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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

  • I had anxiety about flying until 2 things happened. 1. A friend who was in the marines as an aeroplane mechanic told me they're a very simple structure: it's just gas and air. Understanding the science fixed a great deal of problems. But 2 The first time I flew business or a cut above economy with extras and small luxuries literally made it much more of an enjoyable experience - a step up from tolerable. 

  • in reply to JuniperFromGallifrey

    Just to build on what you said about 20 years ago I took a 'fear of flying' course run by (I think) Virgin. It was at a conference centre near Heathrow. What I DIDN'T understand about other people before getting into that room, is that OTHER people didn't understand basic physics. All the course was, was explaining aerodynamics. I don't have a fear of *how* the plane stays in the sky, I understand that brilliantly, this is a phobia, like being afraid of spiders even though you know they can't hurt you. 

    One woman on the course even said she flew from London to LA without standing up or peeing even once, because she thought if she walked along the plane, it would throw off the weight at one end and crash! I was in a conference room full of eejits. 

    Anyway, 99% of the people on the course, at the end of the day, got in a plane and went for a flight and I just got to the airport and got on the tube home. *** that!

  • in reply to Autumn_Trees

    Wait... people are scared of flying because they think the plane will crash? Not because they are worried about being trapped in a space with lots of other people and if they panic they might be physically assaulted or arrested or break down so badly that they never mentally recover? What is wrong with NTs? The plane crashing is the least bad outcome; you'd have like a minute of panic and never have another problem to deal with ever again.

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  • in reply to Autumn_Trees

    Wait... people are scared of flying because they think the plane will crash? Not because they are worried about being trapped in a space with lots of other people and if they panic they might be physically assaulted or arrested or break down so badly that they never mentally recover? What is wrong with NTs? The plane crashing is the least bad outcome; you'd have like a minute of panic and never have another problem to deal with ever again.

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