Struggling with 4 year old

[pinkstanleycup]

As title says. I'm struggling to manage and deal with some of my 4 year olds behaviour.

He is autistic and for a few months now his obsession has been with car journeys. We go out in the car, come back in the house and he's screaming and crying to go back in the car again. Sometimes I give in because the melt downs are just too much and we go back out in the car for a drive but I can't keep giving in.

Soon I will have a newborn, so I need to find a way to help manage this behaviour.

How do I do it?

Bumping in the hope of advice 🙏🏻

OP this stuff is so hard in the early day, my child was in perpetual motion at this age. Sounds very much like you have a sensory seeking child who enjoys movement.

Things that have helped here at this sort of age were:

-Rocking sit on toys
-Water-led games (Can just be a tub with a few toys /sink or float type of games
-Kinetic sand
-Play doh
-Pedal car (we actually had tracks in the grass for an entire summer but it worked a treat)
-wobble cushions
-Indoor skittles/hooplah sort of things
-Hula hoops
-Scooter (used this indoors and out during lockdown)

Worth a google of interoceptive and preprioceptive supports and activities, very helpful to pinpoint a few things that will help both at home and when you are out on the move. Maybe when baby arrives (Congratulations!) your son could have a buggy board to "help" with the pram?

Best of luck!

This sounds really hard. Sorry if you've thought of this but have you tried a visual timetable and a finished box? So he can see when the car ride will be, when it's done he can take the picture off and put it in the box, so he has a physical marker that its done. Would having another preferred activity right after the car (that he can see is coming on a now and next board) help?

I second trying to recreate a similar sensory experience with sensory toys/equipment. You could look at whizzy dizzy, carousel, bilibo, scooter board, swing.