Arrggg the dreaded school trip! sleepover

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Sons school are taking the children away for 5 days next year, they will be doing all the normal stuff, now first of all son said he did not want to go, now he wants to go.

I am worried that we will pay for it then he wont want to go, then I am worried that he will have a meltdown while he is there, I am also worried that he may do something stupid as he has no fear of danger and I am also worried that he will continously clash with another child whilst he is there or even we have to pick him up.

What would you do? we are going to chat with him this evening, I really want to put my foot down and say no, but at the same time its an oppertunity for him?

If you know which teachers/teaching assistants will be going on the residential trip, set up a meeting with with them to talk through your worries first. Presumably, they have taken children away on trips before and will be experienced in dealing with various issues, and if they know your son well enough, they will be aware (or you will help make them aware) of any potential problems.

Additionally, if the place they are attending is a well-established activity centre who specialise in such trips, you will find that the staff will have been trained to look after young people with a wide range of special needs and disabilities. There will surely be some information online about the place the children will be attending? Set your mind at ease by finding out as much as you can about where your DS is going.

My DD, who has ASD, went away on one of these trips recently, and despite our various worries, really LOVED it, tried all the activities and was completely fine the whole time. Even if she'd had any problems, I had every confidence that the staff there would have seen it all before and would have known how to deal with it. I'd also talked through my concerns with the teachers and TAs who were going with the class, and wrote on the medical form about issues which may arise.

I'd try and encourage him to go - it would be a great opportunity for him and a little bit of respite for you.

What issues does your son have?

He has a lot of meltdowns at home, if hes doing to much activity he ends up with sensory overload causing him to meltdown for hours, lack of danger awareness, he also clashes with another child from his class so to be with that child day and night? may tip him over the edge, my son can also be very violent x

I think you need to have more information first about how the trip will be organised before you make a firm decision. For instance, they may divide a larger class into smaller teams, so your son is able to avoid the child who he clashes with.

It's highly likely the the place he's going to have experience of your son's kind of behaviour and know what to do.

What has your school advised?

Pre-diagnosis school got round this problem by asking dh to accompany the ds's on their school residential to sort out any meltdowns as they did not have the staff numbers to cope if one happened. Not ideal but it is one solution. Subsequently ds1 has attended residentials on his own with no problems because there is a high staff:pupil ratio. So I guess I am saying is that the key is adequate support and you need to ask school how they are going to make reasonable adjustments so that he can have an equal opportunity to his peers.

An alternative suggestion that worked for ds2 is that when he could not attend a residential at another school (he had only just started there and no-way would we have let him go on one) they arranged a timetable of alternative "fun" activities with me and offered TA support so he got as much as an equivalent experience as he could and that he could cope with at the time. It worked well for us because he was having extreme difficulty going anywhere at the time but because school had arranged it he managed I think every day except one.