Flying with my son Tyler, who has fairly profound autism, has always ranked in my list of fears second only to nuclear war. And a pretty close second, at that. Although he has made excellent progress in behavior in recent years, I still harbor Autism PTSD-like symptoms caused by experiencing years of public tantrums. Our usual strategy has been to always have a ‘way out’ for public outings in case he needs a break or can’t stay. This has included things like having a respite worker drive separately with us and take him home early if needed; paying for our meal ahead of time and getting ‘to go’ containers for our food in case we need to suddenly bolt; and definitely driving on long car trips instead of flying. I must point out that this is just as much for his benefit as for the rest of our benefit. If he is acting out, something is REALLY bothering him and I am not going to make him remain there.
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