Traveling always comes with a lot of planning and traveling with any child is no different. Do you or your kids dread the big changes and disruption of schedules when it comes to traveling? Dawn Barclay is here to help! Travel, change, and new places can be incredibly stressful for children (and adults!) that are on the Neurodivergent spectrum. Through Dawns, tips, resources, and her own book, we can find that the joy of traveling does not have to be the final destination, but the joy our children can experience in these moments.
Dawn M. Barclay is an award-winning author who has spent a career working in different aspects of the travel industry. After spending ten years working in sales and marketing for her parents’ two firms she branched out into travel trade reporting with senior or contributing editor positions at Travel Agent Magazine, Travel Life, Travel Market Report, and most recently, Insider Travel Report.
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hilary and Jen.
Hilary: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast. Today we have a guest with us and as you guys know, Jen and I at least are stationed in Utah, up in northern Utah. And so, we have a guest who's coming to us from across the across the U.S., which we're so excited for. So, this is Dawn, Dawn Barclay and she's joining us from New York. And so, Dawn, we are so glad that you're here and that you can provide us with your insight that you have which I know that our listeners are going to be excited to hear. We are in that stage where we're thinking about traveling and for many of us, we have young children, even older children. And we know that traveling with kids can be, I'll say, a challenge to say the least.
Dawn: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. And yeah, the book I wrote is for the Anxious, the Inflexible and the Neurodiverse. Because all kids, when they're taken out of their comfort zone, become anxious and inflexible. And there's nothing that will drag you out of your comfort zone faster than travel. There's nothing predictable about it.
Hilary: Yes. So, let's start with this. Dawn, if you can tell us where to find this, where to find this book, we'll start there. And obviously as you guys know, we'll put it in our show notes. But where does one go to get their hands on this information?
Dawn: Sure. So, my book is titled Traveling Different Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible and the Neurodiverse by Dawn Barclay. It is available everywhere. You can find it on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble. You can find it on the computer sites of all the independent bookstores, and you can find it at the publisher, Roman and Littlefield. But if you want, like a one stop shop of where to find all my information. If you go to travelingdifferent.com. I have a page that lists, you know, all the places you can find it as well as updates that supplement the book and also revise it based on new information. So that's always really handy to have.
Hilary: Hey, perfect. Now I'm curious what led you to write about this particular topic?
Dawn: Well, I was a travel writer. I've been a travel writer on and off for the past 35 years, and when I needed a book like this, it didn't exist. And when I saw an emptiness in the market, I felt I wanted to fill it. There was nothing written about traveling with kids that might have been difficult. And so, I interviewed some experts, I talked to doctor, Tony Atwood, who is an expert in autism spectrum disorder. I spoke to Doctor Ellen Littman, who's an expert in ADHD and then this was back in the early 2000s. And then I kind of hit a wall. There weren't a lot of places I could go. It's not like therapists would have opened up their client list for me and I sort of let it sit and I started writing fiction. When a group called IBCES, which stands for the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards, created a designation called the Certified Autism Travel Professional, I knew exactly how I could write this book. Because there were hundreds of people who had gotten this designation, many of them were special, needs parents themselves. They spoke to me. They introduced me to their clients, the ones who agreed to be spoken with and then there was a lot more information on the Internet now or three years ago than there was, you know, in the early 2000s. And then we have this handy little pandemic where I had nothing to do and I'm not really good with nothing to do. So, I wrote four books, and this was one of them.
Hilary: Where do I find that drive? It's funny. I remember during that pandemic hearing all of these people that have developed these hobbies of, you know, bread making and book writing and journaling and exercise. And I'm like, turn it, I missed the boat for the motivation, yeah.
Dawn: Yeah, well, it didn't start that way, but it was, the more it went on. I was like, what am I doing? Why am I doing nothing other than eating Oreos, which was the official food of the pandemic, by the way. I have since lost, like, 82 lbs. But during the pandemic, I was heavy into the Oreos.
Hilary: Ohh goodness that's awesome. Well, I love, I mean, as I'm hearing about the individuals that you reached out to provide this insight and this information how powerful. I'm so excited to read more into this because clearly you have a group of experts that is bringing their knowledge to the table, including yourself.
Dawn: Well, I didn't want it to be my story. I didn't want it to be a book with one point of view. I wanted it to be crowd sourcing of information because I think that's much stronger. I was speaking to a lot of people who were very open about the mistakes they had made and what they had learned from them and I think that makes a much stronger book. The only thing that was really out there where memoirs like this is how I went with my autistic child on a cruise. That was not what I wanted to produce. I've been a, you know, a research writer and a nonfiction journalist for years. So, I approached it like a number of different articles, because that's what a good friend of mine told me. It's like, how do I write a book? So, you write a nonfiction book and just it's a bunch of articles that you're stringing together. So that's how I sort of plowed my way through.
Hilary: OK. So, I envision that when it comes to the application of the tips provided, there's probably, I mean, most of us think about the trip, the actual trip being in the car, being on the plane, on the boat, whatever it is. But I'm making the assumption there's a lot of things we need to do as parents in preparation for that. So, let's start with that.
Dawn: Yeah, that's a huge part of it because you should never spring a vacation on any child, much less one on the spectrum. You know, they cling to routine and you can't just drag them out of it. Well, guess what? Tomorrow we're going to Disneyland. No, no, don't ever do that. Thinking that that will be fun for the child because even if they pretend to be excited, their anxiety will come out in other ways that will not be pleasant. So, I would say that my book is about 75% strategy and 25% destination. And the first thing you've got to do is introduce the child to the concept of travel. So how do you do that? Maybe get picture books with the child's favorite character and travel situations. I do include a number of them, but your local librarian is going to be able to provide you with a lot more you can show videos. Thank goodness we're in the age of video now, so there are videos on YouTube for every different aspect of that vacation. And if you don't get it there, you can get them from the travel supplier themselves. So, you can see what the airports going to look like. You can see what the inside of the planes going to look like. You can watch a plane taking off and landing. You can see the inside of the hotel all the way from the foyer and the check in to the rooms to the pool. Whatever you can do all of that and it's important to do that and show the child everything. You can do role play with your child and this is a great idea. Like sit your child down, set up some rows of chairs, teach the kid not to kick the chair in front of them although. A tip I heard from a special needs parent recently was that they break it up and they have a parent in front and a parent like in front of the child. So, if child's kicking the seats, it’s the parent so nobody else is being annoyed. Also bring along like a little remote control so the child has something to press other than the button that's going to alert the flight attendant every two minutes. So little tips there, but this is all information you know you can do that all in role play. So you've got those kind of ideas as well as what I like to call. Many experiences which are really important so. Before you spend thousands on an expensive hotel stay, why not spend the night at the home of a relative or a friend, especially if that child has never slept in a bed outside of their room. Because then you're automatically going to see where the triggers lie. Does that child need a night light? Does that child need the sheets and the blankets with the familiar texture and scent from home? Same thing with toiletries. Does that child need a fan to make enough noise to block out the sounds coming from the hallway? So, you know, that's a nice inexpensive way to test things out. Other parents have maybe taking a room at a local cheap hotel. Same experience because it's good to do a test run. There are test runs you can run at the airport, a group called the ARC does wings for autism, where they have a dress rehearsal in about 70 different airports once a year, and you can sign up and you can run through from arrival to boarding. They recently did something like that, not the ARC, but another organization did something similar at Hartford Airport. I think last week, so more groups are doing this as well as airlines. And if your particular airport doesn't run that you can call the airline or have your certified autism travel professional call the airline for you and they can arrange, perhaps for a tour in advance. The idea is to make the child familiar, Before you go on a long train ride, take a commuter ride before you take a cruise, maybe take a shorter cruise or even a ferry ride. Get the kid out on the water to see a little bit of what it's like? Before camping set out, you know a tent in the backyard. There's a lot of ways to preview before you have the actual trip. I'll breathe now.
Hilary: Ohh and I'm taking it all in because I'm like that is such a great idea that I think that doesn't, most parents don't tend to think of. And so, I love that idea of kind of that, that mini trip, that mini scenario so that we can get them accustomed to some of the situations that they might find. I, you know, in living in a world of social media, I think we have, we see quite often the like you said, wake the kids up, pull them out of bed, we're going to Disneyland today. And we see those videos of these happy children, right, creating this surprise experience, which may work for some, but I love how you bring up, even if they have that smile on their, they may not necessarily be enjoying this experience on the inside.
Dawn: I know as a parent or as a as just a traveler, I get nervous with everything. If I don't know what's going to happen. I think that these techniques work for every child, not just for a child on the spectrum. How could it be bad to prepare somebody for an upcoming experience? What could be the downside of that?
Jen: These are fabulous ideas. I love them. I think I could use them on my husband as well. He's not a fan of traveling so.
Dawn: Haha use my name to show we’re friends, Dawn said.
Hilary: Well, I mean, you bring up an interesting point, Jen, is I'm thinking about different friends and family members of mine. Even as adults, there are some of us that love that feeling of, you know, flying by the seat of our pants and just being very spontaneous. And then I have other siblings. That still as an adult, it is scheduled out hour by hour. Restaurants are decided beforehand, I mean, and so I feel like you say, many of us are still that same way. It's our comfort zone. We like having that stability and knowing what to expect. And so of course, our kids are going to be that same way.
Dawn: I've been traveling since I was 2 because I was the daughter of two travel agents who owned a big agency in Manhattan, and I've been through different machinations of jobs in the travel industry and I still won't fly into a city without a hotel reservation and they're I've already looked at the menu to make sure I can work out what I'm going to eat because I'm a special diet. I'm never winging it and I, you know, and I've been everywhere, well, almost everywhere. And I still don't feel comfortable winging it. I wouldn't. I've been to London a million times. I wouldn't fly into London without a hotel reservation.
Hilary: Hmm. Yeah, that's a great point. Right, OK. So, I'm imagining, let's say that we as a parent, we plan this mini trip, we plan a modified version of our vacation that we anticipate taking in a few weeks and this mini trip doesn't go well. It kind of bust. It's a bust. Do we hold back? On the bigger like what? What? What should we do now at that point?
Dawn: Yeah, that's a great point. You know what? You give yourself some grace. That and some kudos that you tried it. And you try to learn from your experience. Where did it break apart? And how you know, think of you should always have a Plan B anyway, before you go, especially if you've planned out your trip with a visual schedule so the child can follow it. If they're they can't read, or they're nonverbal you, you know, you see where it fell apart, where could have we done different? What could have been a viable plan B? Where did the child kind of lose it? Because if you go back through the book, you might see, oh, I didn't follow this idea. Maybe I should have previewed this, maybe I should have, maybe I didn't have the confidence that it was going to work, and the child picked up on that. It's really hard to speak in in the vagaries because I don't know where the trip fell apart, but I think I would review what went wrong rather than, you know, commit myself to a life without travel, which for me was unacceptable.
Hilary: Yeah. So, we don't necessarily need to cancel the big trip, but it's more of sitting down and saying, let's evaluate how what this experience look like.
Dawn: And then. No, but. I would. And I would also do maybe some more mini trips around your neighborhood, like maybe you go to an ethnic restaurant or ethnic bakery, something a little different. Maybe you go to the local zoo or Children's museum or aquarium. There are lots of things that you can call a tour. Even though they're not really a tour, but you can label them that way. So, if you do have a good experience, you can, you know, use that later as a point of reference. But I would really evaluate what went wrong and see where you could make a different. Where did I should I have was the pacing wrong now? I think in a lot of cases the pacing could have been wrong. That I rush the child and try to do 6 things in one day when we really should have done one thing, the child would have enjoyed it for a short time and then even though we spent the money on this trip, we could have spent the afternoon in front of the TV or by the pool and relaxed. And maybe, you know, we would have had some good memories instead of like the disaster it turned into. Maybe we could have worked the trip around one of our child's special interests. You know, children on the spectrum especially have some circumscribed special interests that they might perseverate on all the time. And if you have a child, for example, I have a friend whose child loves elevators. Maybe you make sure you include an hour of elevator riding on the trip. I mean, that's a bit extreme, but you know, oh, there's we're gonna have this trip. We're gonna have all these different hotels and all these different elevators, won’t that be exciting? Maybe child who loves trains take them to a transit museum. I mean, there's so many special interest that you can feed into and I have an entire chapter in the book, that's just dedicated to that. Where in the world can you preserve various pursue various special interests?
Hilary: OK. Alright, I'm envisioning a lot of parents and the tricky thing I think that we tend to find with travel and you mentioned it already done is this idea that many of us schedule things and these things are expensive. And so, you know, once things have been paid for the event, the activity has been paid for and maybe our child doesn't want to participate. Where do we find that balance of saying, you know, wait, I want to be flexible. But I also want the most bang for my buck and we've already purchased these aquarium tickets. And so, what do we do now at this point?
Dawn: So, before you plan the trip, it's awfully good again to create a child centric vacation, which is where the pacing comes in and revolving around the special interest and another aspect of that is involving the child in the planning aspect of the trip. So, you can certainly vet yourself with your travel plan, or maybe three options of vacations and leave it up to the child to pick the final one because there's no wrong answer. You've already vetted them and approved all of them. Now your child has, you know, a vested interest in the success of that trip. They, you know, they own a little bit of it, and you can do the same thing for daily activities. So now your child has said OK, I want to do this aquarium. Maybe you would present it and they said no that and you show the video and they said no. That's not for me. I'd rather do this. So, you've already gotten them to weigh in. I think that's going to avoid a lot of the problems now. The child might have a bad day and it might not work well. But look what you've done. You've taken the step, the extra step of making sure that it's something your child wants to do, it's kind of their vacation when you're a. Parent it's not yours. You had your trip and you'll have your trips. Again, once they move out. You know, but right now it's their trip. And if you're taking those trips to create bonding experience and special memories, which I'm assuming you are, then you're going to want to do whatever it takes to make them happy. Or you should, because otherwise you're all going to be very miserable. And believe me, I remember times at a hotel in Jamaica where we just wanted to go home because it was so miserable. My daughter was so miserable because it's unfortunate that I researched this book after they were adults. I didn't do any of this. I wish I had to me writing this book was one giant epiphany after another, and I was taking it from the parents who'd really done it well.
Hilary: You know, I I'm glad that you shared that because I think so often we need to just keep in mind that that mindset, that this is, this is a family vacation. This has been created. I mean, not just, I mean this has been created as an opportunity for us as a family to have an experience and to bond and to spend time together. Does that mean that I'm going to have as an adult? And then I have the time of my life. These may not be the activities that I would choose to do, right. Like you said, there's different vacations for that. We may take an adult vacation later on in our life, but this is that opportunity to say, what can we do that our kids are gonna love? It's gonna knock their socks off and then remember that as parents.
Dawn: Yeah, you don't know. You don't know what they're going to remember. This is a thing we took my child and her friend to the Bronx Zoo. And what they took from that, what she remembered is when her friend ate too much popcorn and vomited in the back seat, that was the memory. I took a trip with my parents and my brother to England. I think we took the queue 2 over and we drove from Sout Hampton up to London and on the way we stopped at a little place called the Mendip Motel. I mean, we were very young and what my brother and I remember is the shoeshine machine and we're and some movie that we watched in the motel room. This is the and one really great restaurant where I had cream of vegetable soup that I will never forget. These are the memories. And it wasn't what my parents chose. I mean, they probably dragged us all over London and showed us the sights. I don't remember any of that, but I remember that shoeshine machine.
Hilary: But think that the.
Jen: I agree. I mean, what you take each child takes something different from their experiences. And it is amazing what they do remember and what they don't remember. And you, as a parent, probably don't remember any of what they remember.
Dawn: Yeah, but the point is that you're closer because of it. You're showing the child that there's a world outside of their own world, and their people live differently than you live at home. And that's OK. And I really believe that travel people travel more. There'd be a lot less hate and bias in the world. I thank God the way I was brought up because I got to see the world as a as a child. And it was. It was wonderful I've learned more from travel than I ever did in school.
Hilary: So let me ask you this, Dawn. We're doing everything we can as the parent to prepare and to make sure things go according to plan. But we know a travel that sometimes things happen unexpectedly, that we have no control over whether that be the weather or maybe, you know, an event. That that was canceled, that we didn't know about or our restaurant closes early, how do we how do we deal with the unexpected, the things that are out of our control.
Dawn: Plan B's. I think that one of the things somebody asked me about was what if we get stuck on the tarmac? I was just on a flight that was it wasn't stuck on the tarmac, but got in 2:00 AM when I was supposed to get it at 10 because the weather. So, if I had had a child with me one of the things I would do now is I'd bring little presents. Little surprise presents in little boxes. Nothing that's going to like be difficult to manage. Like maybe Silly Putty, or maybe crayons or something new. Nothing that expensive and every half hour that we're stuck somewhere, another present comes out. And so now the child's rooting for their trip to for another. It's another half hour, because why not get them on your side? I'm a big proponent of bribery. My therapist hated that you're not supposed to bribe your child, I said. Well yes it works. So that would be, yeah. I'm sure I'm in the mother's Hall of Fame somewhere.
Hilary: You know what? I feel like those times like that. I'm like the throw the parenting books out the window. This is about survival mode at this point.
Dawn: Yeah, yeah. And make sure you have electronics filled with their favorite shows. Yeah. You always bring your noise cancelling headphones so they're not disturbed, but download a bunch of their favorite shows and maybe some that they haven't seen before. So, they have something to do. Think of what you would want to do now. A child's not going to pull out a book. Chances are somewhat I would have, but you know, if I have a child on the spectrum, they're not reading, at least my kids had no interest in reading whether or not they were on the spectrum. It's sad as a writer that my kids don't eat. But for some of my books, perhaps for the best. So yeah, you've got to think, what would you want to do to kill the time? There's always eating.
Hilary; That's my favorite way of killing time.
Dawn: Yeah, there's always a milkshake somewhere.
Hilary: Yes, yes there is. And I will find it wherever it is. Do you have suggestions about traveling to different time zone? I mean I'm thinking with these children, particularly with these autistic children and keeping that schedule, what's the suggestion? And when we're traveling and we're changing times or we're taking the red eye? And they're their schedules being thrown off.
Dawn: Yeah, I would try not to do red eyes. I mean, if you're traveling to Europe. I wouldn't make that my first trip, and if I did make it, I'd do it on a ship. I'd do a transatlantic crossing where you have some control over the time, and I try to keep your schedule as I mean there, there's a point where you can't, but I would. I would not make that European and I do have a whole chapter on, you know, foreign versus domestic and most of the travel advisors say try domestic first, get the child used to traveling before you and you know you. It's even domestically if you're traveling between Alaska and New York, you're going through a couple of time zones too. So, you might ease into it. Before the trip, you might start eating a little later or eating a little earlier and try to ease your way. In, make sure you get a lot of sleep early on. But it's we didn't really talk about that a lot, because a lot of the parents weren't taking trips that involved that.
Hilary: I would anticipate for a lot of these families kind of opening up this, this idea of traveling with their kids. We're going to start small, but I can only imagine, you know, traveling with a young one, what that is living off of a lack of sleep and dealing with that.
Dawn: I was in Finland two weeks ago for a press trip and I got to tell you, I never adapted to the time because I was already waking up at 4:00 in the morning here to get some writing done before work. I and then being over there and not sleeping on the plane over. I was just shocked the entire time. So yeah, it's not easy for parents not on the spectrum, so it's a problem, no matter who you are.
Hilary: It's just a part of travel. I feel like you, we always joke that you take your vacation and then you need a vacation from your vacation, right?
Dawn: True, it's true.
Hilary: To catch up on the rest and the chores and all the things that that went unnoticed while you were away.
Dawn: Yeah, yeah, it can be rough, you know, give the give the kid grace, let them nap. If you're on a tour bus and the child wants to nap and you'll say, oh, look at this look. Let the child sleep. If you look out the window.
Hilary: Would there ever be a situation where parents may be in the middle of vacation that has just kind of gone South where you would say. Let's bag it like, let's cut our losses and let's just go home because obviously this isn't working. Would you say to continue working through it? Is there ever a time where it's probably for the best to end it early?
Dawn: Oh, I think if you're having a really terrible time and you've decided that you either haven't prepared well enough or the child's just not on board, you know, cut your losses and if you can afford to leave and go home, go home. What are you going to what are you proving by forcing them to be miserable for longer and just try it again in a year or two and figure out where it went wrong. I would never tell people to further their upset.
Jen: Yeah, cause the upset's just going to get worse.
Dawn: Yeah. And you're going to leave the child with a really even worse taste in their mouth because they were forced to endure this.
Hilary: Yeah. And then when you it's true and you don't necessarily want to set yourself up for future, like for them to see future vacations as being a negative thing. And so, I appreciate that idea because I think sometimes parents were like, Nope, this is like, this is the trip. This is the schedule that this is the flight. Like we've got to do what we've got to do and so.
Dawn: Right. Yeah, it can be difficult. My, my daughter, I discovered really hated. And I write about this in the book. Hated kids clubs. Absolutely hated them, but we didn't know that at 1st, and so she ended up spending the days with us and that was when my son was in the kids club and my daughter liked adults and spent the time with us and it made it better. I think you have to listen. You have to really check in with your child constantly and be aware of the signs of upset. Because then you might be able to fix things before they get to that degree where you have to go home, OK?
Hilary: Do you find that there are different forms of transportation? Whether that be, let's like you said, let's take a flight versus a car ride versus a boat ride is there. Ones that potentially maybe are better, easier than others that you would suggest to start with.
Dawn: Yeah, I absolutely think that if you take a car ride, you're much more in charge. You can stop when you want. You can figure out what where you're going to go and where you're going to stop. And when you're going to level and your you know, and you've got lots of room in the back of your car for the child’s stuff. If you want to bring the child's sheets and blankets if you want to bring their special toys. You know you have a lot more leeway, but also, if you were to take a train trip. You have a lot of that. Amtrak is super liberal with their with their luggage policies. And you can also get a room met. So, if you want to have some quiet away from the other passengers with your own bathroom and a place to eat outside of the dining room, you can do that. But you can also walk around, which you really can't do in the car. And the nice thing about a train is that you're not paying all your attention to the driving so that you can spend more time with the child. So, I think those are really good ways to start. I also grew up cruising, I grew up. The ships my mother hated flying my grandparents were in England. We did a lot of transatlantic sailing and I grew up loving ships. Now the nice thing about ships, like I said, it's a good way to experience Europe without flying, but also you're unpacking once you've got one room, you're visiting a number of different places. That you're you don't have that constant upheaval of packing and unpacking and changing hotel rooms and there are a lot of different places to eat on board, so if one you know in this buffet, so you can always find something your child would like to eat in the buffet. There are kids clubs where the family, the staff are trained to work with children on the spectrum and not on the spectrum. There is a group called Autism on the seas that will arrange group trips for families with children on the spectrum. If you want to commiserate with other parents and network. And there's enough to do on board, especially with these really big ships that if you have some children on the spectrum and some not, there's something for everyone to do. I was just on the icon of the Seas. Like I said, I was in Finland. I was at the shipyard in Turku, and I was walking on the yet to be completed wearing a hard hat, Icon of the Seas. That ship's going to have so much for people to do. You'll never get bored, and there will always be something for everyone. So just an example, there are these huge ships now it's like a city at sea. So, I'm very pro that. Whereas I don't love flying myself. But it's definitely doable if you take the right steps and there are more, more and more theme parks and hotels that are being certified as certified autism centers or autism friendly. And I have a number of them in the book. So that you can even go to a city like Mesa, AZ or Visalia, CA and the whole city it also, Myrtle Beach, SC the whole city is has been trained so many places that you can go that there's always going to be a places that will understand what you need and provide it. If you have a child on the spectrum.
Hilary: Oh, are we grateful that we, as a community we are getting so much better at recognizing that and making those accommodations like that makes such a difference for these families and for these sweet kids? I'm so grateful that we have that. Would you ever make this suggestion, I you know, you talked a little bit about this when you talked about the cruise scenario, but would you ever make this suggestion to parents to potentially plan multiple family vacations where you may take some kids on this trip, you know specifically, maybe with that autistic child in mind, but then take the other kids on a different trip or is there power in in recruiting everyone to be involved in that process.
Dawn: No, I think it's really a personal decision. I mean, my, my brother and I were both neurotypical and yet we didn't get along very well when we were kids and my parents would take me on some trips and my brother on other trips. And, you know, we were lucky because my grandmother lived with us. So, there was always somebody to watch us. but it was fine. I got the better trips. I got Europe. He usually got the Caribbean.
Hilary: I would take both if I had the option.
Dawn: I would now too, but at the time I was much more into like speaking French and going to France or Switzerland, so it was like fine with me.
Hilary: Ohh that's awesome. What about these little ones that I think so often when we travel? At least in my head, when I'm thinking of travel, travel equates crowds, and there are so many of these kids that struggle with those large crowds, are there suggestions that we can offer for those kids that may get anxious in those social settings?
Dawn: It's a really that's all about planning for a sensory a low sensory vacation. So. If I have a child who doesn't do well in crowds, I'm not going to take them to places where there are crowds like I'm not going to a theme park, even though a lot of them are, you know, certified. Now I'm not taking them to those places if I'm I just heard about an airline, I think it's JSX who has these hops. It's like a jet. It's like a jet charter, but affordable jet charter. So, you can show up 20 minutes before the flight rather than two hours. And the planes are only 30 people, so you're not gonna have a crowd. So, if you can find that kind of scenario, I'm going to write it up for my blog. I just haven't had a chance to do that yet, but I think that's a really great option. Unfortunately, they don't fly everywhere, but I like that idea. Maybe I'm not flying if my kid doesn't like crowds, maybe I'm driving, maybe I'm going to a vacation rental rather than a hotel, so I don't have to deal with people in the lobby. If I fly into a city, I'm not getting on the crowded jitney that the hotel is providing free to the hotel. Maybe I'm taking an Uber because there are places all the way along where I can you limit the amount of crowds. My child it and probably I'm not going to a mall. I'm not running to like the mall of the Americas with my emails. Not that there's anything wrong with them all the Americas, but to me that's a crowded environment. I'm not doing that you, I mean, plan the trip with your child's needs in mind. And you can also find out from a lot of venues when they're quieter, days are, and they're quieter times are. So, there might be days where the zoo is less crowded. Why aren't you going, then organize, you know and schedule around that.
Hilary: So, it sounds like a lot of this is just putting in that time and research beforehand and Dawn, you are clearly well versed in the different resources that are available out there, but maybe for a parent that is just starting and isn't aware of these slow days or these you know additional perks or advantages. For these families, would your suggestion just to be to call to call, you know call, call the airport, call the aquarium, just to say, hey, do you have any additional accommodations where where do we go to find that allow.
Dawn: You can do that or you can go to a certified autism travel professional. You can find them at autismtravel.com under the travel advisors. They're all over the country. If you've read some about some of them in my book, as I quote a number of really good ones. You're able to blame them. And no matter where you are in the country, thank goodness for zoom, you can get a consultation with them from anywhere, so I would totally advise using a professional who knows their way around special needs travel. But yes, I would also not take my book as God I would take for all the I always buy the book. But I would not take everything as gospel because things change and I and certifications change and I would contact any hotel that says that they are, for example, autism friendly as opposed to a certified autism center and say, where did you get your designation? What did you do to get it? What do you provide for my child and then evaluated what they provide is, right for your child. And also if they offer it when you're going to be. Because there are some museums that offer low sensory afternoons, but it's offered one Sunday a month. And if you're not there on that Sunday, what good is that to you. So I would really check, I know it's a lot of work up front, but it pays off when you don't have a child who's you know, falling into a sensory meltdown. And crying the whole time, you know, it's worth putting in the time if you're going to spend the money. All this money on the trip, why not put in the leg work to make sure it's going to work.
Jen: It's just like parenting. If you put in the effort beforehand, you're going to deal with less big behaviors in the long run. Yeah, and yeah.
Hilary: Dawn, you're such a fantastic storyteller and so insightful. So, I hope you don't mind me asking this, but I want to hear just with your, with your kids and your personal experience. Are there any as you look back on traveling with your kids and jokingly you said it didn't go well.
Dawn: Sometimes it did.
Hilary: But any funny stories, or any maybe success stories that you can remember from your experience with your own kids and traveling.
Dawn: Well, I can give you probably one of each a not so great success story is when my I guess he was two at the time my son. We sat up in our in our we're getting strapped in into our plane and that's when my son decided to vomit all over my silk blouse. I happened to have a sweater with me, which I had no choice. I just put it on over it. The person next to me asked to move to a different seat, so we take off. Ohh that's pleasant. And then my daughter who has trouble with her ears because all kids, when they're young have the trouble when you're, you know, landing and taking off. So she starts screaming. So thank God for my husband because he takes the bags out of the front pocket of the seat and he takes out crayons and he draws and he creates barf, bag theater. And they were very I put that in the book. They were very amused by that. And it became a family tradition. So thank God for him. So success is, I mean you could kind of call that a success, I guess in a way. I think one of the best family trips we took was. To Woodlock Pines and that's in the Poconos. And there's lots to do. And there's lots for kids. There's a lot. We're big game players. There's lots of games for adults in terms of, like, trivia games and TV show type games that they bring to life. So that was a place we went to again and again. It seemed to work for every. One, yeah. And we we've taken cruises that worked out really well. You know, especially when my daughter was old enough that she didn't have to go to the kids club or that we knew not to put her in there. We fell in with a group of dueling piano on NCL. They have howl at the moon and my husband's a really good piano player. And so, we and they take requests and the first I knew how this was going to go and we went and I wrote a request saying please play Johnny be good. But no one plays it as well as my husband. So of course, they called him up there. And for the rest of the cruise, they called him up there and everybody loved him. He was like a celebrity on board. And we have sailed with these same piano players several times, and we always have a good time and they always call them up. In fact, I put them in one of my novels. I put a bunch of them in. I had a dueling piano player sub thought at it, and they were in there. So that was a real nice success. They called my son up to play the piano. They called my daughter. Saying it was nice.
Hilary: How cool. Ohh my goodness. I love it. Yeah, you are reminding me just how important it is to travel with your kids. Because I think so often, we think about travel and it's such a daunting experience. Like you said, the preparation and the time and the effort and the money and I think you have reminded us all that it's very important to take this opportunity with our kids to share these experiences with them so.
Dawn: Yeah, even if it's just camping. I do include information on camping. I include information on car trips and restaurants. That's a whole another potential disaster. Restaurants, how to deal with that. Because it can be inexpensive, it can be a staycation. Where you're staying at. You know, restaurants and local place at aquariums and zoos and. Start small, but start together.
Hilary: Alright. Well, with our time kind of coming to a close down, I just wanted to just one more question to you, just any closing thoughts or last final pieces of feedback that you would offer.
Dawn: Yeah, yeah. When I was pregnant, some very wise mother, who I don't remember told me every mother deserves 2000 mistakes. Every mother gets 2000 mistakes. And I took that quite to heart because every time I made a mistake, I was like, well, that's one out of the 2000. I'm sure I exceeded. By many thousand. But you know what? It gives you a little grace. Good for you for trying. If it doesn't work now, try again. Because you'll hit the right combination and you know, love your kids and do the best for them. And part of that is going to be making mistakes. But you know, there's always another day.
Hilary: I was just going to say what I want to know done is that 2000 mistakes is that times each child or do I only get 2000
Dawn: I hope it's each child, but I'm hoping now it's every year.
Hilary: Perfect. I like that. I was like, I don't know how far 2000 will go, but if I can times that by my 4 kids, it might make it happen. So, we'll see things done.
Jen: And then you got to include your adult kids because parenting never stops
Dawn: No, it's harder when they're adults, quite honestly and more expensive.
Jen: I want to thank you, Dawn, for coming today and talking with us. I mean this is such valuable information. I had a coworker that was here years ago that her family did this. They just every year went somewhere new. And what great experiences and memories that creates for families. And so, thank you so much for coming and talking about this and getting really, really good ideas of what any parent can do to kind of help that traveling to go in a positive way, so thank you for that.
Dawn: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Jen: Thank you listeners for coming. We hope that you can continue to be kind and patient with yourselves and we will see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Parents Place podcast. If you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly – The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org if you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes, we'd love to see you there.
Subject Resources:
1. http://www.dawnbarclayink.com/
2. https://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Different-Strategies-Inflexible-Neurodiverse/dp/B09WJM45H9#customerReviews
3. https://thearc.org/our-initiatives/travel/
4. https://autismtravel.com/travel-agents/
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