Coping with change

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Does it get easier to cope with unexpected changes as you get older?
I sprung a change on Damo this afternoon. I coloured my hair without warning him AND changed it from blonde to mid brown. He did NOT like it.
Change is hard, becuase I like it but Damo doesn't it.

Unless you end up having to deal with regressive tendancies everything gets easier in the long run. I don't know how old your son is, but social stories worked great with our kids from early "kindergarden" age on through 4th grade or so. After that they felt it was "talking down to them" and reacted badly. Of course if I could find a good manga from Japan that conveyed the idea I wanted they'd eat it up.

Thanks, he is 5 years. Normally when I colour my hair I show him the box so he gets an idea of what colour it will be. I didn't do that today becaue it was a random decision.

It didn't get better for me. It got worse.

I recently did the same thing to my hair. My son looked at it and touched it a lot for the first few days, but he got used to it.

I think that what you did was actually good, because your son needs to learn to deal with unexpected changes.

Sooo....who are you?

Yes, confusing. For ex: If my favorite academic advisor came to the lab in a Hawaiian print shirt (NOT what he wears, I have his repetoire memorized), I would be.....confused! Eeeek! Good thing you didn't opt for, say, vivd red! Scary. I had a tough time when my advisor rearranged his office; I thought I was lost.

If you did that to me, I probably wouldn't know who you were.

Change of hair colour? I have found stuff like this confusing to the point disturbing. Knowing who the person is can make little difference to the fact this person looks totally unfamiliar. Perhaps I rely a lot on visual input, I certainly don't say a lot-many people have commented.

Wow, I really had no idea on how something like that can affect some people .
A friend who was with me didn't really notice (or she did but didn't say anything) but Damo (my son) well he was scared.
We had a little talk about it and I apologised and told him it is going to change again BUT I will show him the box so he knows.

An event since then has happened and he knows exactly who I am so things are 'back to normal'

it has gotten easier for me but i have never made a big deal over hair. manga would get eaten up because of its cool art style i think and the fact that it is not patronising.

Yes as I got older change got a lot easier to get use to. I was horrible growing up, if u just turned a picture a different way, or wore your hair a different way, i literally freaked. My parents knew that change was horrible for me, so gradually they made sure to change things around A lot, like get a new rug every couple months, get new glasses every couple months, change her hairstyle every day, just little things so i would eventually get use to change. As I got older, i defintely got more and more use to change, but even today if were driving and drive a different route and nobody prepares me ahead of time, i freak. But i'm defntely much better then I was as a child!

I think it gets easier. I hated changes more when I was a kid. I used to be bothered with changed seating arrangements when I was 6, I hated when the majority of the kids were absent in class because there were changes, I hated my mother taking different routes, I always had to sit in the same seat etc. My mother told me I was so rigid and she had to work on that. She would have me move furniture around the room with her etc. to show me things don't need to stay the same.

I don't think I freaked about about changes like my mother changing her hair.

I still find it hard 2 cope wid change but im gettin used 2 it as now im gettin older u start 2 learn more tings about urself.

It can improve,but also depends on where he is on the spectrum.
Am cannot cope with changes,and it's a major meltdown and flesh biting setoff,it's not bettered or worsened since childhood.

What might find is,when he is older,he might learn to accept that other people dye their hair/cut their hair/change their clothes etc,
and although he might hate it,he will learn he can't do anything about it as it's not his,am do have a problem with these types of changes to,but try to block it out of mind by mentally repeating over and over it's their body.
It can be hard recognisng people also when theyve had change of clothes or hair colour,does he have a problem with this as well?

Depends on the change.

I'm almost 20, I still don't like change but I try not to let it freak me out. The thing I have to deal with the most is a change in my routine (like anything happening besides my classes at school), it will stress me out even if it is something I am looking forward to (like going to see my favorite band in concert with my best friend last October). I can't control what stresses me and what doesn't, even stupid little things, that I KNOW are stupid little things, will stress me. Meds help with the emotional side of stress, but my body still reacts to it with stomach aches, headaches, and restlessness. I deal with change a little better now than I used to. I know now that I will survive it in the end and I have learned to call my parents when I'm stressing about somethings because they can help me come up with a strategy for coping or more often they affirm what I was already thinking. That helps me a lot.