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About to head off on holiday, help distract me please!

BeckyThump

Me (suspected autistic), my husband, my (autistic) 9 year old son and my (very probably autistic) mum are heading off on holiday shortly, driving down to a hotel by the airport for tonight before flying to Canada tomorrow morning.

I have planned and prepped as much as I am able to. I have tried to think of every eventuality so I can best support my son, and me, in travelling in an unfamiliar situation. He's only flown once before, when he was two so he doesn't remember, and whilst I've flown more often, it's something that causes me a lot of anxiety and is generally a sensory nightmare for me. The whole process has too much room for unpredictability for me to ever be comfortable with it. Add on top of that my mum, who hasn't flown long distance for several decades, and is dealing with her own issues with flying, and it's all a bit much.

So, please, help distract me, and give me something else to focus on.

Parents

  • I travel a lot and it is hard if I don't have a step by step, follow the dots sort of approach.

    Here are somethings I use to ground myself.

    By car: license plates and on-ramp off-ramp (lucky, favorite, magic) numbers,

    In the terminal: maps and routes (printed on paper to hold), arrive early to the departure gate -  get TSA if you can- ask for early boarding as soon as possible. Stay close by the boarding area.

    Boarding: look up the stats on the plane, ask to meet the pilot (puts a face to the voice on takeoff and landing.).

    !!Insist on early boarding! Be in the seats before the hoard descends with sunglasses and headphones already on and carry-ons tucked away.

    Flying: Follow flight patterns as you go (if available). BRING music, crayons, pencils, scratch pads, jelly pens, soothing audio-book voices, stim toys, and fav snacks, etc. Have 2 very familiar items with you, they can have totemic meaning in a new place. I have a small beeny-baby monkey, for example, and a fav coffee thermos.

    for jet lag: going west- rest, going east feast. this will cut down on that. Be sure to go to bed and arise at your regular clock-time, no matter what or where you are.

    Once in a new location:  make some rituals to ground to, they can be new rituals or modified existing ones, like always eating at the same time of day.revisiting the same cafe.

    Map out the whole trip on 3X5 cards and if one something happens to change things you can go to another card and reorder them accordingly, like if a museum is closed on the day you meant to go. Do another card that day and comeback to the museum card when it's open. Having the cards helps me see the whole trip in these details as a pile of individual events and I can relax, enjoy myself just focusing on the one card's activity without feeling FOMO.

    I hope this is helpful for you, have fun! , U

  • in reply to Uhane

    Thank you for all of that, that's great and very thorough. I'll go through it again to properly process it all.

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