To tell DS17 he shouldn’t come with us to Florida next year.

[Kickinthenostalgia]

as a family 4 we booked to go to America in April but I’m hugely regretting it now. Ds17 has asd and is somewhat getting harder and harder to deal with whilst out. He’s absolutely fine at home but whenever we go places it’s just so much aggro, he didnt fancy our caravan holiday so didn’t come with us this year and I feel guilty in saying this but it was so much better. No issues, no arguments, no meltdowns, no stepping on eggshells. We thought he’d really want to go to America and he was really excited, until he wasn’t but is still talking about going. He absolutely hates trump, keeps saying he’s not eating American food because it’s full of chemicals, he complained when we did our Estas, about them having all the information on him etc. I’m wondering if he doesn’t want to come but doesn’t want to tell us in case we are mad about the money.

The last 2 days have been a nightmare for me and DP as well as my sister who’s bearing the brunt of it. as he’s currently over in Belgium with my sister and he’s barely left the hotel. I called him earlier to ask him if he’d like to come home early and he told me he didn’t feel safe and now my sister has said he hasn’t even gone for food this evening . I feel bad for her because she’s having to cut her holiday short( for which I’m reimbursing her) also she’s been doing everything solo which wasn’t was she thought she’d be doing.

I honestly don’t think he will manage in America as he’d most likely feel more unsafe over there. I also don’t want him ruining it for dd13. If we cancel the whole holiday it’s one not fair or DP or dd as they’ve never been, and we stand to lose a lot of money, where as if it’s just him then the hit won’t be too bad. I feel guilty as he’ll even thinking about this but I don’t want him distressed for 2 weeks because it will make everyone else feel awkward. But he absolutely loves rollercoasters and has been talking about the Florida ones for years. I want to sit him down and make all the points very clear. I’m really not sure what to do for the best 🙁

If he wants to go then tell him he has to be respectful of the red rod the family who want to enjoy the trip and needs to stop complaining about everything to you.

if he doesn't want to go then don't make him.

For his safety and your sanity do not take him on this trip under any circumstances. Florida of all the States is not the place to be a loose cannon with your opinions.

I do agree with your DS about American food, it is terrible.

The money is spent whether he comes or not. You're not 'losing' money if he doesn't come, in fact you'll save on expenses while you're there.

Is it worth just dropping a "you don't have to come" into conversation sooner to give him time to mull?

@Kickinthenostalgia I completely understood your situation. My teen daughter is autistic, I took her away for a few days recently and she didn’t want to leave the hotel room. It was really hard work. I’ve accepted that as much as she likes the idea of holidays the transition and change is just too much for her to cope with. She actually said she enjoys the travel on the train or airplane but doesn’t like the holiday itself!! So I’ve accepted that we won’t be going on holiday again which is sad but just the way it is.
I think be really honest with your son and say it’s absolutely fine if you don’t want to go and if it will be too much for him.

Ha- I love how people always react to these posts by telling OP to ‘sit him/ her down and tell him how he needs to behave’ as if the magic of a struggling teenager being on a chair and hearing yet again how awful they are will have an impact 😂😂. A bit like telling me my husband is an arsehole and ‘needs to not do XYZ’ - wow, I didn’t know that but now you’ve enlightened me I can magically change them!!!
Neurodivergent children are very very hard to manage and harder to change. You have to wildly reduce your expectations and accept that any holiday is going to be full of screaming and meltdowns and incidents for which the neurotypical population looking on will judge your child and your parenting. It’s sh&t, and all you can do is your best, not take it to heart and focus on and remember the good moments because they’re even more special when you you can create them.

I think the fact your sister is only 21 is somewhat reassuring.

He didn't feel safe. Travelling as a 17 and 21 year old, essentially 2 newly minted adults, has a very different feel to travelling with your parents. There's much more responsibility and pressure on him than if he could tag along in child mode with you making decisions and doing all the admin, tickets, keys. etc .

See what he says but is there an argument that previous family holidays are a better predictor of how this holiday will feel to him than a 17 & 21 year old holidaying alone.

Foodwise one of the upsides of autism is often an ability to eat the same thing over and over without getting bored of it! I wonder if you could take something like pasta and wraps from the UK and leave him at home for some meals. Food is often something people manage on holiday, with half a suitcase of supplies if need be, rather than a reason never to travel.

I think you've taken a lot of unjustified flack on this thread OP. You are steering a beautiful course trying to meet everyone's needs and make sure they have opportunities and fun. It's pretty amazing he even got to Belgium without you. We don't just dump our children out of holidays as soon as things get challenging, but it is always going to be tricky trying to judge how he might react & cope, when he's essentially quite unpredictable & reactive to conditions on the day.

👆

So many commenters are acting as if DS just would have difficulty with the flight or coping with over excitement while there.

He's 17, next year might be 18, considered a legal adult, he's going to America which if you've been paying attention, is changing daily in terms of what they will accept and not accept with their own citizens let alone anyone from anywhere else.

DS is extremely outspoken. It's not that he doesn't travel well or that too many sights and sounds overwhelm him,
He is politically outspoken and extremely opinionated about American politics, American president, American guns, American policies, about food additives etc. It would be extremely difficult to get a neurotypical opinionated young man (or anyone else) who's used to voicing his opinions because there's no consequence (at home in a safe place) to keep their mouth shut 24 hours a day for the entire trip.
I know.
I have people like this in my life and getting them to shut up in a situation where they absolutely must shut up is very difficult.

This isn't about suggesting coping strategies for the young man during travel and what would make it easier for the family. This is about taking a neurodivergent young adult who is extremely outspoken and opinionated and vocal and known to be disagreeable when he doesn't get his way to a foreign country who at this time does not much want foreigners (who are critical of their ways) entering their country.
Not a good time.
DS can stay home, rest of the family go do your trip and enjoy it, (just of course, keep your heads down, mouth shut, eyes open, and any verbal discussion you want to make about life in America, do so when you're safely back on home soil.)
This is not the place for your son to be visiting right now.

If you take him with you, it seems like he just can't help his behaviour, and you're potentially in for not only a personal nightmare but an administrative, financial and legal one should he get detained on the way in, for a meltdown with the wrong person/official.
Don't know how you/he can manage this long term as he comes into full adulthood with all its obligations and expectations, but if I were you I wouldn't take him, as long as staying at home with your mum is a reasonable and practical alternative.

I think he sounds as if he would be a liability given his propensity for outspokenness. At 18 he can stay at home Presumably your hometown feels safer than Belgium. (Where in Belgium is he, that he doesn’t feel safe? I mean I know there’s dodgy areas everywhere but I’ve been to Belgium a lot, on my own and with others and have never felt unusually unsafe.)

He needs to stay at home, taking him when he will find it so hard will be awful.

This is not the right holiday for him OP, and the experience you want him to have is unlikely to be the experience he actually gets in reality. My DS1 is somewhat similar and holidays in years gone by have been really difficult. In the last couple of years we've changed our approach and it's helped enormously. We now do self catering (no overwhelming AI buffets), low key hotels/apartment complexes with a small number of planned activities and plenty of downtime. We've never done long haul as i think he would struggle with jet lag. It helps a lot that he is now old enough that we can leave him in the apartment for an afternoon or evening if he needs quiet time so the rest of us can still do more. This works well for us. I think you need to make the decision for him about what he and you can cope with. If you decide to bring him, start planning now for when he will have quiet time, what he will eat, what his routine will be, and start rehearsing conversations with him e.g. the border checks. You have time to coach here, if you think that is doable. But try to let go of the desire to replicate an experience for him.

I am so sorry Op, this is exactly like my DS who is 21 now. As he has got older he just is not very happy away from home for more than 1 or 2 nights at the very most . We have cancelled or come home from at least 4 holidays in the last 3 years.

I honestly don't know the answer. He is ALWAYS keen to go when a holiday is first discussed, but when it comes to the time to leave, anything abroad has become almost impossible to do and even if we get there, the holiday is pretty awful generally unless he can do exactly what he wants, which is often stay at home and do all the thing he does here (ie play on PC and PS4 and listen to his regular podcasts, use his trampoline etc)

We planned a driving trip to Brittany one year when he was 17 as we had taken him to France before when he was 10 and said he had fond memories . I was surprised by this as my memory of that hoiday was that he was OK but that he had not really love it and had been very happy to come home but anyway he chose all of the places in Northern France he wanted to visit. Most of them historical and archeological sites, his special interest at the time. We planned a whole tour with accommodation around the sites.

Luckily we knew our son by then and DH booked only places on Booking.com that could be cancelled close to the time. The riots that happened in Paris a few years ago put paid to that. We were due to leave on te Sunday and on Friday when I explained he needed to start thinking about packing and gave him the list of this things to pack etc, he looked shocked and said he didn't want to go to France because of the riots and he felt unsafe . No amount of explaining we wouldn't be near Paris could help and in the end we cancelled the trip, luckily we only lost the deposit (c £200) on the ferry with all the accommodation being fully flexible and cancelled without costs.

We considered going alone but it was a 7 day trip and frankly the holiday was not something I wanted to do for me so we just cancelled and booked a 4 night stay in Devon at the last minute. We had to come home after 3 nights though as DS was so unbearable the last day. The first 2 days were fine though

We don't have any other children so the decision is a lot easier but nowaday I go on long haul holidays with my friend/cousin once a year. Luckily DH is not that bothered about holidays and hates flying etc so he stays home. We plan a few 2-3 night trips in the UK with Just DH and me, (with DS happy at home) or with all three of us but without fail, DS wants to come home after 2 nights away. Our trips with DS have to have very specific things in place and we have to be happy to leave him at home alone in the hotel or cottage to do things if DS does not want to do what we are doing. Once we accepted all that, things got easier.

People will say we let him win but we have been on many many holidays with DS, both abroad and in the UK. The first time we flew to the US for a six month work trip for DH when he was a newborn. He has been to Italy (multiple times as family there), France, Spain, Majorca, the US, Ireland , The Isle on Man (family there) and many many UK breaks with us over the years including camping, hotels, self catering etc

Holidays with him were always hard work but I thought if we kept going he would learn to like them. Unfortunately as he grew older and had more control , he just made life more difficult than he had as a child as it is much harder to get a teenager or adult with ND to do something they don't want to, than it is a child. None of his behaviuor was deliberate, it was just due to anxiety but really a holiday which is more stressful then your nomal life is really not worth it to me any more. Not after almost 20 years of it . I have given up on holidays with him at all really and have much lower expectations when we plan the odd 2-3 night UK break with him.

In your place I would let him stay home if he is not anxious about that. We had a couple of breaks where he was so anxious with my sister staying with him for the odd 1 night break DH and I took (when he was about 14-15) that he was constantly on the phone to us - sigh!

Enjoy your holiday and let him stay home. That is my advice though I know not everyone will agree

Does he have tools to recognise when he is getting overwhelmed and ways of regulating- even if that means not going on certain excursions or cutting an excursion short? Long term he‘ll need to learn to recognise his limits and find coping strategies.

I‘d offer him the option of staying at home this time.

why? he railroads holidays with his stubbornness and bad behaviour. OP has every right to decide she would prefer a more chilled holiday with cooperative travel companions.

We must stop allowing these behaviours to go unchecked- Autism/ADHD cannot be used as constant excuse for these men.

In a years time, he may be at university, or out to work, and if he cannot shut up and get on, he will get nowhere.

Leave him at home.

Behaviour while there is a problem, but manageable.

Food is a serious challenge, but not impossible.

But you need to do a full and thorough risk assessment of immigration.

US immigration is not tolerant at the best of times; now it's worse than ever. Faced with an uncooperative young man they are very likely to pull him aside for extra interrogation alone.

If he is the least bit stroppy or difficult with them, the best case scenario is that your whole family is on the next plane home. A more likely scenario is that you are separated for hours with no contact and no information, and he's then deported alone. The worst risk is that he's detained and shipped who-knows-where for days or even weeks.

I wouldn't risk it.

Psychological safety for an autistic person can be threatened by all sorts of things that have nothing to do with how physically safe an environment is, objectively.

Don’t talk nonsense please.
Child-centred parenting does NOT cause someone to be autistic.

Women have autism too?
And can find anything out of routine very difficult.
What’s with the sexism?

I think he needs to be told after what happened with the holiday with your sister he needs to stay at home with your mum. It is not fair on your dd to have the build up and her holiday ruined by her sibling and lets be honest he is going to ruin it even if he just spends all the time in the hotel room.

This is a very good point.
@Kickinthenostalgia, you may know this already but they take your fingerprints at immigration into the US. How would your DS handle this? It is not the place to be causing a scene.

Personally, I wouldn't give him the choice. I would tell him that he's not coming.

Do you think there is a middle ground ? Like you can stay in a villa and he can go some days but not all ? Will he be ok entertaining himself alone ?

This is tricky - both the taking 17/18 year old on family holiday where they might not want to go anyway and the ASD. I have the same with mine and we had so much problems getting a family
holiday planned. What worked was really understanding what his worries were, what he might want to do and accepting he
would have days where he might stay in hotel and for me not to feel annoyed that I was wasting money on a big Holiday and he was
just in his room

I found Florida the most stressful, awful, amazing place on earth but leaving someone behind just seems awful and personally I’d hugely regret it but only you know how you’ll feel. Not an easy situation x