Meltdowns in the car-PLEASE HELP

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Hello World.

I'm new here. We have a 7 year old boy diagnosed with Autism. So far we have not had too many issues to deal with. His 1 1/2 year old sister seems to be more trouble than he ever was.

He's never really had meltdowns very often. But lately over the past few months he has and with more and more frequency he has been melting down while we driving in the car. It's mainly over traffic issues: "That was bad light" because we didn't get through before it turned yellow. "Those people were mean" because they didn't let us in the traffic circle. "You can't park on the road, it's against the law" cause someone stops to try and get a dog off the road.

There is no reasoning with him once this starts. The only thing that sometimes works is getting him to think about something else or getting him to laugh about something he finds funny. But mostly we just have to ride the storm out.

The only big changes in his routine lately is that he started first grade about two months ago. Besides that I can't think of anything that would bring about this change.

I would really appreciate some ideas on how we could help him. I've done a bit of reading on the net and mainly it's focused on distracting and avoidance, which is kinda hard to do when your in a car and you never know what might happen with traffic.

How bad are the meltdowns? Just crying and screaming, or is he getting out of his seat and getting physical?

Once a meltdown is underway, all you can really do is damage control. Ross Green says, "Distract, de-escalate, keep everybody safe." This may mean things like pulling over to the side of the road, handing him bubble-wrap to pop, or just always having a smart phone to play with.

Prevention is key. You could try writing some social stories about what to do when things go wrong in the car. Or sit down with him and ask him to help make a plan for what to do when specific things happen, like the light turning yellow. Involve him in developing rituals that are safe and help him move on.

There's also a book, What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck. It's written for kids with OCD but a lot of it can apply to kids who are perseverating.

He seems to be getting upset by rule-breaking behavior (real or perceived). Maybe you could arrange some activities for him to do in the car, so he doesn't notice what's going on outside the car so much. Or explain why what other drivers are doing is okay (there's a dog in the road, and that's an emergency, so it's not illegal for him to stop there for a few minutes). You might have to fib a little, and say that things are acceptable that are actually ambiguous.

Social stories and distractions are all good ideas.

I think we had more issues with traffic around that age. Some of it may be developmental, some of it may be the stress on rules in first grade that may exceed what he was used to in kinder. In addition, the stress of school can lead to impatience about getting home to his (0,0,0) home base where he feels safe. He may also have anxiety about being on time and on schedule.

Since it is the rule breaking that is bothering him. Could you have him record tickets from the wrong doers in a book or record it verbally if writing isn't good for him. It would keep him busy and he would feel he was controlling the rule breaking in some way.

I see a combination of upset about the rule breaking and simply not having things go as expected.

I remember both of those triggers intensifying around your son's age.

Some things that might help are additional preparations so that he is ready for things not to go perfectly (maybe even make it a game of some sort, with something fun built in for every unexpected delay), as well as an activity that can give him a sense of control over the world around him (writing tickets, per a post above, sounds like fun; or maybe he can try drawing a map of the route with symbols for all the things he has seen).

We used to play all sorts of games in the car: I spy, making words out of license plate letters, airplane (I was the pilot, giving loud speaker instructions on turbulence, sights to watch out for, etc). My kids also loved books on CD.

I know with my daughter stress in her life always comes out sideways - this may just be his only way of expressing the fact that he is stressed in first grade.

I know we also played games in the car and my daughter was fascinated if I told her a story - So I started with my childhood favorite The Pokey Little Puppy. I can't tell you how many times I retold that story, but it kept her entertained and focused on what I was saying.

I was like that when I was younger, it's a result of feeling a lack of control and anxiety. Distraction really works, if you don't like the thought of your son becoming addicted to electronic doo dads, puzzle books are a great way of passing time.

We went though something like this when I was a kid.

In my case, I think it had something to do with being angry/upset/distressed because there were all these rules I had to follow, but it looked to me like other people could break rules (even really important ones, like traffic laws) with impunity.

Either that, or I was just imitating my grandfather and his constant stream of barked complaints about everyone and everything else on the road (grandma did all the driving, because having to multitask like that stressed him too much).

Grandma used to tell me I was right about all of the things I noticed (guess she was employing the same appeasement strategy that got her by with grandpa). I guess we had fun "playing cops" in the car, but I don't know if it was a very healthy way to handle it.

Saint Alan had a different strategy. He would tell me why it was or wasn't OK for them to be breaking the rule (Waiting for a dog to get out of the road is OK, because we don't want to kill things and hitting it would damage the car and tie traffic up longer; running a red light was not OK and I should never do it because someone could die, in fact, I should look to make sure other cars were stopped before 'going' on green).

It made some of the meltdowns worse. I did not like to be corrected around that age (I think I was probably 8 or 9). Sometimes they turned into arguments.

He didn't care. He didn't know it wasn't normal for kids to act like that, so he just figured he was doing his job teaching me how to negotiate the road for later on when I'd have to drive.

There was a lot of yelling in our car. But it did work. I did learn.

You mention "he just started 1st grade" almost as an after thought. That's a HUGE change (assuming he went from half-day kindergarten to full day classes). Especially if he has any social issues, which is highly likely. Myself, I was absolutely miserable at school. Most NT kids are pretty chaotic at that age, and frankly most of them haven't developed a ton of empathy yet, so there likely is a lot of rudeness and rule breaking he may be having to put up with that Kindergarten didn't prepare him for. I could be off, but it's entirely possible that he's feeling new stress from school and this is how it's manifesting. I would check with his teachers to see how he's doing.