Julyamsh is the annual Pow-Wow of the Coeur d' Alene Tribe. I've never been to this event although I've always wanted to go and this year I'm thinking about taking the kiddo.
Here are the Pros:
New experience with lots to see like the horse parade, dancing and drumming.
An opportunity to practice our "out in public" social skills.
Exposure to another culture (and not of the fungal variety).
It's free! Frequently with new places, kiddo stays about 30 minutes and then wants to go home so free is always good!
It's an activity for us to do as a family on the weekend. Weekends can be tough around here because there is less structure than school.
Now the Cons:
It's a new experience with lots to see like the horse parade, dancing and drumming. There's a good chance that kiddo might be overwhelmed by the activity and sounds. There's also a good chance that he'll have zero interest in the parade, dancing and drumming and will find a pile of dirt that he'd rather throw into the air. I should mention that kiddo will be 8 this October so the dirt throwing activity garners a bit of unwanted attention.
I was reading the Julyamsh web-site about how people need to be respectful of the tribal traditions and outfits. No taking pictures without permission, no touching the outfits etc. So if kiddo IS interested in the dancers and drummers, he's going to want to fully experience it by touching the beautiful beads, feathers, drums etc. When I move to block him from grabbing someone's sacred necklace, he's going to react very loudly and then I'll feel obligated to launch into the "autism elevator speech".
There's going to be a lot of me saying "stay over here", "no touching", "inside voice", "no eating", "not a choice", "no screaming", "bubble space", "it's OK", "we'll watch Jeopardy when we're done". I'm usually pretty exhausted at the end of one of these excursions regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad or somewhere in between.
I have not been to the Post Falls Event center before so I'm flying blind in regards to what things might be there that could be potential problems for us.
So, we'll plan on going and hope for the best because staying at home, isolated because things might not go as well as I would like is not an option. A 30 minute trip will take about 2 hours to prepare for because I'm going to have to create a social story for the kiddo and that takes some time finding pictures a la Google and putting the story together in Powerpoint.
My mantra for tomorrow - breathe deeply and remember to have a good time.
This event has it's ups and downs but if your kids like bright colors... they will love the dancers. The Drums were a big problem for our son. So we did take a break in a quiet area while they were playing and we completely avoided the bouncy houses... Our family has 4 with Aspergers and I would say that the experience was pretty good but once it was to much to take. We definitely left right away and we tried to accommodate for each others individual special needs.
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