Just reading other posts - I think the advice to keep holidays short is where I land, along with having an escape route - my ADD/ADHD are older now and high functioning, so I appreciate things are very much different for me now after days being stuck with an an aloof child stuck in shutdown mode. I think the shutting down is almost more difficult to deal with than full blown melt down, which i’ve found mine have grown out of (in public).
The last/very recent holiday to Italy was 2 weeks and chosen by my teens as it had a mixture of activities, access to town to walk in without the drama of arranging buses etc, and was AI with multiple restaurants, which gave them the choice of taking themselves to the general restaurant at 930pm when it was a bit quieter but still had plenty of choice over foods.
However, the eldest hit the wall by day 10. In fact DD had tried bloody hard not to melt down or withdraw, but we spaced the trips out and made clear that it was absolutely okay for her to spend the day in the room with her steam deck or doing her art, so long as she met us for meals and checked in, perhaps for a drink every now and then. This seemed to work.
We were careful to only book 4-5m in advance - mine change their minds/preferences and coping styles so much over 18m and the build up is so long that I think it creates a level of expectation in all parties that is fraught with disappointment. We also decided that it was our last 14 day trip. From here on, we will go for 2x 7 days and/or maybe some 4 day weekend breaks. We travelled with easyjet, so really it wouldn’t have cost that much more to do two shorter trips than the full 14 day, and we chose a seriously posh resort as it was my first overseas hols for 5 years, so we could easily do multiple shorter trips for less money.
Parenting ASD children doesn’t mean they call the shots, but there is no way to ensure everyone had a good time, most of the time, unless there is open discussion about expectations and that these are kept realistic. (This is the same, I asume, where there are no ND members.)
I have a brilliant pic of my two in Disney/Florida aged 6/9. A holiday the elder one in particular remembers with fondness. She is stood scowling, arms crossed in front of the castle with her brother. As we took the picture an American woman howled with laughter at their expressions. I went to the loo and sobbed with disappointment and frustration.
It’s taken 19 years of disappointing holidays, of marital bickering, and me crying in the loo to finally fine tune it. Although kids hopefully heading to uni in next few years, they will likely live at home/with family, so they will be holidaying with us for the foreseeable. Our recent holiday was brilliant, even if eldest spent last 3 days exclusively in her room. We’ve learned to let it go.