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Help! My son doesn't want to fly

sas

Hi everyone,

I'm new here, but my son's journey with autism has been a challenging one, particularly since the pandemic. Towards the end of 2020, as my son turned 13, he began adolescence, which resulted in low mood, and high anxiety about Covid. This wasn't helped by my own health issues, which required surgery in November of that year.

Since then, it has been a slow crawl back to a sense of normality. Part of this included flying. We've all flown as a family numerous times in the past, to Malaysia, where my inlaws live. The last trip was in 2019.

Since then, he's now a teenager, with a lot of anxiety and low mood. We attempted to fly to Malaysia in November last year with my inlaws, as they came over here last summer. However, he insisted on everyone going back with them. I couldn't do that, as my daughter is at secondary school, while I had no leave left.

We instead thought we could head off in August this year, so booked tickets back in January. We then booked a short break in Ireland last April, to help him prepare for the long haul flight. He managed very well, but was clearly masking his anxiety, particularly the take off and landing. We did experience meltdowns in Ireland, and after our return to the UK.

I'm writing this, having had to cancel the August tickets, as he had made it clear he had no intention of wanting to fly. It would seem the issues he experienced with the Ireland flights, have made him even more anxious about flying long-haul.

My wife and I are now depressed at the prospect of not ever flying again. Which is hard to accept, as my wife has family members who - due to their age - cannot keep flying to the UK forever. Can anyone offer advice on how best to resolve this problem? I read a few other postings on a similar subject, but wanted advice that felt more specific to our situation.

I look forward to seeing what opinions and advice will be forthcoming. Thanks in advance.

Parents

  • Hello SAS, I hope you're well today. 

    I also am autistic and flew happily with my family right up until probably 10/11 years old, when my anxieties began to make flying a real issue. This got progressively worse until I was about 16 when I completely put my foot down and said I'm never flying again. 

    Since then, my family travel regularly without me and I have even spent a few years living abroad, but I would take a 28hr coach from the country I lived in back to London when I visited family. 

    There are ways around it. You clearly can't leave your 13 year old on his own in the UK, but if you had a family friend who would put him up for a week or two, you could go away without him? Failing that, in just a few short years he will be safe to leave on his own while you fly off for your holidays. 

    Ultimately it is his choice and you would probably be causing a huge amount of anxiety and stress if you chose to force him to do it, so it's probably best you don't. 

Reply

  • Hello SAS, I hope you're well today. 

    I also am autistic and flew happily with my family right up until probably 10/11 years old, when my anxieties began to make flying a real issue. This got progressively worse until I was about 16 when I completely put my foot down and said I'm never flying again. 

    Since then, my family travel regularly without me and I have even spent a few years living abroad, but I would take a 28hr coach from the country I lived in back to London when I visited family. 

    There are ways around it. You clearly can't leave your 13 year old on his own in the UK, but if you had a family friend who would put him up for a week or two, you could go away without him? Failing that, in just a few short years he will be safe to leave on his own while you fly off for your holidays. 

    Ultimately it is his choice and you would probably be causing a huge amount of anxiety and stress if you chose to force him to do it, so it's probably best you don't. 

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