From the article: Reduce Child Turbulence on Plane Flights
Have you been treated rudely while traveling with your child with special needs? Or is your child the one who's done everything possible to make travel impossible? Share your special-needs travel nightmares. Tell the Tale
travel nightmare?
- We were on a 4 hour trip in the car, and I was well prepared. Laptop loaded with movies, snacks, drinks, iPod loaded with music, coloring and activity books, travel games, etc. Unfortunately, neither my hubby nor I grabbed the car charger for the laptop (it was on the list), and my son screamed and cried for a good hour because the laptop battery died while he was watching a movie. It was awful, but it was our family, so I didn't have to worry about onlookers and explaining. The moral of this story... Make a list, and TRIPLE check it!!!
- —BethMom
Monorail @ Disney
- We were on our son's Make A Wish trip at Disney and needed to take the monorail to a different park. My son was having a meltdown and would not get on a monorail with other people. Riding w/o other guests was not an option. After a couple of passes, we convinced him to ride and allowed him to squoosh at the window while we surrounded him. Suddenly, I heard a little girl whistling. My eyes darted to my son as I watched him slowly implode while searching for the whistler. We forgot his earbuds/shuffle. It was everything we could do to keep him from losing his mind the next stop as I begged God to calm his nerves. We had other issues with people bumping into him at Sea World but the monorail incident was the worst. Otherwise, it was the experience of a lifetime!
- —Guest BMWright
Airplanes and the Fla. Gov.
- ...we started the trip flying out of Florida with my son who doesn't understand when he is sensory seeking and over stimulated why he can't kick the seats and the woman in front of him (who my husband offered to swap with) said she would complain to the airline so that we could never fly again... ...to when we returned home to Florida only to be seated behind then Gov. Bush who, when I explained the situation, told me not to worry, my son was welcome to kick him all the way back home (which got a lot of looks actually when we were on the plane from the secret service because my son ended up doing just that).. it was wonderful he was so kind and turned what was a very rough start to a great ending...
- —MicheleLyn1
Best Travel Advice I Received
- I have not even tried flying with my 2 boys--let me just state that upfront. However, travel is travel & can be very difficult for anyone...let alone children with special needs. The best advice I ever received was from a doctor who suggested keeping a copy of my children's evaluations that clearly state their diagnoses with me, discreetly in my purse. That way, I can prove, explain & justify an outburst or why I'm carrying certain meds with me. I hate having to rely on this rather than having someone take me at my word; but I would rather do this than have my actions--or those of my children--called into question by ignorant individuals. I have even used this for my health needs when traveling and it certainly helped flying through D.C. for me. It doesn't help with everything including the rude employees that kkneeter unfortunately had to deal with...but it could hurt.
- —Guest MamaBear-NOS
Airplanes, and Video recording
- I was on a plane from MO to Germany. My 4-year-old started having a melt down after we were told to turn off the dvd player because she was singing the Dora songs, told to sit down while we were walking up and down the aisle in coach, and this was during the day, not the night. About 30 minutes before landing she had another melt down, the employees were RUDE, and even mean to my daughter. I had called ahead and told everyone that worked for the airlines about her needs and tried to ensure that we were seated in the best area in case of a melt down. Well when we got there, we were in the middle of the plane, and while holding my daughter during landing I looked over and a stranger had his camcorder out and was videoing my daughter. Needless to say he got away, and I was not allowed to get my connecting flight home with that airline! I will never fly with that company again! I understand that people dont want to be in that space w/ a meltdown, but the employees made it worse, and made a bad situation worse.
- —Guest kkneeter
