Additional Needs
Age Appropriate
by Jodi Shenal
on 26th April, 2024
The Boy Who Hates Birthdays
I knew my daughter would wake excited and grateful for everything she had but I also knew that her brother would hate everything.
My son hates birthdays. He hates Christmas and Halloween and Easter too. In fact there isn’t a single celebration or occasion he does like!
He woke up at his usual mega early time and screamed for the television to be put on to Cbeebies.
He then screamed for his breakfast of sausages, mash and spaghetti that he has to have but never touches. He pinched me and yelled at me as I dressed him in his school uniform.
I tried to wish him a happy birthday but he yelled and pushed me away. I pinned a birthday badge on him and he ripped it off again.
His wrapped presents stayed untouched where I had put them the night before. If left to my son they would never be touched as long as he lives. It breaks my heart.
I sent birthday cake into school with him knowing he would not even care. I did it anyway, for me. I just can’t let his birthday go by and not do anything even if he doesn’t care about it.
His sister cannot understand why her brother is not interested in birthdays and Christmas. What child does not want lovely new toys and gifts?
After school she helped me unwrap her brother’s toys as we were screamed at and pinched.
He was playing on his iPad and watching YouTube on another iPad and he was angry we were doing something different to the norm.
As fast as his sister and I unwrapped a gift Isaac grabbed the item and the loose paper and stuffed them back in the gift bag we had just got them out of.
9 years now we have tried. He still hates it all. I am seriously thinking of not getting him anything for Christmas as he hates it so much and it just distresses everyone.
But then I just can’t. So we will go through all this again on Christmas just like we did on his birthday.
Nothing will be opened. Nothing will be touched or played with. He does not care about any of it.
If I take Isaac to a toy shop all he wants is the automatic doors or the customer lift. Toys are of no interest to him.
He lives for his iPad but he neither needs nor wants a new one. He has no hobbies and his days routines never change.
I know he is happy like that but it still hurts. It hurts me as a parent when I cannot treat him. It hurts family when he rejects everything anyone tries to buy him.
It breaks his sister’s heart that he won’t even look at anything toy related and won’t even let her play with anything that was in his gift bag either.
I am dreading Christmas. Even if his gifts were unwrapped and set up he would still ignore them. Even if he had seen or played with a toy elsewhere he would still not touch it at home.
We have tried everything.
He is just content doing life the way he always has. He wants sausage and mash and spaghetti for breakfast that he won’t eat and he wants Cbeebies on that he never watches.
He wants his Bing Bunny and Woolly plush on his seat and his two iPads. He wants a bath at 6pm and the same story before bed.
Nothing should change. Nothing can change.
Birthdays and Christmas are not on his radar. They bring change he has no desire for.
I have a boy who hates birthdays and Christmas and I want to cry.
Please someone tell me I am not alone?
