My son never wants to leave the house or go anywhere

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If there is something that we need to do as a family unit, we give our 12 yr old a warning so he knows it is coming up.
Also, since he was younger, we always did surprise trips out of town, but I am always ready with fresh batteries for the GameBoys or CD players & made sure he had his blanket so he was comfortable.

If there is something that we need to do as a family unit, we give our 12 yr old a warning so he knows it is coming up.
Also, since he was younger, we always did surprise trips out of town, but I am always ready with fresh batteries for the GameBoys or CD players & made sure he had his blanket so he was comfortable.

Why give the option? You're the adult. He's the child. Act accordingly.

I promise you he'll get over it. Life WILL go on.

If you think for one second these kids don't pounce on every opportunity to take advantage of you mothers you're kidding yourselves.

I see lots of good advice (no so sure about krammer1's post though). But something I haven't seen anyone mention yet are "social stories". This can help with the firehose problem as he gets to "pre-drink" some of the experience. You take pictures of where he will be going, and arrange these in a book form. With or without words, or with PECS if he's using those, to cover off some abstract concepts or motion concepts that are tough to capture in a photograph.

P.S. Social stories don't work with every child or in every circumstance. Some have to experience it firsthand, not even pictures will do it. In that case I'd take a shot at little sips at a time. Work up to getting out the door and sitting in the car for a few minutes without driving anywhere before going back in. I've done that before, staged attempts spread over weeks, with really tough situations where the social story and other techniques alone weren't enough. You need to know what's going to help calm him too, acceptable "stims" to help him push a little further.

Parents who bully children raise bullies.

Well, you know, it rather depends on WHERE and how well you've prepared the child for it, doesn't it? Force the child into an overcrowded, loud location and you could well find the tactic backfiring. He may get through the journey, but he'll withdraw and act up as soon as it's safe, because such a trip IS stressful for the child.

On the other hand, if you've chosen locations carefully to avoid sensory overload, and given adequate warning about the pending outing, as well as descriptions of what to expect, then you probably can force the issue and see good results. I do that with my son and it works out fine. He runs errands with me, whatever; he knows it's part of life to do things you find unpleasant, but he ALSO and importantly knows that I am sensitive to his sensory issues and do my best to mitigate what he'll encounter while we're out. Kind of mutual trust thing develops there. I can sense when we walk into a situation that he really cannot handle, and I'll mitigate as quickly as possible.

Something tells me that you aren't forcing your girlfriend's son into extremely difficult situations, just ones that you have to. I remember your shopping trip, and that it went well. So, somewhere along the line the child must have been getting what he needed from you, some level of sensitivity to his needs.

There is also an age difference, though, that makes a difference. I've found my 11 year old ready to take on things that he has trouble handling. He WANTS to, in many ways, because learning to cope is part of growing up, and he IS driven to "grow up," even if the pace is behind normal. At 6, however, pushing things always lead to one step forward and two steps back; just with the stage of life as it is for these kids, I think 6 is an age that they need extra sensitivity to their needs. You can still force some outings, however, but the point will be more to build the trust I spoke of, that the child will know from the experience that you are watching out for him in public. He can't know that unless he experiences it, so you do have to start taking baby steps. By the time the child is 10 or 11 he can be required to tag along on some unpleasant things, and it will work out fine, because the trust has been established.

My son loves to walk, too I think your idea here is a good one.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 18 Dec 2008, 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Chuck E Cheese would not be most AS kid's idea of "fun," lol. My husband can't handle the chaos of the place; how can a child?

I liked Chuck E Cheese, but then I'm really into video games.

I'm guessing Chuck E Cheese is an American thing - I'm in Scotland.

Have to say, the name alone sounds vomitous!

LoL, well it was originallly called Showbiz Pizza. It's an arcade focused around kids.

The only way I managed to get my son out of the house was to stop homeschooling him and enroll him in school (he wanted to go to school, I didn't force him). But it was IMPOSSIBLE to get him out of the house when we homeschooled. If I was lucky, he would agree to step out of the house once every two weeks for donuts.

Now that he is in school he leaves the house to walk to school in the morning, is outside for recess if the weather is good, and is outside again to walk home. This is a staggering amount compared to what he used to do, and he seems ok with it.

http://www.chuckecheese.com/parties/

I heard from someone, that once worked there, that playing the mouse, shown in the picture, and called "CHUCK E CHEESE", was perhaps the worst job in the world. Kids mistreat him, make LOTS of noise, etc.... How can an AS kid, or autistic kid, stand that?

BTW one wonders how it would have fared if the owner wasn't one like the owner of atari/pong!

>> How can an AS kid, or autistic kid, stand that?

Ours was OK with it. But he's generally pretty good with sounds and milling crowds, as long as there is nobody singing off-key (that and some mechanical sounds are his auditory bugaboos). If anything total visual overload with sedate him. He spent a full day under a sleeping bad when we visited my parents place, they have a lot of stuff in their house. As well getting him to leave the house isn't usually a problem, it's getting him to stay in the house that's the issue.

I can see Chuck E Cheese being an total overload for a lot of AS kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur8AwQHusZw

I've never been to Showbiz or Chuck E. Cheese either, and don't think I'd want to. I've heard some stories about how loud it is and how the kids just run around and scream like crazy. My parents would never have taken us to a place like that.

Among things I didn't like as a kid were Mardi Gras parades and school football games. My sister played in the marching band and my parents insisted on going to every game and every parade her band was in. I never wanted to go but was always dragged there anyway. They were so noisy, in some cases it was cold and wet outside, and I didn't enjoy it at all.

Usually I didn't get asked, it was an automatic that I was going. Every Friday night there was a game and I'd hope I didn't have to go, but I got dragged there anyway. There was one time my mother did ask me if I wanted to go and I said I didn't and she seemed OK with it, but when game day came along, the rules changed. I went to my room to mind my own business and then got called downstairs to go to the game. When I brought up our previous discussion in which I said no and she was OK with it, she yelled at me in front of my sister and her snobby friends to get into the car, and of course my sister and her friends laughed at me.

It was the same with every parade, I got dragged to them too. What made no sense to me was she often complained about all of the things she had to do in band and my attitude was not to bother with it but she said that wasn't possible since it was a "school activity." I was so glad when she quit participating in band, so I didn't have to deal with those things anymore. Of course, they found new things she did to cram down my throat, but I've posted about some of that before so I won't go into it again.

I get this way but for me it's because I have such bad anxiety that I am agorophobic. Sometimes it helps to have someone with me though.