Back before we had the children diagnosed, long before we had any clue what was going on with them, we used to go on caravan holidays. We used to do several a year. We tried to be away for every school holiday there was and they were hell. They got progressively worse until we had to stop them completely and we were at the brink of stopping holidays altogether until we discovered Disney.
What we didn’t know back then, that we do now is the children. Samantha specifically at this time (Riley was only young and although his additional needs were there they were not as prevalent and at this time were more sensory based), couldn’t deal with the complete change of routine and the constant surprise element holidays had to them. Instead of talking her through it, easing her anxiety, we saw her shouting as defiance and shouted back. Her refusal to go to bed as a parental challenge that must be squashed instead of the cry for help. The increase of ‘bad behaviour’ as a kick in the teeth, as complete disrespect. After all we had done this amazing thing by providing this child a holiday, a wonderful experience not every child gets, without understanding we were ripping her from her safe place. We weren’t explaining it wasn’t forever, we weren’t giving her space for her feelings or needs, we were too busy having our feelings hurt and our holiday ruined.
Everybody hated the holidays and the behaviour they brought. The irony of it came when we went on our last caravan holiday, that had already been booked and the only way to cancel would have resulted in losing all of the money. We went to the Isle of wight, it rained the whole time and we just embraced it. We put on our waterproofs and had the best time. Of course the next month we went to Disney world and our fate was sealed.
Then the virus hit, Disney was cancelled as was all international travel. We went two years without a holiday (as did most). Then we decided it was time to start venturing out into the world again, but what to do? We still couldn’t go to Disney World, our happy, safe place as the US borders were closed, international travel still didn’t feel safe or worth the hassle to us, which left us with a holiday in the UK and a caravan holiday. Was it worth it?
We needed a break, a change of scenery, so we booked a week at the Isle of wight. Hey, we got to go on a ferry, so as close to foreign lands as we could manage at the time. However, with memories of both our best and worst caravan holidays, we were really apprehensive. This would also be Riley’s first holiday anywhere but Disney since he was three and Samantha’s since she was six. Samantha had some memories of caravan holidays, thankfully good ones, Riley had none so was unsure what to expect. We did our best to prepare them but we really are never sure how the children are going to react to something until they are in it and even then that can change on a day by day basis.
We were better armed this time. We know the children better, we understand the behaviour they portray is not (always) their fault and cannot be controlled. We understand better how to regulate them and help them to regulate themselves.
Again it was not all rainbows and sunshine. We had problems with obsessional behaviours from both of them. They would both latch onto ideas, for example swimming, and until it was done it would become an obsession for them but it wasn’t as simple as just doing that activity. As soon as it was complete they would move on to the next obsessional idea. We struggled with having them in the confines of the caravan (the same thing happens in the hotel rooms at Disney) and we had to rely a little more on TV and quiz shows than we would have liked, to keep the peace.
We survived it though and dare I say we actually enjoyed it. We went on lots of walks, exploring some amazing coastlines. We went to some new national trust areas. We also explored some old favourites like Black gang chine, which none of us have been to in many years and it was wonderful to see not only our old favourites but new ones too. It’s wonderful to see these treasures continue to be developed. Would we do it again? Well that really is the true testament to how much we not only enjoyed the holiday but how much we enjoyed being crammed together as a family for a week.
We really did, so much so we are looking into the prospect of a static caravan somewhere down south for ‘enforced’ family weekends away.
