Greetings from The Beach (from Alexa)

Greetings, people of the Internet! This is Alexa, writing from Ocean City, Maryland! It's probably being POSTED a week later, of course, since this condo doesn't have internet activity, but who cares about semantics? Besides me, anyway. Since we're at the beach, I figured I should talk a bit about vacationing with a child on the spectrum and how to best keep them from going insane.

A. The Beach: Not for Everyone.
My family goes to one beach or another just about every year. It's fun, but honestly, I'm not a huge beach person. I like warm weather, I like the water, and seashell collecting is awesome, but there's one problem- I hate sand. Its ability to get so very, very hot is annoying, yes, but the major problems are tactile - sand does not feel very good, being all irritating and gritty - and the fact that it gets EVERYWHERE, requiring long showers outside with cold water to get the sand out. And it's really annoying if it somehow invades your sandwich. I don't care about the puns, I do not want to eat sand. You don't know where it's been. Also, getting all sunscreened up can be a pretty annoying process, considering the smell and the time and the not liking other people touching you can all come into play. Around the time I hit my teens, I just stopped going with the rest of my family most days and instead spent the time sitting on the condo balcony or in my room or wherever, reading. If your child is younger, though, obviously there may be some problems. But if they're at an age where they can be trusted alone for a while and they REALLY don't want to go, there are plenty of other options while you're there your child can enjoy. A lot of condos and hotels have swimming pools, which have the sun and water without the sand, and there tend to be some attractions geared toward kids at the boardwalk. You don't have to spend the entire day at the beach itself. In fact, considering how long your average sunscreen lasts, you probably don't want to.

B. Give Them The Gameboy.
No matter where you go on vacation, or anywhere else, this one will turn up. I can write an entire blog post about this, and probably will later. If you're doing something that requires children to behave and be quiet, like going out to dinner or sitting through a ceremony or visiting relatives or a long car ride (not socially required, but your sanity will thank you), and you want them to actually be quiet, GIVE THEM A DISTRACTION. If it's actually interesting, an autistic child can focus on playing a video game and the conversation, even if it looks like they're just playing the game. If it's not actually that interesting (like a wedding ceremony or waiting for dinner to be served), no child is going to want to sit through it, so please don't force them. It's better to have the quiet rudeness of the kid playing a game while you're talking than the much less quiet, far more eye-catching rudeness of them getting aggravated and throwing a tantrum or very agitated fidgeting. Now, I say Gameboy, but anything can do, it's just the one that hits the most kids. Crayons and paper work, especially at restaurants (my mom used to carry some in her purse just for that purpose), if your child reads, give them a book, if you can distract them with music, bring in your iPod, the point is that children are not known to like sitting in one spot while someone talks about something boring for long periods of time, and autistic ones are far less likely to know the social cue of "be quiet and wait this entire long boring time" than others. Non-autistic children tend to hate it, too. You're not going to bring a three-year-old to see Twilight and expect them to pay attention. The same rule applies here. (Also, don't bring your kids to see Twilight, there are some REALLY awful messages in that stuff and they got Cronenberg to do the birth scene.)

C. Museums- a Quick Primer.
Here are things kids want to see in museums:
- Dinosaurs
- Space ships, planes, trains, and other cool vehicles.
- Stuff they can actually touch and interact with (Science museums are usually good for this).
- Pirates, ninjas, knights, and items related to them (probably).
- Animals.
- Exhibits you can walk around in (The ship in Air and Space, rainforest exhibits at zoos)
- Sparkly stuff like gemstones, jewelry, and shiny rocks.
- Things related to their specific interests.

Here are things kids DON'T want to see in museums:
- Art (You can't touch it, you can't make it, they aren't gonna care how pretty it is.)
- Random articles of clothing (unless it was owned by a princess or a ninja or a princess ninja, skip it.)
- Furniture (What's the point of a chair you can't even sit in?)
- Papers, books, other random items.
- Buildings (Just don't try and explain architecture to them. If it's not one of those REALLY cool ones, it's not going to be worth more than a minute.)
- Things that are scary (Bugs, graveyards, loud noises, the dark, sharks, large carnivores, caves, things supposedly haunted and mummies are all potential big hitters.)
- Almost ANYTHING that requires staring at for more than a minute or two. They've seen it. It's not moving. Can we move on?
- Things you like. See above.

And so on. You know this stuff already. At museums, you're not allowed to touch anything, have to keep your voice down unless you want to annoy the other visitors, and are supposed to just stare at random objects. It's probably not going to interest kids that much. To make matters worse, you have to walk around at the adults' pace and there's never anywhere to sit down. Zoos also have the added problem of weather- since it's outside, it can be really hot, which will sap their patience even faster, despite the animals being cool. Don't spend five minutes or more on one thing unless everyone in the group's okay with it, don't put an autistic kid in a big group because they WILL end up having a meltdown sooner or later, and save the art and history stuff until they're old enough to get it. Look them up online while you're planning a trip- some art museums have specific activities for kids at certain times, and things with a lot of hands-on exhibits or things kids usually like, such as science museums, are pretty much safe. Battlefields are a special case because they probably have more space to run around and some of the sites are pretty cool-looking, but unless your child's a history fan, they don't want to be lectured and you don't want to lose them.

D. Loud Noise Zones.
These would be amusement parks, crowded condos, and ill-designed museum halls with echoes, among other things. If your child's noise-sensitive, this will be bad. If they're not, but they make a lot of noise, this will be bad for EVERYONE ELSE. Plan accordingly, and see my previous post about fireworks. And remember, large groups of children will be loud.

E. Shopping With The Impatient for Clothing.
No.