Yep it’s holiday time of year and we are due to go in a few days. We are all really looking forward to having no clearing up to do at home and no cooking for 4 days. However holidays, except caravan ones, bring with them their own problems with MLA.

One of the problems that happens is MLA begins to wet himself occasionally, not a real problem as I am well used it and even though he is nearly 13 we just deal with the mess and ignore it. However the main problem is the the erratic sleep patterns. He is either wakes in the middle of the night and it will take long while to get back to bed or as this morning be up early hours of the morning asking if it’s time to get up or I hear him making himself breakfast. He is genuinely shocked when he is informed it’s 2am and he should still be in bed. We will need to get up early on the morning of our holidays but you can bet your bottom dollar I will have difficulty getting him up.

So what is the cause of these behaviours?  Well it nothing more that anxiety.  Autistics get anxious over very little and stress a great deal.  MLA is stressing over the unknown.  So how do we help overcome these things?  Well one of the thing we do it MLA and sit down and do a social story, a factual piece of writing and drawings of the journey and where we will be staying and things we will be doing.  I do them with MLA  rather than do them by myself because MLA then is ‘in charge’ of his holiday and help to elevate stress. He has a book he uses for all his social stories and will carry it around on his journey.  He will refer to it regularly, particularly when he sees something that worries him, something usually very simple. It does not work 100% but without it things would be far worse for MLA, and for me!