatives during the Eid festival to celebrate the Eid festival as per their desire. But the autism children have to depend solely on their parents for Eid celebration.

Eid is the biggest annual religious festival for the Muslims of the World. It is a festival like Christmas of the Christians, Durga Puja of the Hindus, Buddha Purnima of Buddhists and similar important religious days for people of other religions. Eid means enjoyment; enjoyment for everybody irrespective of age and sex.

Though June 26, 2017, was the Eid day, we started its celebration since the evening of June 25. Everybody tried to celebrate it in a most befitting manner depending upon their financial capability. This day is always special for everybody of the family, especially for the children.

We have been observing since our childhood that the parents always try to offer best clothes, best shoes, best foods and best amusements for their children during Eid celebration. Now the days have been changed and the capability of the parents has been increased. The demands of the children have also been increased. The parents do not hesitate to fulfill the demand of their children to keep them happy and to celebrate the Eid with full of satisfaction.

The children always expect new dresses and gifts on the occasion of this special day. Now a day, there is some healthy competition among the children who are getting how many pairs of dresses or how many gifts from their near and dear during Eid celebration. So the importance of the Eid festivals has become paramount for the children.

But, can the autistic children of the society celebrate the Eid festival in the same way like the normal children? Most probably they cannot do it due to their obvious limitations and challenges. In this article, I would like to examine the ways of Eid celebration by the autistic children.

Eid Celebration by the Autism Children

Last week one of my friends told me that his grandson has received 9 pairs of dresses as a gift on the occasion of the holy Eid. Again he was asking for another pair from his grandfather to make it a double-digit figure of 10 so that he can proudly tell it to his friends.

Since it is the happiest occasion of the year, the parents make their utmost effort to fulfill the demand of their children and make them happy. But how far they can make their autistic children happy?

There are different types of autistic children in the society like high functioning autistic children, low functioning autistic children, verbal and non-verbal autistic children etc. The ways of celebration are also different for these different types of autistic children. Every autism children may not be capable of Eid celebration in a similar way.

Most of the autism children do not understand what the Eid is, what is the importance of this festival in their life, what the normal babies are doing to celebrate the Eid and how they should react on this day. What is the importance of getting many new dresses or many gifts? They do not think of any competition with the boys and girls of their same age regarding the number of dresses or gifts.

Some of them have the understanding about Eid celebration but do not know how to express their requirements to their parents. So, they cannot place any demand to their parents for any new dresses or gifts or any special types of food during Eid celebration.

A normal child of a family can go to the market with the parents, can choose his/her dress as per his/her liking and buy it through his/her parents but the autism child can not. The same parents buy a dress as per their own choice for their autistic child who is staying at home. S/he had to depend upon the choice of the parents and keep himself/herself happy.

There are some autistic children who cannot tolerate the odor of the new clothes or the other body odors which are used on the EID day.

Socialization is one of the important features of Eid celebration. The man, women, boys, and girls of all ages like to visit the friends’ and relatives’ houses, enjoyment of Eid delicacies and hang out in hotspots during Eid celebration. But the autistic children generally lack in socialization and they do not have any friends to visit.

I have seen a parent has taken his autistic son to the Eid gathering. Suddenly the child became angry for an unknown reason and started throwing an excessive tantrum and rolled over the dirty place and spoiled all the new clothes. It hampered his Eid celebration as well as his parents.

A few years back, on an Eid day, I had taken my autism angel to the mosque for Eid prayer. We had started our prayer and my Mahi had started climbing the window grill and went beyond my hand reach. I had to leave the prayer and brought him down.

Eid means enjoyment and happiness and on Eid day the Muslims visit the houses of their near and dears to exchange greetings. But the autism family does not like to visit others house as he does not like to take any risk of spoiling other’s enjoyment by their child’s behavior.

It is the irony of the fate that most of the autism children cannot attend the Eid prayer, cannot visit the friends’ and relatives houses and enjoy the Eid day like the normal children. But if they are supported by the family members, many of them can enjoy their Eid.

Eid Celebration by my Autism Angel

This Eid was very special for my autism angel Ferdous Mahi. Though he does not understand the importance of these festivals and does not have any demand for new clothes, gifts or special foods, we have always tried to give him the best dresses suited for him and the best foods he likes to eat. Earlier he had no understanding about new clothes, but this year we have found that he likes the new clothes. His mother always cooks good foods as per his liking during the whole Ramadan and on Eid day. She knows what foods her son likes.

This year my Mahi has kept fast for almost 20 days. We never told him to keep fast as he does not understand the good/bad of fasting. But this year he expressed his desire to keep fast as he was seeing his parents were keeping fast. Surprisingly, he did not show any interest in taking food for the whole day. He observed the fast perfectly. He likes iftari (the foods we eat during breaking the fast) very much and it is one of his attraction of keeping fast. Displaying Iftari items on the table is his every day’s task during Ramadan and he does effectively with enthusiasm.

On the Eid Day, we remain busy with our autism angel. On this Eid day, his first job in the morning was giving a call to his sister at China through Skype and exchanging the greetings. He can handle Skype and WeChat to communicate his sister in China.

Then he took bath and prepared himself with Eid dress. We helped him in his preparations like putting on the new dresses and shoes, applying some deodorant in his body taking some foods and then going to the mosque.

In the Mosque, this year his performance was excellent. He said the full prayer with everybody with full dedication without disturbing others.

In the Eid morning, I committed to my autism angel to go for a long drive in the afternoon. Accordingly, we went for a long drive in the afternoon to make Mahi happier on the Eid day. This way we passed our Eid Day along with our autism angel. He was very happy on Eid celebration this year.

Conclusion

Eid is the day of enjoyment for everybody irrespective of rich, poor, old, young, child, boys, girls, male and female. But the Eid is always special for the children. The learning of Eid is to involve everybody in the enjoyment of Eid.

We should take care of the children especially the autism angels so that they get the best dress, best gifts and best foods for the enjoyment of the Eid day. Then cannot express them and cannot take part in all enjoyment of the Eid due to their disability.

So, it is the responsibility of the parents to help their autistic children so that they can extract the full enjoyment of the Eid day like all other normal children of the world. Let us support all autism angels of the world to enjoy the festivity of the Eid celebration.