Need some advice! My ASD son is 17 and he is on a marksmanship team. His special interest is guns - not interested in hunting/hurting - just guns, how they work, what modifications can be made, etc. Getting on this marksmanship team this year has been wonderful for him to get to explore this interest in a healthy way, make connections with other teens who share his passion and to be coached and learn to be part of a team. They invited him to shoot with the "senior" squad last week in a state match, and they have invited him to shoot with the same squad again in Nationals which is in July in Ohio. This is all a great honor because he just started in January, and he is proud of himself and loves doing it. And he's good at it. The problem is that Nationals is a 7-hour car ride away and he hates long car rides. Last night when we were discussing it, he went straight into Defense Mode and said he can't do it because of the ride. No amount of discussion of accommodations to make the ride easier helped. I gave up trying to talk about it with him and we just watched a movie and chilled out for the rest of the night, and he went to bed happy. Now, when he wakes up, we need to have the conversation this morning because the team needs to know ASAP if he is in or out. Any suggestions? I don't want him to allow his hatred of long car rides to prevent him from participating... and I can't afford for us to fly. Would love any ideas for (a) how to make a long car ride easier and (b) how to approach this from the perspective of being empathetic about how tough those things are for him but also learning how being a part of a team means trying to make it (the ride) work so that he can do his part in the competition.

Posted by sariweston108 at 2022-06-09 13:52:59 UTC