I Need Travel Advice

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Hi! This is my first post. My just-turned-18-year-old daughter has not been diagnosed, but I'm sure she is Aspergers for lots of reasons (and it keeps getting worse - but that's another topic). The trauma today is that my daughter is having a tantrum every time we discuss our upcoming Spring Break trip to the Grand Canyon. She is completely out of control (screaming for ten minutes to the point of not being able to breathe, slamming doors, throwing things) when it is mentioned. The main problem is that there will be limited cellphone service with her internet boyfriend. Although she has never met this guy in person, they are on the phone almost every waking moment. He is the only person she feels connected to. I know that is a whole 'nother topic!! But back to this one, another problem is limited internet access (she plays an online horse breeding game obsessively) during the trip. And, no matter how many times I have told her that the train ride into the Grand Canyon will last 1-1/2 hours, she keeps screaming that she doesn't want to spend "13 hours on a train." With all the drama, I'm almost ready to let her stay home (although her dad probably won't let that happen), but when she goes on vacation with us, she does eventually have a good time. She always has a complete meltdown at some point during the trip (one year it was because the restaurant we were in didn't serve Coca-Cola at breakfast), but overall, has fun.
Okay, the question.... Any ideas how to salvage this trip? Should I focus on educating her about what we're going to do on the trip? I'm scared of this because if the plan gets changed, it might cause a catastrophe. Gosh, as I'm reading this, it sounds like my spoiled brat is acting spoiled because we have allowed her to become spoiled. Oh, now I'm going to cry.

Greetings to you, RC, and welcome to WP!

It sounds to me like you might be hoping to convince your daughter the trip will be fun, but I would just stick to only answering any actual questions she might have. Your desire to address and resolve issues or complaints ahead of time is reasonable, but that is just not going to happen. So, just give her the basics and then look forward to the vacation as yet another "family adventure" into the unknown.

That's hard, she doesn't sound spoilt to me, I can put myself in her shoes and imagine the angish of having to leave all social life and special interests behind to go to an unknown place ! There's no way for her to be sure it's going to be fun, so it's a leap of faith.
The advice I'm going to give you is not coming from a mother, although I am, but from the 18 y old aspie I used to be. You need a good sit down talk about her boyfriend. Tell her that he loves her and will wait for her, that there is no way he would fall in love with anyone else in that short amount of time since she is such a special person to him. And that if he does, he was not worthy of her anyway.
Tell her that him waiting for her to return is actually good for their relationship, as he will realise just how much he feels lonely without her, and will be so happy to see her again.
Then, describe the adventure, the possibility of making new friends, seeing new places, having new things to talk about when she talks to HIM again.
The train itself is probably going to be harder to sell sorry I don't see how you could make such a long train trip attractive to anyone...
But maybe the feeling of adventure could rub on her enough that she would enjoy it?
Just a quick note about morning cola: introduce her to coffee! it's slower than cola, but it has a similar effect on the brain: grabs you from your cloud and throws you back on earth I still keep cola for the times when the coffee just doesn't cut it though

I would say make an itinerary for her, so she knows exactly what to expect every day. Also make sure she has as much internet access and downtime as possible around the planned activities, and have these marked on the itinerary too. Maybe she will be calmer when she can see a visual of exactly what is coming, and is reassured that it won't be a whole week without internet.

Are you doing anything on this vacation that ties into her special interests? You said she plays a horse breeding game obsessively? Would she enjoy going to a horse ranch, horse races or horse back riding? I would try to plan something that she can really look forward to to mitigate the stresses of travel and the deprivation of being away from all her usual comforts.

I completely understand NOT wanting to make an itinerary if you aren't 100% positive about plans, the fallout from changed plans could be disastrous!

I would make a list of the "Things We Hope To Do". Encourage her to add some ideas to the list. I really agree with alice on trying to incorporate some of her horse interests. She likes the internet, have her research those things and make up a vague itinerary, grouping together activities that would be best done on the same day due to the length of time they will take and location. Have her schedule in flexibility to reduce meltdowns when things don't go as planned..ex, such and such activity might take 2-4 hours based on how much fun we're having.

I also agree that you should try as much as possible to show her when she can have internet time and when she will have phone service, this should reduce her anxiety, at least some. Perhaps before breakfast, sometime around lunch when possible, and after dinner. Look on line and see if there is an internet cafe or Starbucks in the immediate area of the hotel.

Encourage her to send her boyfriend postcards. I know there isn't immediate gratification in doing so, but hunting out good postcards might be a decent diversion.

Bottom line, be firm. Tell her you are going... This is a family vacation and sorry 'bout your luck... you're part of this family! Explain to her that she's 18 now, how many more family vacations will there be? And, it's a great chance to go out and see a little part of the world. Be firm, even if you have to say, "Sorry if you're not happy about this but how can we make it better?"

True. I should have been more specific. When we make itineraries for our family we do not include times, just the order in which activities will happen and what they are. It is too easy to arrive at destination at 3:11pm instead of 3:05 and this can trigger a meltdown, but if our itinerary says "morning: breakfast, swimming and afternoon: lunch, hiking, quiet time back at hotel" it is loose enough to incorporate other things but specific enough to reduce anxiety of the unknown. I personally would have a really hard time with some vague, open-ended vacation that was under someone else's control. Quite frankly, I would dread it. I need a well researched plan, and then barring emergencies, I need to stick to that plan.

OK, this should have been said earlier.

Don't make her go. She is 18; she is perfectly capable of staying home for a week without you guys.

Vacations are supposed to be fun for everybody. And they clearly aren't fun for her. I mean seriously, why would you force somebody to go on a vacation that you know they don't want to. I understand that you want to go on vacation, and thats fine. But you don't have to drag her along. Go enjoy yourself without her. Consider it a break from the kids. Enjoy a daughter free week, but don't force your desires onto somebody else who is clearly not interested.

I am not trying to be rude here, but for crying out loud, she is a human being and she has rights; and one of those rights is to not be forcibly dragged along on things when she doesn't want to. I mean, would you like it if your daughter forcibly dragged you to a video game horse breeding party and then made you spend a week learning how to play the game? Probably not. It may be what she wants, but you have the right to say no. Likewise, it is only reasonable that you extend her the same rights and let her decide whether or not she stays home for vacation, especially as she is an adult who you don't need to worry about leaving alone like you would a young child.

And while I dislike coming across as too direct, I think you really need to get your priorities in order when it comes to dealing with your daughter. From what you are saying, she sounds very unstable and you are having lots of problems with her. And that is fine, we can help you there. But you need to focus on the important issues, like preparing your daughter for adulthood, helping her to make intelligent decisions about dating, managing her emotions, and other such things. Worrying about what she should do with her vacation time seems to be the least of your issues right now, and I encourage you to take a step back and re-evaluate what is important. There is definitely ways to help your family, but if you gloss over them and worry about the silly little things like vacation plans then you are never going to deal with the important things.

I based my answer on this statement by the OP. Interpreting it as the daughter having a pattern of high anxiety/rigidity/resistance before trips, but enjoying the trip itself once she is there. So my answer was geared towards mitigating her anxiety so she could go.

But Tracker makes an excellent point. So is it her anxiety around travel, the trip itself not being geared enough to her needs and /or her not being involved enough in the planning stages to feel comfortable OR does she plain, old fashioned not want to go at all? If it is the latter making arrangements for her to stay home seems best, although obviously that is dependent on her current level of functioning and independence (the age of 18 can mean wildly different things for different people as far as maturity and capabilities go).

Hello Friends...

RC you just need to convince your daughter that the trip id going to be the best in her life and also force her to feel that you are her father who wants to see you happy,what ever the condition is.... Also tell her that spending some time with the family will be a memorable one for her and you too.....Hoping that my suggestions will help you a bit...

Justin Loe.
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Wow! A lot of different opinions, so I guess this is not really a cut-and-dried situation. That makes me feel better. I think this is the last "family vacation" ever. She will be in college next year. At that point, I would expect her to be able to make her own vacation plans. If she were planning on attending a Horse Breeding Gamers Convention or something instead of going with us, I might feel differently about making her go. As it is, if she didn't go, she would be sitting on her hind end in her bed with a cellphone and laptop all week.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the suggestions. I wll make a sort of plan for her, even though I detest plans. Ha ha.

If anyone is interested, I have an update. My husband found a good time to talk to my daughter about the trip. He outlined our plans, and now she is excited about going! She said she had thought that we were going to be "on a train for 13 days." despite the fact that I had repeatedly assured her that the train ride will be only 1.5 hours. I had told her this no less than three times. Anyway, the kicker was that her dad promised a river rafting trip, so now she is psyched! I wish I could figure out what her happiness triggers are. Would sure make life easier.

What's the problem with letting her stay home alone? She's 18. People with AS aren't stupid. (In fact, technically you can't be stupid to get a diagnosis of AS)

I am grateful to have had this forum where I could ask this question because it has helped me to see how my daughter might be feeling. As I have said in my posts, my daughter always ends up having a good time on vacation, and even this time is now very excited about it after we explained what we are planning to do. A couple of posters have very strong opinions. It's definitely not a question of intelligence or trust over leaving her at home. It never occurred to me that she might feel like it is! Thanks again, and now I will go back to lurking.