One of the first things we signed up for membership in, once we got the diagnosis of Jordan being on the Autism Spectrum, was the Canucks Autism Network. CAN provides recreational, sports and social programs for families and individuals living with Autism and they are supported by our favourite hometown hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks. Ten days ago, we participated in our first CAN program, "I CAN fly with YVR."
You may recall my blog post from last October when we were in Portland and Jordan completely balked at experiencing the Children's Museum in Portland, very likely because it was a new and unfamiliar place. And even once he got there and though I tried as much as possible to demonstrate for him that it is full of fun things to see and do he just shut down except to whine and cry the entire time until we left. This is one of the reasons we have been reluctant to get on an airplane and visit Nanny in Newfoundland all these years.
The I CAN fly with YVR program aims to provide a trial run for kids with Autism to experience all the steps of checking in at the airport, from checking in bags to boarding the plane. Because the new and unexpected are the most stressful things for ASD indivuals, providing them with a checklist of what they might anticipate can alleviate some of their anxiety. We are hoping this is the case for Jordan.
Jordan and Dad got to take silly photos while waiting to board.
It was pretty cool to show Jordy all the steps, we took our tickets to the check-in counter and they put stickers on all our bags. Then we headed to security and put all our stuff in the bins to be scanned and walked through the metal detectors, Mom and Dad even got a thorough pat-down! Then we had to find our gate number and wait a while for boarding. We got to sit on the plane, and see the movie choices and have a juice brought around by flight attendants. Then we had to wait patiently to de-board and even took a peek at the loo, which doesn't have enough space for Mom or Dad to go in with the Little Dumers.
I can't say the same for Chris, but I at least am less trepidatious about bringing Jordy on a long plane ride. I assure you, I know it won't be without it's tough moments, I'm not that naive. But I think giving him a general idea of what to expect will go a long way to a happy vacation experience. Sure, the waits will be longer (especially the hours upon hours of sitting in limited space on an airplane,) there is likely to be some stressful rushing at some point, security is never as friendly as it was during this experience and there are always little hiccups that can't be anticipated or avoided, but we have given Jordan something positive to imagine for his first trip to see Nanny this summer. Heck, I'll come out and say it, I'm excited!
We snapped this selfie,
then the CAN photographer asked if she could take a photo of us taking a selfie, so we obliged!
And here is the resulting selfie:
A friend of mine pointed out to me that we made the news the other night too! Click on this link to a local Global TV News spot talking about a study being conducted by a group at UBC on the amount of added stress on parents of children with ASD. You will see a short highlight of the I CAN fly with YVR program. Cygni appears at 1:27 and then you can see me and Chris at 1:30, ironically the only autistic individual in our family didn't make the cut -- sorry J-man! In my honest opinion it's a pretty lame news article, as there is very little quantifiable information provided, just that parents of autistic children are under "a whole lot more" stress than parents of normal children, or even children with other developmental disabilities. Woo-hoo. But at any rate, you get to see Cygni on the news, so there's always that!
