Tips for traveling with RAD

June 18, 2012

Looking for some tips on traveling with RAD and maintaining sanity when they sabotage the fun. We've traveled twice with our 12 year old girl and she was an angel both times. But this past weekend we went camping and it was an absolute disaster. I don't get it. I thought if she was out of her comfort zone, she would be more inclined to be put in a situation of trust so that was the reason for the good behavior BUT when it came to camping she did everything possible to disobey orders, act out, complain, easily frustrated, rude, bratty, ect. due to her need to sabotage the fun and try to control the situation. So it's unpredictable. What are some tips to maintaining sanity when they try to sabotage? Someone suggested having them sit out when the rest of the family participates but how do force them to comply with sitting out when they already won't listen? I tried to tell her to go sit in the camper when everyone else was sitting outside be she refused to go and when we got to the creek to go swimming, how do I make her sit on the rock and watch and not get in the water? She wouldn't do anything we asked her to do. Help set up the chairs, take out the trash, nothing. Everything she did do was WAY TOO HARD, she was making everything out to be way harder than it was. She just sat there while we cooked, cleaned, set up, took down, packed, unpacked, etc. We left early and when we got home, she was sent to her room and spent the rest of the day unpacking her bag and doing chores while my DH and I sat on the patio relaxing (after we got OUR unpacking done of course). Eight hours later she still wasn't done in time for dinner and went to bed early. Suggestions please! We want to go camping again but not like that.

jeffw

July 5, 2012

We almost exclusively do primitive camping. That way there is nobody around to hear them screaming. :-)

By 12 years old if you don't have a solid hold on her behavior then you might not be able to stop her from doing what she wants.

Two ideas:

1) If she won't help you then don't help her. She can come but she has to set-up and sleep in her own tent and cook her own meals.

2) She can't come until she learns to be fun to be around. Develop a network of support and train people to provide you with therapeutic respite care. See Nancy Thomas video "Give Me A Break" for information and easy training. We really turned a corner on our RADlet using this method. We went away without him and got a break. He went to therapeutic respite and was miserable and lonely. When we came back he was starved for affection and we had a few more good days. It took 2 or 3 tries before it worked that way and then it worked really well. It didn't take long before it wasn't needed anymore. He was 11 at the time.