Reply to How much to accommodate DS's mental health issues

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[quote=Anonymous]We have a similar child and the nasty comments are so frustrating to deal with.  Lately though she has been catching herself and apologizing right afterwards so that is progress we hope.

So here’s what we do- we travel a lot and are trying to scaffold to independent travel.

First we talk through what is causing the anxiety.  For my DD it was possibly not having enough time to get a drink and snack at airport.  So we sat down and created a schedule for the whole family with a lot of extra time built in.  And we walked through how if any item ran long, we could adjust the schedule accordingly.  (For example dad could drop us off at terminal to go to gate without him while he parked car.). We also defined reward for not getting sassy/ rude.

We have found that giving her visibility into the schedule, input into the activities and some control really helps.  I sometimes even make a chart.

The other anxiety source for her is not getting window seat.  So depending on the airline we work through how to get seat assignments.  For some airlines we schedule 1st available time to pick seats or for Southwest we check in ASAP.  We do also pay for preboarding on busy routes.  Again the goal of s to show her how to identify and manage her anxiety long-term.

I have to work on myself to remember she is a kid and still learning.  And when she slips up I do my best to roll with it because she can’t learn when she is in her anxious “lizard brain”. We debrief later.

And honestly this drives me crazy as I like to stroll up to gate just before boarding starts.  So I have to explain what I need to make the trip pleasant for me too.  I have been known to add massage chair time to the master schedule since we have so much time at the gate.[/quote]

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